“Why do people choose the things they choose?” is a question faced by most professionals in today’s world. Whatever work you are doing, the end goal is up to a decision, which is often made by someone else. If you are a PhD student then you are worried about 2, maybe 3, decision makers. If you are a salesperson for a mid sized company, you might be thinking about a few hundred thousand people. For a policy maker, however, we are talking about millions of people with different backgrounds, ideas and philosophies.
This gets even more complicated when creating policies around poverty. Poverty imposes a cognitive tax, which leads to decision cycles that perpetuate further poverty. These decisions are a nightmare for policy makers. A nightmare that gets even worse when they try to solve it, as most behavioral data comes from institutions in middle class areas of the west — an environment facing a completely different set of challenges.
This is why Busara is insistent on setting up labs in the global south. Decision labs enable us to study human behavior through facilitating experimental research on choice making, social interaction and cognitive functioning. Basically, they are sets of interconnected computers all networked to a control computer to allow real time interaction amongst participants. This interaction can either be in individuals or in groups, depending on the type of lab and the type of experiment being run.
Poverty imposes a cognitive tax, which leads to decision cycles that perpetuate further poverty.
We currently have two labs in Nairobi where we have conducted over 200 studies since 2013. We have also held field lab sessions in several locations around the world from India, to Fiji, to Bungoma.
Here are a couple of lab types that we use:
- Stationary lab
2.Lab in the field
3.Mobile lab
Are you looking to set up your own decision lab? Here are a few things you will need to think about:
- Site scoping/Location — Is your location accessible to the target respondents? Do you have a legal permit to set up?
- Equipment — Can your hardware facilitate respondent interaction with economic games and surveys? Here is a basic list of equipment needed to set up any type of lab-:
✓ Desktops_stationary lab, tablets-mobile lab+lab in the field
✓ LAN network
✓ Server
✓ Partitioned cubicles
Additionally, there are other tools such as having a payment system for paying incentives, in Busara we use our Knowledge and Insights Tool for Experiments (KITE), a system for managing participants registration/recruitment and invitations, that can also be deployed remotely.
- Potential study group — Do you have a potential study group on areas of interest to measure and inform policy relevant to them?
- Appropriate Venue — Beyond location, does your venue satisfy the following characteristics?
✓ Spacious and well aerated — can at least fit 20 pax participants.
✓ A potential waiting area — for at least 30 participants.
✓ Sound proof and free of external distractions
✓ Painted with neutral colors
✓ Power backup system
✓ Accessible washrooms
Setting up a lab, typically, follows the path below
Finally, decision making, for the most part, is contextual. As such, the environment of your lab sets the context for whatever experiment you are running. To ensure this and additionally avoid external biases due to discomfort, you can make the lab atmosphere as comfortable as possible by ensuring the following-:
- Political good will — you can do this through a community entry drive, for example, it helps to inform administrative leadership of your presence in the area and getting the necessary permits.
- Reasonable incentive for participating — to cover respondents travel cost and time.
- Consent — It is of utmost important that participants consent to all parts of the experiment. This assures participants of privacy and being treated with respect, keeping the doors open in case you need to run further projects.
All in all, “Why do people choose the things they choose?” is a question that can be answered with the right set up and in the proper context.
