Intuition is not evidence: Prescriptions for behavioral interventions from social psychology

Abstract

Many behavioral interventions are widely implemented before being adequately tested because they meet a commonsense criterion. Unfortunately, once these interventions are evaluated with randomized controlled trials (RCTs), many have been found to be ineffective or even to cause harm. Social psychologists take a different approach, using theories developed in the laboratory to design small-scale interventions that address a wide variety of behavioral and educational problems. Many of these interventions, tested with RCTs, have had large positive effects. The advantages of this approach are discussed, as are conditions necessary for scaling up any intervention to larger populations.