Evolutionary science (ES) and contextual behavioral science (CBS) have developed largely independently during the last half century. However, the earlier histories of these two bodies of knowledge are thoroughly entwined. ES provides a unifying theoretical framework for the biological sciences, and is increasingly being applied to human-related sciences. Meanwhile, CBS is concerned with influencing human behavior in a practical sense. This groundbreaking volume seeks to integrate ES and CBS to promote real, positive change in peoples' lives. Evolution (...) and Contextual Behavioral Science offers a unique glimpse into the histories of ES and CBS, shows how they are intrinsically linked, and outlines why their integration--or, reunification--is essential. By examining these two schools of thought side by side, you'll gain an understanding of why functional and contextual approaches in CBS need to be combined with ES for both fields to advance more rapidly. Finally, rather than the sequential relationship that is typically imagined between ES and CBS, you'll discover how an integrated relationship between these two sciences will result in a better framework for understanding predicting, and influencing human behavior--back cover. (shrink)

In his inaugural lecture, Peter Mascini takes issue with the goal of scientific purity in the behavioral study of law conceived as the deliberate choice to postulate a limited number of universally applicable behavioral principles. The guiding principle of behavioral sociology is that law behaves in correspondence to social space, while the guiding principle of law and economics is that individuals behave rationally. Behavioral economics has challenged the principle of the rational actor and, consequently, has also (...) challenged the desire for scientific purity in law and economics. Peter Mascini defends a two-fold thesis: first, that the purification of sociology proposed by behavioral sociology is a blind alley that can only be exited by allowing impurity. Second, that the behavioral economics movement has offered law and economics an opportunity to reinvigorate by embracing impurity. The combination of the two parts of his thesis lead him to the claim that we need less purity in the behavioral study of law rather than more. He ends his lecture by stating that the introduction of impurity that has been started by behavioral economics needs to be extended in several respects. He proposes to replace the behavioral study of law by an approach that not only takes empirical research seriously, but also adopts a modest attitude by surrendering the ambition to come up with universally applicable predictions and by taking seriously meaningful behavior. (Series: Erasmus Law Lectures, Vol. 41) [Subject: Behavioral Sociology, Law and Economics, Behavioral Economics, Private Law]. (shrink)

Unlike physics and chemistry, the behavioral sciences are historical sciences that explain the fuzzy complexity of social life through historical narratives. Unifying the behavioral sciences through evolutionary game theory would require a nested hierarchy of three kinds of historical narratives: natural history, cultural history, and biographical history. (Published Online April 27 2007).

Advocates of the self-corrective thesis argue that scientific method will refute false theories and find closer approximations to the truth in the long run. I discuss a contemporary interpretation of this thesis in terms of frequentist statistics in the context of the behavioral sciences. First, I identify experimental replications and systematic aggregation of evidence (meta-analysis) as the self-corrective mechanism. Then, I present a computer simulation study of scientific communities that implement this mechanism to argue that frequentist statistics may (...) converge upon a correct estimate or not depending on the social structure of the community that uses it. Based on this study, I argue that methodological explanations of the “replicability crisis” in psychology are limited and propose an alternative explanation in terms of biases. Finally, I conclude suggesting that scientific self-correction should be understood as an interaction effect between inference methods and social structures. (shrink)

Organizational justice is a behavioral science concept that refers to the perception of fairness of the past treatment of the employees within an organization held by the employees of that organization. These subjective perceptions of fairness have been empirically shown to be related to 1) attitudinal changes in job satisfaction, organizational commitment and managerial trust beliefs; 2) behavioral changes in task performance activities and ancillary extra-task efforts to assist group members and improve group methods; 3) numerical changes in (...) the quantity, quality and efficiency of divisional outputs; and—though this is far more tentative—4) eventual changes in the competitive advantage and financial performance of the full organization. The authors propose that these constructs can be applied to all stakeholders, rather than just to the current employees of the firm, and that objective determinations of fairness by the managers can be related to subjective perceptions of fairness by the stakeholders that will result in the sequential series of attitudinal, behavioral and numerical changes that will lead to performance improvements. In short, the authors propose a normative stakeholder theory of the firm, based upon ethical principles, that will have testable descriptive hypotheses derived from the behavioral constructs. (shrink)

