Social-Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems
by Paul K. Davis, Angela O'Mahony, Jonathan Pfautz
38 Aligning Behavior with Desired Outcomes: Lessons for Government Policy from the Marketing World
Katharine Sieck
Business Intelligence and Market Analysis, RAND Corporation and Pardee RAND Graduate School, Santa Monica, CA, 90401, USA
Marketing and government often face a similar challenge: to understand why people do what they do so that practitioners can shape and influence behavioral patterns toward different ends. 1 In government, an understanding of human behavior helps policy‐makers determine the best way to intervene in a situation to improve the health, welfare, and security of the community. Because their work is centrally about facilitating the social good, the government has at its disposal a range of techniques for influencing behavior that includes harder (more coercive measures) such as mandates and legislation. Consider the case of how to reduce deaths in car crashes. On the one end, a speed limit sign is a nudge, while an expensive ticket is more of a shove. Beyond that, the ability to revoke someone's license or imprison them for repeated violations is more coercive a technique for getting people to conform to recommended speed limits.
In marketing, the driving rationale for understanding human behavior is to further such business goals as brand loyalty, profits, engagement, and other indicators of business health and growth. Whether the aim is to attract new customers, increase purchase frequency, shut out competition, or change the way people ...