Translate research by psychologists and other social and behavioral scientists into policy, and you could help solve such seemingly intractable problems as excess energy consumption and children's diarrhea deaths, says psychologist Maya Shankar, PhD, senior advisor to the deputy director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and leader of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Initiative.
"Research in the social and behavioral sciences can help us to design policies that are more effective, less costly and better for citizens," Shankar told diplomats, nongovernmental organization representatives, students and others at the seventh annual Psychology Day at the United Nations.
That message was central to the event, held April 24 at U.N. headquarters in New York. The many psychology organizations accredited to the U.N., including APA, cosponsored the event under the patronage of the ambassador to the U.N. from El Salvador, with support from the International Association of Applied Psychology, APA's Div. 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues), APA's Div. 14 (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology), the International Union of Psychological Science and a variety of other local and international associations.
"This is an opportunity to learn how psychologists contribute to the United Nations, share ideas, exchange dialogue and establish partnerships on global issues," said co-chair Lori Foster Thompson, PhD, a North Carolina State University psychology professor who represents Div. 14 at the U.N.
The event's theme — "Psychology's Contributions to Sustainable Development: Challenges and Solutions for the Global Agenda" — was especially timely, said co-chair Rashmi Jaipal, PhD, who represents APA at the U.N. and teaches psychology at Bloomfield College in New Jersey.
The U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which call for halving extreme poverty, stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS, ensuring universal primary education and reaching other targets by 2015, are coming to a close, Jaipal said. Now, the U.N. and its partners are busy crafting a post-2015 development agenda.
"We're witnessing a historic process," said Jaipal, citing a shift in emphasis from economic development to healthy human development. "And psychology has an integral role to play in conceptualizing policies that foster sustainable, human-centered development."
Promoting a person-centered approach
Historically, the U.N. and related institutions have not taken advantage of psychological science as much as they should have, said Saths Cooper, PhD, president of the International Union of Psychological Science. Instead, they have relied on economic modeling, even after the global economic crisis revealed that approach's shortcomings.
Psychology, which Cooper described as the "science that underpins all that we think, do and commit to do," tends to be overlooked for several reasons. For one, there's often a fear of psychology's power, with people worrying that psychologists can read their minds or will analyze them, Cooper said. Another problem is the tendency to associate psychology only with mental illness. While treating mental illness is important, he said, psychology is such a broad discipline that it touches every aspect of life. "There is no field of human endeavor that psychology does not inform," he said.
Psychology is now beginning to apply its insights on motivation and other psychological factors to sustainable development, said Shankar, the event's keynote speaker.
In her role at the White House, Shankar is helping government agencies achieve their goals by drawing on insights from the social and behavioral sciences. Among the groups she is working with are the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Education, and Health and Human Services. "Their response has been overwhelming," she says.
Developing simple interventions based on sound psychological research and the methods of psychological science has already helped address development concerns in other parts of the world, such as increasing access to safe water, motivating families to send their kids to school and boosting agricultural production, said Shankar.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, simply telling residents how their energy use compared with their neighbors' reduced their energy consumption. To increase treatment compliance, a program in Mozambique sends text messages to people infected with both HIV and tuberculosis to remind them to take their medications on time and show up for doctor appointments.
And in Kenya, researchers examined what was responsible for the discrepancy between farmers' intentions to use modern fertilizers and their failure to do so. To help farmers overcome the human tendency to value immediate rather than future rewards, a program now allows farmers to buy vouchers for fertilizers at harvest time when they're flush with cash rather than later when they've spent their funds on other priorities. As a result, farmers now have access to fertilizer when planting season rolls around.
Psychological science could also help stop climate change, one of the world's greatest challenges, said Elke U. Weber, PhD, founder of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University.
Most climate change initiatives assume that telling people about the risks of climate change will prompt behavior change, she explained. But that approach doesn't work because it overlooks psychological factors (see June Monitor cover story).
For one thing, fighting climate change requires both short- and long-term action. "The short-term comes easy to us," said Weber. "But the long-term focus comes hard. It isn't natural and requires attention." Fighting climate change also demands trade-offs, which people tend to dislike. "No one wants to destroy planet Earth, but other goals get in the way," she said, pointing to economic development as an example. Plus, she said, people tend to rely on their emotions rather than rational cost-benefit analyses.
The result of these psychological phenomena is what Weber called "an enormous status quo bias." People tend to keep doing what they've always done because it "hasn't killed us yet, so it's not that risky," she said. "But with sustainability, business as usual isn't safe."
How to change the status quo? Make the environmentally friendly action the default, said Weber. Bold policy changes, such as a carbon tax or New York City's public smoking ban, may initially prompt opposition but soon become the new status quo, said Weber. She also called for using a "silver buckshot" approach — asking all societal sectors to contribute solutions that focus on the positive consequences of change and empower people with effective choices.
For Merry Bullock, PhD, senior director of APA's Office of International Affairs, the event demonstrated the value of APA's presence at the U.N.
"APA's seven representatives to the United Nations work on a volunteer basis to bring psychological science and knowledge to U.N. deliberations, documents and decisions," she says. "Psychology Day is one of the flagship events."
For more information about APA's work at the United Nations, visit International.
Rebecca A. Clay is a journalist in Washington, D.C.
