Insight. Applied.
Campaigners are claiming that a rise in the allegations of domestic abuse is due to recent changes in legal aid rules. Under new legislation tax payer funding is only available for divorce cases involving verbal or physical abuse.
MPs expressed concerns about creating perverse incentives when the legislation was first suggested, back in 2011.
Policy-making requires systems thinking if it’s not to end up making bad situations worse.
SplashData, a purveyor of password managers, has produced its annual list of the year’s worst passwords.
The top ten are
I guess we should all be shocked at how poor these passwords are. However, there’s no breakdown of which sites these passwords came from.
If they are all from bank accounts then, yes—OMG! However, if the bulk of them are from “sign up to read this article” sites then, meh. If I create an account just to download a free PDF, I don’t care in the slightest if my account is hacked.
To draw conclusions about behavior we need to play close attention to context.
The Social and Behavioral Science Team, established by Barack Obama, has produced its first annual report. The unit applies insights from behavioral science in an attempt to make government more effective.
David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, set up a similar unit in 2010 which has now been spun off as an independent entity.
Questions studied by the US team include
It’s all very “micro”, but maybe that’s where the gains are to be had. UK Olympic cycling coach Dave Brailsford brought home seven goal medals by improving everything tiny thing related to cycling by one percent. Sometimes the Devil is in the details.
Update: The 2016 report is now available.
Sad to hear that game theory pioneer and Nobel Laureate John Nash was killed yesterday in a car accident.
Game theory is used to study interactive decision-making. Nash made fundamental contributions to the field, leading to him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994.
A picture is worth a thousand words. The above photograph, tweeted by @stuartice, illustrates why we need to think about the wider system when solving problems. This is especially true when, as in this case, the wider system involves sentient actors who may not share our goals.
Similar effects can be seen in any situation in which decision-makers are trying to save people from themselves. If we don’t consider the reactions stakeholders will have to a decision, we’re bound to make the wrong one.