the changelog
Volume 2, Issue 4 | September 2023
PROJECTS
Increasing the uptake of digital financial services in Uttar Pradesh
CSBC developed behaviourally informed strategies to enhance the adoption of digital financial services in rural Uttar Pradesh. Our team, led by Dr Sneha Shashidhara, Senior Research Fellow, Dr Pavan Mamidi, Director and Pooja Haldea, Senior Advisor, adopted the model of Pause & Practice, which is the use of shortened instructional videos followed by a stopgap with sufficient time to allow women to practice what they just saw. The concept of watching and practising on repeat led to greater accuracy and higher confidence among women. Read more about the project here and access the report here.
Improving Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) outcomes in Uttar Pradesh
Research has shown that parents’ involvement in children’s learning can positively impact their academic performance and social-emotional development. However, they often lack the confidence and tools to actively extend support to their child, particularly when facing literacy barriers themselves. To solve this, the Central Square Foundation and Centre for Social and Behaviour Change at Ashoka University came together to design and test out innovative behavioural interventions that can bridge this gap. Access the report here.
Dr Sneha Shashidhara, Senior Research Fellow from CSBC on the project, shared her insights in an exclusive interview for TheEDge, a monthly newsletter by the Central Square Foundation (CSF). ‘Unlike some simpler habit-like behaviours, say in the health sector where the desired behaviour could be remembering to take medication, and education involves more intricate actions. The challenge then lies in effectively conveying crucial information for [such] complex behaviours, utilising behavioural science principles to distil the information into a digestible form and harnessing the right motivations to convert it to desired behaviour.’ Read the full interview here.
If you’re interested in participating in our research studies, click here!
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
USING MACHINE LEARNING PREDICTION TO CREATE A 15-QUESTION IPV MEASUREMENT TOOL
By Dr Sneha Shashidhara, Dr Pavan Mamidi, Shardul Vaidya, and Ishank Daral
August 2023, Journal of Interpersonal Violence
DO WOMEN PREFER IN-GROUP POLICE OFFICERS? SURVEY AND EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM INDIA
By Dr Nirvikar Jassal and Dr Sharon Barnhardt
22 August 2023, Comparative Political Studies
NO GOING BACK: COVID-19 DISEASE THREAT PERCEPTION AND MALE MIGRANTS’ WILLINGNESS TO RETURN TO WORK IN INDIA
By Varun Arora, Dr Sujoy Chakravarty, Dr Hansika Kapoor, Dr Shagata Mukherjee, Shubhabrata Roy, and Dr Anirudh Tagat
May 2023, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
INSIGHTS FROM A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE PROCUREMENT AND MANUFACTURE OF ACTIVE PHARMACEUTICAL INGREDIENTS IN INDIA
By Heather Hamill, Kate Hampshire, Harshada Vinaya and Dr Pavan Mamidi
May 2023, BMJ Global Health 2023
CAPACITY BUILDING
Upcoming book launch: Behavioral Science for Development
CSBC contributed two chapters to an upcoming book ‘Behavioral Science for Development’ by Dr Luis Artavia-Mora and Zarak Khan, hitting the shelves this fall. The book represents the collective wisdom of over two dozen authors: experts in the fields of behavioural science and international development, including Dr Pavan Mamidi, Director CSBC; Gautam Patel, Deputy Director, CSBC; and Aayush Agarwal, Senior Associate & Lab Manager, CSBC.
In his chapter on Collaborating with Government, Gautam Patel shares that ‘Behavioural insights can provide governments with diagnostics to design solutions to persistent problems of poverty. The power to use behaviour science for better decision-making should not remain in the domain of highly trained and scarce experts; rather, it is a greater good if behaviour science organisations can build capacity in government teams to use this knowledge to strengthen their systems through a scientific understanding and a better-informed process for problem-solving.’
Turning our attention to the chapter on the Challenges to Scaling-up Interventions in India, authored by Dr Pavan Mamidi and Aayush Agarwal, ‘Policy interventions that are transformational in their implementation plan — those that do not seamlessly integrate into existing policy implementation infrastructure — are bound to induce psychological contract breaches (PCB) within implementers. This can lower job satisfaction and performance. Before systemic changes that deal with PCB can be implemented, such as better onboarding processes, regular job expectations evaluations and goal-setting exercises, and conscious efforts by supervisors to minimize job responsibility overload, interventions must be designed with the intention to minimize PCB.’
Sign up for early bird access to the book here.
