Hello! Long time no see. As of right now for my March SDA, I plan on applying the research I’ve done on Behavioral Economics so far this year into a new field: law and public policy. Last year with my somewhat similar topic of Moral Psychology, I created a pseudo-theory and attempted to explain echo chambers and its polarizing effects on social media—a theoretical and technological application, which may manifest itself in this March SDA again (though I’m not yet sure how).
Off the top of my head, this SDA seems like it lends itself easily to collaboration in our 5C’s, an objective I’m historically poor at. I could address an issue someone is trying to tackle in their project by attempting to write a law for their proposed argument and use Behavioral Economics concepts as justification, such as the anchoring effect, thought processes in our Systems 1 & 2, endowment effect, and more. The best person to collaborate with off the top of my head would probably be Rashmina, since she is trying to address the healthcare system. Compared to Sarah who is exploring alternative energy sources, I feel like Rashmina would be easier to work with because it seems like her topic directly involves more people, therefore individual human choice would be easier to observe. Richard Thaler, a famous Behavioral Economist, actually did something similar too and helped pass a law regarding worker’s salary and their retirement savings. He claimed this law fell under the idea of paternal libertarianism, which I could also investigate in this SDA since it involves the freedom of choice and how important it can be to humans.
Lastly, a technological theme could also be a possibility. Like Bott said, laws are always behind the forefront of technological advances so perhaps a law guided by Behavioral Economics could help lessen that gap. Perhaps this would make my SDA reminiscent of last year’s theory, however.
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