The goal of each intervention was to increase participant attendance at an optional informational meeting for Paycheck Plus, an earnings supplement program in which participants had previously enrolled. These meetings gave clients an opportunity to review the program requirements and the incentives for work.

The study found that:

• Behavioral messaging led to a significant and quite large increase in the percentage of participants who attended the meeting.
• Sending text messages in addition to postcards was more effective than sending postcards only.
• Offering the meeting over the phone instead of in person did not have any effect on the participation rate.

These findings demonstrate the promise of using behavioral insights in the design of marketing materials and that using text messages – a low cost communication tool – can be effective at reaching people. Additionally, the surprising finding that reducing the hassle of attending the meeting in person did not increase participation reinforces the importance of testing to see what behavioral insights work in particular contexts.

The Power of Prompts: Using Behavioral Insights to Encourage People to Participate
Research Snapshot
Executive Summary
Full Report

• Cut the costs of living in poverty by reducing burdens on time, attention, and cognition;
• Create slack by helping individuals and families to build an adequate cushion of time, money, attention and other critical resources; and
• Reframe and empower individuals and families by crafting services to help people do more of what they want to do and less of what they don’t want to do – and to ensure that service providers are capable partners in that task.

Poverty Interrupted: Applying Behavioral Science to the Context of Chronic Scarcity

The report provides an introduction to behavioral economics, presents an approach to applying behavioral economics to social programs, known as behavioral diagnosis and design.  The report focuses on three case studies: 1) increasing applications to modify child support orders among incarcerated noncustodial parents in Texas, 2) increasing client engagement with job search in Illinois, and 3) increasing the willingness for suspected victims to wait for a connection to an advocate at the National Domestic Violence Hotline.  For each case study, the report shares key insights.

The report also includes a separate technical supplement with descriptions of 12 commonly applied behavioral interventions identified through a review of the literature.

Go to the report page at OPRE:
Behavioral Economics and Social Policy: Designing Innovation Solutions for Programs Support by the Administration for Children and Families

Quick Links to the Report Sections

• Executive Summary
• Full Report
• We’ve extracted Chapter 4, which specifically discusses a behavioral intervention on a job search program in Illinois (click to open): BIAS Report – Job Search Excerpt (2014)
• Technical Supplement on Behavioral Interventions

Stress impacts good parenting: The behavioral economists’ perspective, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Saugato Datta (Page 9 in WK Kellogg’s 2011 Annual Report)

Harvard University press release for Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

How poverty taxes the brain, by Emily Badger (Atlantic Cities article)

Additional commentary on this research:
Princeton University press release regarding the Science journal article