Teaching Behavioural Insights for Innovative Public Policy
The CSBC team is teaching a course, Behavioural Insights for Innovative Public Policy at the Kautilya School of Public Policy in Hyderabad. This elective includes classes by Dr Pavan Mamidi, Director, CSBC; Dr Sharon Barnhardt, Director — Research, CSBC; Dr Shagata Mukherjee, Deputy Director, CSBC and Academic Lead, Behavioural Insights Unit of India, NITI Aayog; and Joycelyn Joseph, Senior Associate, CSBC. An integral component of the Masters in Public Policy programme, the course equips students with foundational knowledge in behavioural economics, emphasises the significance of evidence-based policymaking, and elucidates how behavioural experiments can shape policy outcomes to drive change in the social ecosystem through in-person lectures, case studies and field visits.
Advancing capacity-building initiatives
CSBC continues to stay committed to its goal of building behaviour science knowledge in the country, especially amongst policymakers. Dr Shagata Mukherjee, Deputy Director at CSBC and Academic Lead of the Behavioural Insights Unit of India, NITI Aayog, trained the incoming batch of Indian Economic Service officers through a comprehensive two-day training program on behavioural economics and policy at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi. He also taught at the Vedica Scholar’s Programme in August and presented at a research seminar on gender and at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. During this seminar, Dr Mukherjee addressed an audience of faculty members and research scholars, shedding light on the profound impact of gender and social norms on financial behaviour for both men and women.
Taking behaviour science to University of Lucknow
Gautam Patel, Deputy Director, CSBC, led an interactive workshop to introduce behaviour science to University of Lucknow research scholars. Aimed at imparting practical behavioural science insights to enhance personal and academic effectiveness, participants learned goal-setting and commitment strategies through exercises and real-life examples. Teaching assistants Anika Ghei and Deeksha Tiwari from CSBC shared their experiences applying these concepts for goal achievement and habit formation.
EVENTS
On 18 August, the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC) held its second colloquium, Storytelling for Impact, in partnership with Civic Studios, a media production house incubated at the MIT Media Lab. Facilitated by Dr Sharon Barnhardt, Director — Research, CSBC; the event opened with the screening of Civic Studios’ short film — Vakeel Babu, igniting an insightful discussion on the role of movies in creating a meaningful impact in society. The evening also included a thought-provoking panel discussion Media and Storytelling for Social Change, moderated by Dr Pavan Mamidi, Director CSBC, joined by Anushka Shah, Founder, Civic Studios; Radharani Mitra, Global Creative Advisor, BBC Media Action; and Jitender Dabas, COO & CSO, McCann; uniting academics, filmmakers, media agencies, and civil society to explore the power of storytelling. View the recording here.
Establishing a new Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU) at Rajasthan
CSBC, in partnership with UNICEF India and the Indian Institute of Health Management Research University (IIHMR), Jaipur, recently held a visioning workshop to establish the Behavioral Insights Unit (BIU) in Rajasthan to be anchored by IIHMR University. The workshop began with Dr P R Sodani, President of IIHMR University, Isabelle Bardem, Chief of UNICEF Rajasthan Field Office, and Alka Malhotra, Specialist, SBC, UNICEF India Country Office, offering inspiring perspectives on the importance of this partnership for setting up a powerful and impactful BIU in Rajasthan.
Pooja Haldea, Senior Advisor, CSBC, delved into the fundamentals of designing behavioural solutions and shed light on CSBC’s ongoing initiatives in this field, ‘Behavioural Science has the potential to address not only issues at the demand side but also to influence policy and supply levels. This can strengthen government programmes and have a tangible impact at the grassroots level.’ Additionally, Gautam Patel, Deputy Director, CSBC, provided valuable insights from the experiences of existing BIUs at NITI Aayog, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, highlighting their implications for the upcoming IIHMR BIU. This collaboration will leverage behavioural science for positive change in Rajasthan and beyond.
Webinar on causal effects of social norms on behaviour and the role of social norms strength
The Social Norms Learning Collaborative, South Asia, hosted a webinar on ‘Understanding the causal effects of social norms on behaviour and the role of social norms strength’. It included a presentation by Dr Aron Szekely, Assistant Professor in Sociology, Collegio Carlo Alberto and Affiliate Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies. Moderated by Dr Narges Hajimoladarvish, Senior Research Fellow and Lead Behavioural Scientist, Pop-UP Lab, CSBC; Dr Szekely presented his research findings on the causal evidence between social norms and cooperation and the role of social norms strength. Watch the session here.
BORROWED WISDOM: STORYTELLING AND BEHAVIOUR SCIENCE
In this episode, David Blakely dives into risk-taking, storytelling, how we live in partnership with AI and the invention of Scrabble. Listen to the podcast here.
Read how we can use research and neuroscience tools to tell better stories — and make sense of our chaotic modern world.
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