Handling Heuristics : How behavioral sciences can support decision-making in the public sector

Abstract

The rise of behavioral public administration demonstrated that we can understand and change decision-making by using insights about heuristics. Heuristics are mental shortcuts that reduce complex tasks to simpler ones. Whereas earlier studies mainly focused on interventions such as nudges, scholars are now broadening their scope to include debiasing, and psychological theories beyond heuristics. Scholars are moreover shifting their attention away from citizen-focused interventions to public sector worker-oriented interventions, i.e. the very people who are expected to nudge society. This dissertation seeks to explore how behavioral sciences can facilitate understanding and support decision-making across the public sector. We present four studies that investigate a range of behavioral theories, practices, issues and public sector workers. This dissertation shows that when handling heuristics in the public sector, we need to take into account the institutional and situational settings, as well as differences between public sector workers. The results of this dissertation can be used by practitioners and academics to understand and support decision-making in public sector contexts.