Project description

There is now a large empirical body of work about how people (both individually and in organizations) behave and what interventions can shape such behavior. Most people do not have intimate knowledge of this research, but yet all people have ideas, assumptions and intuitions about what affects human and organizational conduct.

This project seeks to empirically study what these ideas, assumptions and intuitions are and to what extent they do or do not match scientific insights. Also, it will try to explain variation in how large the gap between people’s own notions of behavior and those in science is. Through a series of experiments where people are asked to respond to misconduct and provided with reliable scientific information on how to do so, the project will test what biases keep people from drawing on such science.

This project is funded by the European Research Council by means of an ERC Consolidator Grant. It is carried out by Emmeke Kooistra, Chris Reinders Folmer and Benjamin van Rooij (all UvA C-LAB).

Relevant publications and works in progress:

• Liu, N., Van Rooij, B., & Lo, C. W. H. (2018). Beyond deterrent enforcement styles: Behavioural intuitions of Chinese environmental law enforcement agents in a context of challenging inspections. Public Administration, 96(3), 497-512.
• van Rooij, Benjamin. "Behavioral Jurisprudence: The Quest for Knowledge About the Ex-Ante Function of Law and Behavior". Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies  (2019 [forthcoming]).