Suchergebnisse

This article appeared in Strategic Insights, Summer 2011 ; On May 1, 2011, US President Barack Obama announced that US Special Forces had successfully killed Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Crowds gathered publicly in cities across the United States to celebrate the news, waving flags, lighting fireworks, and chanting "U-S-A!" Over 56.5 million Americans watched President Obama's announcement on television, giving him his largest audience since he won the 2008 election. Despite attaining this long-held goal, the US still faces the legacy of 9/11. US troops continue to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq; US intelligence agencies are still heavily organized against the threat of international terrorism; US relations with Muslim-majority states are still heavily influenced by reaction to the 9/11 attacks. How might these change with the death of the man who provoked the United States into two wars? What might the post-9/11 world look like post-Bin Laden? And, perhaps most importantly in the minds of Americans, has the death of Osama bin Laden made the United States safer?

An accessible introduction to the behavioral insights approach, which applies evidence about human behavior to practical problems. Our behavior is strongly influenced by factors that lie outside our conscious awareness, although we tend to underestimate the power of this "automatic" side of our behavior. As a result, governments make ineffective policies, businesses create bad products, and individuals make unrealistic plans. In contrast, the behavioral insights approach applies evidence about actual human behavior--rather than assumptions about it--to practical problems. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, written by two leading experts in the field, offers an accessible introduction to behavioral insights, describing core features, origins, and practical examples.