Behavioral Insights Team
Updated 2026-08-05
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A specialist team first established inside the UK Cabinet Office and later spun out as a social purpose company, applying behavioral economics to policy design. Its core proposition is that small, evidence-tested changes to choice architecture can shift behavior at low cost, and that randomized controlled trials should decide which interventions get scaled. It operates under explicit constraints of transparency, freedom to opt out, and citizen welfare.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Behavioral diagnosis: find the friction that stops people from acting on their intentions. - Trial design: test a small nudge with a randomized controlled trial before scaling. - Default audit: treat the default option as a design decision, not a neutral given.
Anchor fast decisions
Policy usually assumes people respond to information and incentives, while actual behavior is driven by defaults, effort, timing, and social norms. Because these levers sit in the environment rather than inside the person, adjusting them costs little and can move large populations at once. Randomized trials then separate genuine effects from plausible-sounding stories, so scaling follows measurement rather than enthusiasm.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_Insights_Teamverified
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