Why people do or do not change their beliefs has been a long-standing puzzle. Sometimes
people hold onto false beliefs despite ample contradictory evidence; sometimes they …

Behavioural Government Page 1 Behavioural Government Using behavioural science to improve
how governments make decisions Michael Hallsworth / Mark Egan / Jill Rutter / Julian McCrae …

Abstract Across five experiments (N= 1,714), we test whether people engage in wishful
thinking to alleviate anxiety about adverse future outcomes. Participants perform pattern …

To make good judgments people gather information. An important problem an agent needs
to solve is when to continue sampling data and when to stop gathering evidence. We …

Background and objectives Understanding how individuals integrate new information to
form beliefs under changing emotional conditions is crucial to describing decision-making …

Expectations about us and our environment serve to successfully anticipate the future, make
accurate predictions, and guide behavior and decisions. However, when expectations are …

Here is one of the most fundamental questions in human life: How do we decide how we
decide? We make such decisions all the time. If you trust your doctor, you might decide to …

Many researchers report that people have an optimistic bias when making predictions, but
sometimes cautious realism is found. One resolution is that future thinking has two steps …

The belief update task has been used by many scientists to test a wide range of questions
related to belief formation and optimism. Most of these studies are rigorous and well …

Background and objectives Negative expectations (NEs) are fundamental to various mental
disorders. Finding ways to modulate NEs would help to improve clinical treatment. The …