Organizational justice is a behavioral science concept that refers to the perception of fairness of the past treatment of the employees within an organization held by the employees of that organization. These subjective perceptions of fairness have been empirically shown to be related to 1) attitudinal changes in job satisfaction, organizational commitment and managerial trust beliefs; 2) behavioral changes in task performance activities and ancillary extra-task efforts to assist group members and improve group methods; 3) numerical changes in (...) the quantity, quality and efficiency of divisional outputs; and—though this is far more tentative—4) eventual changes in the competitive advantage and financial performance of the full organization. The authors propose that these constructs can be applied to all stakeholders, rather than just to the current employees of the firm, and that objective determinations of fairness by the managers can be related to subjective perceptions of fairness by the stakeholders that will result in the sequential series of attitudinal, behavioral and numerical changes that will lead to performance improvements. In short, the authors propose a normative stakeholder theory of the firm, based upon ethical principles, that will have testable descriptive hypotheses derived from the behavioral constructs. (shrink)

There are many methodological considerations that adversely affect external validity as much as, or even more than, unrepresentative sampling does. Among suspect applications, especially worrisome is the incorporation of WEIRD-based findings regarding moral reasoning and retribution into normative expectations, such as might be held by international criminal tribunals in war-torn areas.

This excellent outline of evolutionary hypotheses is compromised by severe reductionism. Other writings succeed in granting theism ontological significance without compromising rigor. The discussion of counterintuitiveness neglects coherence in memory. Bearing in mind our severely limited working memory capacity, susceptibility to religious mythologies may comprise an adaptive heuristic approach to summarizing the contingencies of the most far-reaching of life's problems.

The nudge approach seeks to improve people’s decisions through small changes in their choice environments. Nudge policies often work through psychological mechanisms that deviate from traditional notions of rationality. Because of that, some critics object that nudging treats people as irrational. Such treatment might be disrespectful in itself and might crowd out more empowering policies. I defend nudging against these objections. By defending a nonstandard, ecological model of rationality, I argue that nudging not only is compatible with rational agency but (...) can even support it. Accordingly, a concern with rationality speaks for more rather than less public policy nudging. (shrink)

My response to commentators includes a suggestion that an additional principle be added to the list presented in the target article: the notion of human society as a complex adaptive system with emergent properties. In addition, I clear up several misunderstandings shared by several commentators, and explore some themes concerning future directions in the unification of the behavioral science. (Published Online April 27 2007).

In our target article, we discussed the standards of evidence that could be used to identify adaptations, and argued that building an empirical case that certain features of a trait are best explained by exaptation, spandrel, or constraint requires the consideration, testing, and rejection of adaptationist hypotheses. We are grateful to the 31 commentators for their thoughtful insights. They raised important issues, including the meaning of “exaptation”; whether Gould and Lewontin's critique of adaptationism was primarily epistemological or ontological; the necessity, (...) sufficiency, or utility of design evidence, phylogenetic analyses, homology, and molecular genetics in distinguishing exaptations from adaptations; whether adaptationists accept adaptationist hypotheses too quickly; and the real utility of adaptationism to human behavioral science. We organize our response along the major points of the target article, in some situations defending our original claims and in others modifying them. While debate on these issues will undoubtedly continue, we are cautiously optimistic that the main points of the target article (as modified by our response) will help move the debate in a positive direction. (shrink)

We applaud Gintis's attempt to provide an evolutionary-based framework for the behavioral sciences, and note a number of similarities with our own recent cultural evolutionary structure for the social sciences. Gintis's proposal would be further strengthened by a greater emphasis on additional methods to evolutionary game theory, clearer empirical predictions, and a broader consideration of cultural transmission. (Published Online April 27 2007).

It is fairly usual to argue or to assume that there is a single pattern of proper scientific endeavor for the behavioral sciences. This is based, one is inclined to say, on the superb model afforded by the natural science successes of the past few hundred years and on the common method which underlies and determines that model. Consequently, a protagonist can argue that within his own science, all opposed modes of thinking are archaic, peripheral, or unscientific, while (...) his own at least prefigures fulfillment of true science. And it may even be claimed that other behavioral fields are special offshoots, subordinate provinces, or particularizations which are reducible to his favored scheme of analysis. Such diversity and disagreement as there is, it can be said, stems from either of two causes. The first is the stubbornness of men, whereby they refuse to face the facts, to employ reasoning processes properly, or to foresake sinister interests. The other is the relative immaturity of behavioral science, an immaturity which will be eliminated by patient progress. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Bioethicists today are taking a greater role in the design and implementation of emerging technologies by "embedding" within the development teams and providing their direct guidance and recommendations. Ideally, these collaborations allow ethical considerations to be addressed in an active, iterative, and ongoing process through regular exchanges between ethicists and members of the technological development team. This article discusses a challenge to this embedded ethics approach—namely, that bioethical guidance, even if embraced by the development team in theory, is not easily (...) actionable in situ. Many of the ethical problems at issue in emerging technologies are associated with preexisting structural, socioeconomic, and political factors, making compliance with ethical recommendations sometimes less a matter of choice and more a matter of feasibility. Moreover, incentive structures within these systemic factors maintain them against reform efforts. The authors recommend that embedded bioethicists utilize principles from behavioral science (such as behavioral economics) to better understand and account for these incentive structures so as to encourage the ethically responsible uptake of technological innovations. (shrink)

