Culture and capability: essays in behavioural economics

How do mental models guide behaviour? Although a great deal of attention has been paid to mental models in psychology, relatively little is understood about how they influence incentivised decision-making or their relevance for policy. In this dissertation, I explore this question over the course of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walsh, J
Other Authors: Collier, P
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2022
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Summary:How do mental models guide behaviour? Although a great deal of attention has been paid to mental models in psychology, relatively little is understood about how they influence incentivised decision-making or their relevance for policy. In this dissertation, I explore this question over the course of four papers. In the first paper, I synthesize the literature on mental models and aim to situate it in standard decision theory. In paper two, I look at how people use mental models of social groups to determine strategies of action under incentivized conditions. In paper three, I look at how unemployed young people’s mental model of their agency within the world influences their decisions to search for work. In paper four, I look at how mental models of technology influence vaccine hesitancy.