Efficiently exploring the causal role of contextual moderators in behavioral science.
Efficiently exploring the causal role of contextual moderators in behavioral science.
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2216315120
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发表时间：
2023-01-03
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Yeager, David S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hecht, Cameron A.;Dweck, Carol S.;Murphy, Mary C.;Kroeper, Kathryn M.;Yeager, David S.
关键词：
行为科学干预可以解决社会问题。然而，通常情况下，人们对它们可靠工作所必须具备的背景因素知之甚少。我们开发了一种方法来有效地调查这一点。应用这一方法，我们发现，学生成长心态的益处取决于教师是否通过他们的信息(即他们所说的话)和他们的结构性机会(即他们的政策)来支持成长心态。这些发现为更广泛地理解行为科学效应提供了路线图，从而可以为政策和实践提供更可靠的指导。行为科学干预有可能解决长期存在的政策问题，但其影响通常在不同的背景下(例如，教师、学校和地理区域)是不同的。然而，人们对这种背景异质性知之甚少，这降低了该领域的影响及其对机制的理解。在这里，我们提出了一种有效的方法来询问异质性并解决这些知识差距。该方法a)呈现生动地表示不同调节环境的情景，b)测量已知与典型干预结果(例如，学业成绩)相关的短期行为结果(例如，学术选择)，以及c)评估调节环境对通常作为干预目标的心理变量与该短期结果之间的联系的因果影响。我们通过四个实验(总共n=3,235个)说明了这种方法的有效性，这些实验直接测试了成长心态(即相信能力可以发展)与学生的学业选择之间的联系的情境调节变量。目前的结果表明，教师的成长心态支持信息和他们提供的结构性机会缓和了学生心态和他们的选择之间的联系(研究1至3)。这一模式在具有全国代表性的青少年样本中得到了复制，并且不随人口统计亚组的变化而变化(研究2)，这种模式也不是几个可能的混淆的结果(研究3至4)。讨论的中心是这种询问背景异质性的方法如何应用于其他行为科学干预，并扩大它们在其他政策领域的影响。
Behavioral science interventions can address societal problems. Often, however, little is known about the contextual factors that must be in place for them to work reliably. We developed a method to investigate this efficiently. Applying this method, we found that the benefits of a student’s growth mindset depended on whether the teacher supported the growth mindset both through their messages (i.e., what they say) and through their structural opportunities (i.e., their policies). These findings provide a roadmap for understanding behavioral science effects more broadly and can thereby lead to more reliable guidance for policy and practice. Behavioral science interventions have the potential to address longstanding policy problems, but their effects are typically heterogeneous across contexts (e.g., teachers, schools, and geographic regions). This contextual heterogeneity is poorly understood, however, which reduces the field’s impact and its understanding of mechanisms. Here, we present an efficient way to interrogate heterogeneity and address these gaps in knowledge. This method a) presents scenarios that vividly represent different moderating contexts, b) measures a short-term behavioral outcome (e.g., an academic choice) that is known to relate to typical intervention outcomes (e.g., academic achievement), and c) assesses the causal effect of the moderating context on the link between the psychological variable typically targeted by interventions and this short-term outcome. We illustrated the utility of this approach across four experiments (total n = 3,235) that directly tested contextual moderators of the links between growth mindset, which is the belief that ability can be developed, and students’ academic choices. The present results showed that teachers’ growth mindset-supportive messages and the structural opportunities they provide moderated the link between students’ mindsets and their choices (studies 1 to 3). This pattern was replicated in a nationally representative sample of adolescents and did not vary across demographic subgroups (study 2), nor was this pattern the result of several possible confounds (studies 3 to 4). Discussion centers on how this method of interrogating contextual heterogeneity can be applied to other behavioral science interventions and broaden their impact in other policy domains.
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影响因子：
13.7
作者：
Allcott, Hunt
通讯作者：
Allcott, Hunt
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1608207113
发表时间：
2016-08-02
影响因子：
11.1
作者：
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通讯作者：
Dweck, Carol S.
影响因子：
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作者：
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通讯作者：
Dweck, Carol Sorich
影响因子：
4
作者：
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通讯作者：
Kray, Laura J.
影响因子：
29.9
作者：
Bryan CJ;Tipton E;Yeager DS
通讯作者：
Yeager DS