Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy

Lindsay Blair Bochon, Janet Dean, Tanja Rosteck and Jiaying Zhao

PLOS ONE, 2023, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-12

Abstract: Despite the proliferation of nudge research in the last few decades, very little published work aims to nudge the behavior of policymakers. Here we explore the impact of a well-established nudge on policymakers in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In a pre-registered randomized controlled trial, we emailed an invitation to policymakers (N = 263) to attend an online briefing on gendered impacts of policy. In the treatment condition (N = 133), the invitation contained personal stories of two women whose lives were disproportionally impacted by public policies more than men. In the control condition (N = 130), the invitation did not contain such stories. After the briefing, we sent all participants in both conditions a link to a public pledge that they could sign. The pledge was to lead and advocate for equity-oriented policymaking. Contrary to our prediction, there was a small backfiring effect where policymakers in the treatment condition (3.0%) were less likely to attend the briefing than the control condition (7.7%). However, two policymakers (1.5%) in the treatment condition signed the public pledge compared to one (0.8%) in the control condition. The current findings reveal the limits of using personal stories as a nudge to influence policymakers. We discuss insights gained from this experiment and follow-up debriefings with policymakers on how to improve future behavioral interventions designed to nudge policymakers.

Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0293036

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293036

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