In recent years, 'nudge units' or 'behavioral insights teams' have been created in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other nations. All over the world, public officials are using the behavioral sciences to protect the environment, promote employment and economic growth, reduce poverty, and increase national security. In this book, Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and best-selling co-author of Nudge, breaks new ground with a deep yet highly readable investigation into the ethical issues (...) surrounding nudges, choice architecture, and mandates, addressing such issues as welfare, autonomy, self-government, dignity, manipulation, and the constraints and responsibilities of an ethical state. Complementing the ethical discussion, The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science contains a wealth of new data on people's attitudes towards a broad range of nudges, choice architecture, and mandates. (shrink)

The various behavioral disciplines model human behavior in distinct and incompatible ways. Yet, recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for rendering coherent the areas of overlap of the various behavioral disciplines. The analytical tools deployed in this task incorporate core principles from several behavioral disciplines. The proposed framework recognizes evolutionary theory, covering both genetic and cultural evolution, as the integrating principle of behavioral science. Moreover, if decision theory and game theory are broadened to (...) encompass other-regarding preferences, they become capable of modeling all aspects of decision making, including those normally considered “psychological,” “sociological,” or “anthropological.” The mind as a decision-making organ then becomes the organizing principle of psychology. (Published Online April 27 2007) Key Words: behavioral game theory; behavioral science; evolutionary theory; experimental psychology; gene-culture coevolution; rational actor model; socialization. (shrink)

We support the ambitious goal of unification within the behavioral sciences. We suggest that Darwinian evolution by means of natural selection can provide the integrative glue for this purpose, and we review our own work on selective investment theory (SIT), which is an example of how other-regarding preferences can be accommodated by a gene-centered account of evolution. (Published Online April 27 2007).

Game theory provides a descriptive or a normative account of an important class of decisions. Given the cognitive sciences' emphasis on explanation, unification with the behavioral sciences under a descriptive model would constitute a step backwards in their development. I argue for the interdependence of the cognitive and behavioral sciences and suggest that meaningful integration is already occurring through problem-based interdisciplinary research programs. (Published Online April 27 2007).

Multimodal prehabilitation is increasingly recognized as an important component of the pre-operative pathway in oncology. It aims to optimize physical and psychological health through delivery of a series of tailored interventions including exercise, nutrition, and psychological support. At the core of this prescription is a need for considerable health behavior change, to ensure that patients are engaged with and adhere to these interventions and experience the associated benefits. To date the prehabilitation literature has focused on testing the efficacy of devised (...) exercise and nutritional interventions with a primary focus on physiological and mechanistic outcomes with little consideration for the role of behavioral science, supporting individual behavior change or optimizing patient engagement. Changing health behavior is complex and to maximize success, prehabilitation programs should draw on latest insights from the field of behavioral science. Behavioral science offers extensive knowledge on theories and models of health behavior change to further advance intervention effectiveness. Similarly, interventions developed with a person-centered approach, taking into consideration individual needs and preferences will increase engagement. In this article, we will provide an overview of the extent to which the existing prehabilitation literature incorporates behavioral science, as well as studies that have explored patient's attitudes toward prehabilitation. We will go on to describe and critique ongoing trials in a variety of contexts within oncology prehabilitation and discuss how current scientific knowledge may be enhanced from a behavioral science perspective. We will also consider the role of “surgery schools” and detail practical recommendations that can be embedded in existing or emerging clinical settings. (shrink)

Our response amplifies our case for scientific realism and the unity of science and clarifies our commitments to scientific unity, nonreductionism, behaviorism, and our rejection of talk of “emergence.” We acknowledge support from commentators for our view of physics and, responding to pressure and suggestions from commentators, deny the generality supervenience and explain what this involves. We close by reflecting on the relationship between philosophy and science.

