Behavioral Economics and Social Exclusion : Can Interventions Overcome Prejudice?

Hoff, Karla

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: ANALOGY;    ANTHROPOLOGIST;    ANTHROPOLOGY;    ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL;    ATTENTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7198
RP-ID  :  WPS7198

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Behavioral economics recognizes thatmental models -- intuitive sets of ideas about how thingswork -- can bias an individual's perceptions of himselfand the world. By representing an ascriptive category ofpeople as unworthy, a mental model can foster unjust socialexclusion of, for example, a race, gender, caste, or class.Since the representation is a social construction,shouldn't society be able to control it? But how? Thispaper considers three interventions that have had somesuccess in developing countries: (1) Group deliberation inSenegal challenged the traditional mental model of femalegenital cutting and contributed to the abandonment of thepractice; (2) political reservations for women and lowcastes in India improved the way men perceived women, theway parents perceived their daughters, and the way womenperceived themselves, but have not generally had positiveeffects on the low castes; and (3) reductions in thesalience of identity closed performance gaps betweendominant and stigmatized groups in experiments in India andChina. Spoiled collective identities need to be changed ormade less prominent in order to overcome social exclusion.