Editors’ Note

Abstract

Editors’ Note Craig R. Fox, Founding Co-Editor and Sim B Sitkin, Founding Co-Editor Welcome to the third issue of Behavioral Science & Policy (BSP). This issue includes a Spotlight Forum on prekindergarten (pre-K) education programs, an article on improving kindergarten through 12th grade school performance, and articles on health-related beliefs and habits. Given that BSP is still in its infancy, it is perhaps appropriate to focus this issue’s Spotlight on early childhood education and development programs. Ron Haskins, of the Brookings Institution, served as guest editor of this Spotlight section. He commissioned a terrific cluster of articles that examine the effectiveness of existing American early childhood interventions, including Head Start, state pre-K programs, and home visiting programs. These articles examine the extent to which pre-K interventions foster positive development and improve school readiness among children of low-income families, and they suggest ways in which these programs might be enhanced and better coordinated. Collectively, the spotlight articles provide a valuable, evidence-based road map for maximizing the potential of early childhood interventions. In particular, they call for improved theoretical conceptualization of how and why early childhood programs succeed, which is critical for driving programmatic innovations and enhancing methodology for measuring program effectiveness. Picking up after pre-K, an open contribution to this issue explores how policymakers might improve school performance in kindergarten through grade 12, drawing on insights from education and social psychology research. Brian Gill, Jennifer Lerner, and Paul Meosky observe that most school systems rely on an outcome-based form of accountability (notably, high-stakes testing), with mixed results. The authors identify three additional forms of accountability (rule based, market based, and professional) and review the evidence for their effectiveness in promoting school improvements. Ultimately, the authors recommend multiple complementary approaches. They propose that professional accountability shows the greatest promise for further development—for example, through greater classroom transparency, peer observation, coaching, and advanced teacher certification. This article is timely for American schools, as last year’s passage [End Page v] of the Every Student Succeeds Act by the U.S. Congress allows states greater latitude in designing their accountability policies. Finally, we include two articles that emerged from a 2015 workshop on health and well-being that was sponsored by the University of Southern California and cohosted by the Behavioral Science & Policy Association (BSPA). These articles highlight the importance of unconscious mental processes in driving health beliefs and behaviors. First, Wendy Wood and David Neal observe that although public health interventions have succeeded in increasing people’s knowledge of healthy behaviors and their intentions to engage in them, these programs typically fail to achieve sustained action by the public. The authors draw on behavioral research to identify keys to healthy habit formation that have produced sustained improvements in eating and exercising behaviors, especially when implemented together: repetition of desired behaviors, stable contextual cues to trigger habit performance, and intermittent rewards to reinforce these habits. The authors also provide keys to neutralizing unwanted habits. In a second article, Norbert Schwarz, Eryn Newman, and William Leach review how ease of cognitive processing influences the believability of facts and myths, such as the claimed link between vaccines and autism. They draw on these insights to suggest a number of policy approaches for making truthful public health information stick and harmful health myths fade. As always, we invite readers to contribute feedback to our editorial office so that we can improve future issues of BSP. We also encourage readers to engage with our parent organization, BSPA. This rapidly growing community consists of behavioral scientists, policy professionals, and other practitioners who have a shared interest in the thoughtful application of rigorous behavioral science research to policy and practice in ways that serve the public interest. In addition to joining BSPA, readers can sign up to receive our weekly and monthly roundups summarizing the latest news and developments in behavioral policy, and check out our PolicyShop blog that explores topics in greater depth. Readers can also engage with our community by attending a BSPA workshop or annual conference. Finally, we encourage you to volunteer time or resources to BSPA, which is a nonprofit, public benefit organization. Information...