It is commonly held that research efforts in the cognitive and behavioral sciences are mainly directed toward providing explanations and that phenomena figure into scientific practice qua explananda. I contend that these assumptions convey a skewed picture of the research practices in question and of the role played by phenomena. I argue that experimental research often aims at exploring and describing “objects of research” and that phenomena can figure as components of, and as evidence for, such objects. I (...) situate my analysis within the existing literature and illustrate it with examples from memory research. (shrink)

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioral sciences. This book introduces a novel version of scientific realism, Measured Realism, that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. It proposes a theory of measurement, Population-Guided Estimation, that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry. Presenting quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences as at once successful and regulated (...) by the world, the book will engage philosophers of science, historians of science, sociologists of science, and scientists interested in the foundations of their own disciplines. Part I introduces measured realism beginning with a novel realist theory of measurement (Population-Guided Estimation, or PGE). It examines two other versions of scientific realism — minimal (Hacking) and robust (Boyd, Putnam, and Newton-Smith) — and advances measured realism as best supported by the evidence in the behavioral sciences. It also critically evaluates the anti-realist arguments of van Fraassen, Laudan, and Fine. Part II formulates and develops a version of epistemological naturalism most appropriate to measured realism. Drawing upon the realist theory of measurement developed earlier, it favorably appraises a variety of statistical methods in the behavioral sciences against selected criticisms. It concludes that traditional, narrative methods in the behavioral and social sciences are unreliable by the measures of epistemological naturalism. (shrink)

This essay argues that shifts in patronage for the postwar behavioral and social sciences were linked intimately to both intellectual and institutional changes. This broad argument comprises two subarguments: first, that there were in fact two distinct, successive patronage systems for postwar social science—not one, as is commonly assumed; and, second, that the first postwar patronage system played a major role in enabling a series of behavioral revolutions and interdisciplinary syntheses across the social sciences, while the (...) second postwar patronage system encouraged the development of specialized concepts, techniques, and technologies within the disciplines. The essay also suggests that the widespread concern among social scientists in the 1970s and 1980s that their fields were fragmenting was at least in part an unintended consequence of the rise of the second system. (shrink)

The disagreement between philosophers about the scientific worth of the evolutionary behavioral sciences (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, etc.) is in part due to the fact that critics and advocates of these sciences characterize them very differently. In this article, by analyzing quantitatively the citations made in the articles published in Evolution & Human Behavior between January 2000 and December 2002, we provide some evidence that undermines the characterization of the evolutionary behavioral sciences put (...) forward by their critics. (shrink)

In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic one that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. Most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force during the 1960s and 1970s but a positive literature began (...) to grow during the 1970s and is rapidly expanding today. We review this recent literature and its implications for human evolutionary biology. We show that the rejection of group selection was based on a misplaced emphasis on genes as “replicators” which is in fact irrelevant to the question of whether groups can be like individuals in their functional organization. The fundamental question is whether social groups and other higher-level entities can be “vehicles” of selection. When this elementary fact is recognized, group selection emerges as an important force in nature and what seem to be competing theories, such as kin selection and reciprocity, reappear as special cases of group selection. The result is a unified theory of natural selection that operates on a nested hierarchy of units.The vehicle-based theory makes it clear that group selection is an important force to consider in human evolution. Humans can facultatively span the full range from self-interested individuals to “organs” of group-level “organisms.” Human behavior not only reflects the balance between levels of selection but it can also alter the balance through the construction of social structures that have the effect of reducing fitness differences within groups, concentrating natural selection (and functional organization) at the group level. These social structures and the cognitive abilities that produce them allow group selection to be important even among large groups of unrelated individuals. (shrink)

Causal inference plays a central role in behavioral science. Historically, behavioral science methodologies have typically sought to infer a single causal relation. Each of the major approaches to causal inference in the behavioral sciences follows this pattern. Nonetheless, such approaches sometimes differ in the causal relation that they infer. Incremental causal inference offers an alternative to this conceptualization of causal inference that divides the inference into a series of incremental steps. Different steps infer different causal relations. (...) Incremental causal inference is consistent with both causal pluralism and anti-pluralism. However, anti-pluralism places greater constraints the possible topology of sequential inferences. Arguments against causal inference include questioning consistency with causation as an explanatory principle, charging undue complexity, and questioning the need for it. Arguments in favor of incremental inference include better explanation of diverse causal inferences in behavioral science, tailored causal inference, and more detailed and explicit description of causal inference. Incremental causal inference offers a viable and potentially fruitful alternative to approaches limited to a single causal relation. (shrink)

In the context of discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research, behavioral scientists widely accept a convention for false positive (α) and false negative error rates (β) proposed by Jacob Cohen, who deemed the general relative seriousness of the antecedently accepted α = 0.05 to be matched by β = 0.20. Cohen’s convention not only ignores contexts of hypothesis testing where the more serious error is the β-error. Cohen’s convention also implies for discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research that a statistically significant observed effect (...) is four times more probable to be a mistaken discovery than for a statistically significant true observed effect to be independently replicable. In the long run, Cohen’s convention thus is epistemically harmful to the development of a progressive science of human behavior, making its acceptance crucial in explaining the replication crisis in behavioral science. The balance between α- and β-errors generally ought to be struck using both epistemic and practical considerations. Yet epistemic considerations alone imply that making a genuine contribution to the body of knowledge in behavioral science requires error rates that are not only small but also symmetrical. (shrink)

The dominant paradigm of experiments in the social and behavioral sciences views an experiment as a test of a theory, where the theory is assumed to generalize beyond the experiment's specific conditions. According to this view, which Alan Newell once characterized as “playing twenty questions with nature,” theory is advanced one experiment at a time, and the integration of disparate findings is assumed to happen via the scientific publishing process. In this article, we argue that the process of (...) integration is at best inefficient, and at worst it does not, in fact, occur. We further show that the challenge of integration cannot be adequately addressed by recently proposed reforms that focus on the reliability and replicability of individual findings, nor simply by conducting more or larger experiments. Rather, the problem arises from the imprecise nature of social and behavioral theories and, consequently, a lack of commensurability across experiments conducted under different conditions. Therefore, researchers must fundamentally rethink how they design experiments and how the experiments relate to theory. We specifically describe an alternative framework, integrative experiment design, which intrinsically promotes commensurability and continuous integration of knowledge. In this paradigm, researchers explicitly map the design space of possible experiments associated with a given research question, embracing many potentially relevant theories rather than focusing on just one. Researchers then iteratively generate theories and test them with experiments explicitly sampled from the design space, allowing results to be integrated across experiments. Given recent methodological and technological developments, we conclude that this approach is feasible and would generate more-reliable, more-cumulative empirical and theoretical knowledge than the current paradigm – and with far greater efficiency. (shrink)

I pose problems for the views that human nature should be the object of study in the social and behavioral sciences and that a concept of human nature is needed to guide research in these sciences. I proceed by outlining three research programs in the social sciences, each of which confronts aspects of human variation. Next, I present Elizabeth Cashdan and Grant Ramsey’s related characterizations of human nature. I go on to argue that the research methodologies (...) they each draw on are more productive resources for social scientists than their competing characterizations of human nature. (shrink)

This is an intelligently designed collection of essays dealing with a variety of key issues that are in the foreground of reflection on the social and behavioral sciences. The format followed is an ideal one: a key paper, a comment by a critic, and a reply. Thus, for example, Charles Taylor explains and defends teleological explanation of behavior and engages in an exchange with Robert Borger; and Noam Chomsky reviews the problems of explanation in linguistics and is challenged (...) by Max Black. The quality of this volume is quite high and the contributors are leaders in their fields of inquiry. Not only are there explorations by philosophers but also by practicing behavioral scientists. This is therefore an excellent way of gaining an overview of some of the key issues concerning explanation in the behavioral sciences. But the volume is disappointing in breaking new ground. Many of the points and counterpoints made here can be found in other places, and frequently they are explored in greater detail in other places. The collection also reflects an Anglo-Saxon bias for there is little attempt to include any confrontations with the continental concern with the nature of explanation in the social sciences. A detailed bibliography might have helped to direct the reader to further discussion of the issues involved. But despite these limitations, this is an impressive series of confrontations.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Functionalism about kinds is still the dominant style of thought in the special sciences, like economics, psychology, and biology. Generally construed, functionalism is the view that states or processes can be individuated based on what role they play rather than what they are constituted of or realized by. Recently, Weiskopf has posited a reformulation of functionalism on the model-based approach to explanation. We refer to this reformulation as ‘new functionalism’. In this paper, we seek to defend new functionalism and (...) to recast it in light of the concrete explanatory aims of the special sciences. In particular, we argue that the assessment of the explanatory legitimacy of a functional kind needs to take into account the explanatory purpose of the model in which the functional kind is employed. We aim at demonstrating this by appealing to model-based explanations from the social and behavioral sciences. Specifically, we focus on preferences and signals as functional kinds. Our argument is intended to have the double impact of deflecting criticisms against new functionalism from the perspective of mechanistic decomposition while also expanding the scope of new functionalism to encompass the social and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

Behavioral science research in American universities was promoted and influenced by philanthropic foundations. In the 1920s and 1930s, Rockefeller philanthropies in particular financed behavioral science research projects that promised to fulfill their mandates to `improve mankind', mandates that foundation officers transformed into an informal, loosely defined human engineering effort. Controlling behavior, especially sexual and social `dysfunction', was a major priority. The behavioral scientists at Yale University, led by president James R. Angell and `psychobiologist' Robert M. Yerkes, tapped (...) into foundation largesse by crafting research programs that promised to contribute to the `welfare of mankind' through the investigation and control of sexual and social behavior. Foundation officers supported Yerkes' primate research because they accepted his premise that analyzing chimpanzee sexual behavior would yield valuable insights into the evolutionary underpinnings of human development and would thus give investigators the necessary information to ameliorate dysfunction. Between 1925 and 1940, philanthropic foundations contributed approximately $7 million to support the Yale Institute of Human Relations and the affiliated Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology. Yet, disappointment with the results of the Yale appropriations ultimately contributed to foundation officers turning away from behavioral sciences and toward biological sciences as they continued their efforts to improve mankind through human engineering. This article examines the interaction between foundation officers and Yale behavioral scientists to illustrate how scientific entrepreneurs successfully crafted rationales about human sexuality to solicit funds, how philanthropic foundation officers became enmeshed in the behavioral science research projects that they funded, and how a cooperative human engineering effort at Yale developed in the 1920s and unraveled in the 1930s. (shrink)

Our aim was to identify the ethical issues faced by students in the behavioral and natural sciences during their doctoral programmes. The participants were 28 PhD students who were interviewed about their doctoral study and supervision experiences. We identified a total of 102 ethical issues compromising the principles of nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, justice, or fidelity. There were some differences in emphases, with the students in the behavioral sciences displaying a broader range of ethical compromises than the (...) students in the natural sciences. Ethical problems emerged in the individual supervisor–student relationships, but often problems involving the scholarly community appeared in the background. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein thoughtfully express their disillusionment with contemporary applied behavioral science, particularly as it pertains to public policy. Although they fault an overemphasis on i-frame approaches, their proposed alternatives leave doubt regarding whether behavioral science has much, if anything, useful to offer policy. We offer two critical principles to guide and motivate more relevant behavioral science.

Although its roots can be traced to the 19th century, progress in the study of nonlinear dynamical systems has taken off in the last 30 years. While pertinent source material exists, it is strewn about the literature in mathematics, physics, biology, economics, and psychology at varying levels of accessibility. A compendium research methods reflecting the expertise of major contributors to NDS psychology, Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences Using Real Data examines the techniques proven to be (...) the most useful in the behavioral sciences. The editors have brought together constructive work on new practical examples of methods and application built on nonlinear dynamics. They cover dynamics such as attractors, bifurcations, chaos, fractals, catastrophes, self-organization, and related issues in time series analysis, stationarity, modeling and hypothesis testing, probability, and experimental design. The analytic techniques discussed include several variants of the fractal dimension, several types of entropy, phase-space and state-space diagrams, recurrence analysis, spatial fractal analysis, oscillation functions, polynomial and Marquardt nonlinear regression, Markov chains, and symbolic dynamics. The book outlines the analytic requirements faced by social scientists and how they differ from those of mathematicians and natural scientists. It includes chapters centered on theory and procedural explanations for running the analyses with pertinent examples and others that illustrate applications where a particular form of analysis is seen in the context of a research problem. This combination of approaches conveys theoretical and practical knowledge that helps you develop skill and expertise in framing hypotheses dynamically and building viable analytic models to test them. (shrink)

Despite their distinct objects of study, the human behavioral sciences all include models of individual human behavior. Unity in the behavioral sciences requires that there be a common underlying model of individual human behavior, specialized and enriched to meet the particular needs of each discipline. Such unity does not exist, and cannot be easily attained, since the various disciplines have incompatible models and disparate research methodologies. Yet recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for (...) unity in the behavioral sciences, incorporating core principles from all fields, and based upon theoretical tools (game theory and the rational actor model) and data gathering techniques (experimental games in the laboratory and field) that transcend disciplinary boundaries. This article sketches a set of principles aimed at fostering such a unity. Key Words: behavioral science • game theory • experimental economics • rational actor model. (shrink)