Fake news is a pernicious and pervasive phenomenon that has damaged many democracies globally. The Decision Lab reached out to Dr. Gleb Tsipursky to learn more about his work on a study involving pro-truth pledges as a way to fight fake news.

When evaluating policy, several explanations may arise for our preferences for or against certain political decisions. Research shows our biases mixed with contextual factors may give favorable advantages where we least expect it.

In today’s episode of The Decision Corner podcast, we are joined by Margarita Gómez, the inaugural executive director of the People in Government Lab, located in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. Some topics we discuss include behavioral science interventions in the public sector and the challenges of autonomy and expertise for policymaking in developing countries.

In early March, the risk of COVID-19 infection was relatively low, yet the public was anxious and took large strides to follow pandemic related safety recommendations. Now, the risk of infection is higher than ever in certain countries, yet the willingness to adhere to safety recommendations has waned. Why?

In this podcast episode, we are joined by Professor Gianluca Sgueo to discuss the relationship between technology and democracy, the existence of a trade-off between privacy and efficiency in governance, and how technology influences our choice environments.

Will artificial intelligence really take away our jobs? The impact of artificial intelligence on job automation won't be all or nothing. We need to start asking better questions about which of our tasks will get automated, what will fill their places, and what opportunities are lost when we get rid of repetitive work.

As the old adage goes: The house always wins. If so, why is gambling a multi-billion dollar industry? Behavioral science can explain why gambling is so popular despite the fact that few can consistently beat the odds, and how bookmakers are leveraging our biases to take advantage of this.

Popular fact correction strategies, such as the myth-versus-fact format, may actually not work in fighting false information. We need new strategies to combat the spread of this harmful type of misinformation.

Can social media increase voter turnout? Researchers sought to answer this question by seeing if the social approval effect — which describes how the desire for social approval can influence decision-making — can impact voting behavior in the real world. As it turns out, merely seeing others' behavior can have a strong influence on our decision-making.