The People versus Behavioral Science: Alignment between lay and scientific understanding of compliance.

ABSTRACT: Since the beginning of the 21st century, behavioral insights have increasingly been used to inform policy. However, rather than land in a vacuum, such insights arrive in a setting where the citizens they target themselves have lay understanding of what shapes behavior-an understanding that may critically shape their endorsement of such policies. As such, to change behavior through behavioral science, people's lay understanding is of pivotal importance. Yet so far, we know little about how laypersons think about changing behavior, or whether their lay understanding of this aligns with that of science. The present research examines this question by focusing on rule compliance, a frequent target of behavioral influence. In a large-scale survey (N = 3326), we assess participants' lay perceptio

SUBMITTER: Reinders Folmer CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12758818 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature