The Network for Integrated Behavioural Science - The Science of Consumer Behaviour

消费者决策领域和复杂性的变化为现代社会提出了关键挑战。政府越来越多地将复杂决策的责任从国家转移到个人身上。国家提供的社会保险和金融保障的减少，使非常重要的决定，如退休储蓄和个人保护保险，成为消费者的责任，就像更熟悉但往往也非常复杂的决定一样。该项目将推动科学地理解消费者在面临困难选择时的行为，以及公共政策如何最有效地进行干预以促进其成功。现代消费者面临着令人困惑的复杂决策，要在众多不同的选项之间做出选择。例如，考虑在典型的现代经济中可用的移动的电话和新车的所有规格，以及所有不同的养老金计划或保险产品。除了选择的数量和复杂性之外，消费者还面临诸如可靠性、服务质量或转售价值等方面的不确定性。即使有大量的信息，公司或供应商也可能通过复杂的公用事业收费表或金融产品的条款和条件等方式，对这些信息加以编排，以引起客户的具体反应。许多选择都涉及到对成本和收益的考虑，例如生活方式和储蓄决定，或大型消费者耐用品购买。数十年的行为科学和心理学研究以及行为经济学的最新发展表明，许多人发现即使是非常简单的决定也很困难，并不总是一致的，并且经常表现出有偏见或糟糕的决策过程。我们的研究计划，借鉴经济学和心理学，并在跨学科行为科学的前沿，将促进对消费者行为的理解。主题1将研究个人选择的基础，特别关注决策过程和消费者对其环境特征的反应。主题2将根据不同复杂程度的消费者的行为特点，审查公司如何为实际和潜在的消费者构建环境。它将侧重于公司的战略如何影响公司之间的竞争以及反过来又如何受到公司之间竞争的影响。理解这种相互作用对于成功监管消费市场至关重要。专题2还将与英国监管机构合作，直接研究适当监管的形式。主题3将把行为科学的经验应用于个人和家庭的财务决策-这是一个消费者行为领域，典型的是在多种复杂产品之间进行选择;不确定性;时间;以及可能对消费者造成严重损害。这项工作将由一个由现有的行为科学网络建立和发展的团队进行，该网络的中心是诺丁汉大学、东安格利亚大学和沃里克大学的主要行为科学团体之间的伙伴关系。该团队将包括世界知名的心理学家和经济学家，新兴科学家和具有消费者市场监管直接经验的团队成员。该团队将通过在顶级科学期刊和会议上发表论文，开展和宣传获得国际学术认可的研究。它将通过影响英国的政策制定和消费市场监管来改善公民的消费环境。通过创建新的数据集，培训和培养研究人员，并促进学术界，私营部门和政策制定者之间的联系，该项目将提高英国大学在行为科学方面的研究能力。

Changes in the domain and complexity of consumer decision making raise key challenges for modern societies. Increasingly governments transfer responsibility for complex decisions away from the state towards the individual. The decline of state provision of social insurance and financial security has seen very important decisions, such as over retirement saving and personal protection insurance, become the responsibility of consumers, just as more familiar but often also highly complex decisions are. This project will drive forward scientific understanding of consumer behaviour in the face of difficult choices and of how public policy can intervene most effectively to promote their success.The modern consumer faces decisions of bewildering complexity, with choices to be made between numerous options differing from one another in multiple ways. Consider e.g. all the specifications of mobile phone and new car available in typical modern economies, and all the different pension schemes or insurance products. Besides the number and complexity of the options, consumers face uncertainty e.g. about reliability, service quality or resale value. Even when a great deal of information is available, it may be framed by firms or suppliers in ways intended to induce particular customer responses e.g. via complex utility tariffs or terms and conditions for financial products. Many choices involve consideration of costs and benefits spread over time, e.g. lifestyle and savings decisions, or large consumer durable purchases.Decades of research in behavioural science and psychology, and recent developments in behavioural economics, show that many individuals find even quite simple decisions difficult, are not always consistent, and often behave in ways reflecting biased or poor decision processes. The results can be highly detrimental to consumers concerned and, sometimes, to wider society.Our research programme, drawing on economics and psychology and at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary behavioural science, will advance understanding of consumer behaviour. Theme 1 will study foundations of individual choice, with particular attention to decision processes and consumers' responses to features of their environment. Theme 2 will examine how firms frame and structure environments for actual and potential customers in the light of behavioural characteristics of consumers of varying sophistication. It will focus on how firms' strategies affect and are in turn affected by competition between firms. Understanding this interaction is vital to successful regulation of consumer markets. Theme 2 will also study the form of appropriate regulation directly, in collaboration with UK regulatory bodies. Theme 3 will apply lessons of behavioural science to personal and household financial decision making - an area of consumer behaviour that typifies the combination of choice between multiple, complex products; uncertainty; time; and potential for serious consumer detriment. The work will be carried out by a team that is built out of, and develops, the existing Network for Behavioural Science, the hub of which is a partnership between leading behavioural science groups at the Universities of Nottingham, East Anglia and Warwick. The team will include world-renowned psychologists and economists, emerging scientists and team members with direct experience of consumer market regulation. The team will conduct and publicise research that achieves international academic recognition through publication in top-flight scientific journals and conferences. It will enhance the consumer environment for citizens by influencing policy formulation and consumer market regulation in the UK. By creating new data sets, training and nurturing researchers, and fostering an international research network with links between academics, the private sector and policy makers, the project will increase the research capacity of UK universities in behavioural science.