Bodies of Data challenges the promise of big data in knowing and organizing people by explicating how data are made and theorizing mismatches between actors, data, and institutions. Situated at a large public university in the United States that hosts approximately 30,000 undergraduate students, this research ethnographically traces the development and deployment of an app for student success that draws from traditional (demographic information, enrollment history, grade distributions) and non-traditional (WiFi network usage, card swipes, learning management systems) student data to anticipate the likelihood of graduation in a four-year period. The app, which offers an interface for students based on nudging, is the product of collaborations between actors who specialize in educational technology. As these actors manage the app, they must also interpret data against the students who generate those data, many of whom do not neatly mirror their data counterparts. The central question animating this research asks how the designers of the app create order—whether through material bodies that are knowable to data collection or reorganized demographic groupings—as they render students into data.<br><br>To address this question and investigate practices of making data, I conducted 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, using participant observation and interviewing with university administrators, data scientists, app developers, and undergraduate students. Through a theoretical approach informed by anthropology, science and technology studies, critical data studies, and feminist theory, I analyze how data and the institution make each other through the modeling of student bodies and reshaping of subjectivity. I leverage technical glitches—slippages between students and their data—and failure at large at the institution as analytics to both expose otherwise hidden processes of ordering and productively read failure as an opportunity for imagining what data could do. Predictive projects that derive from big data are increasingly common in higher education as institutions look to data to understand populations. Bodies of Data empirically provides evidence regarding how data are made through sociotechnical processes, in which data are not for understanding but for ordering. As universities look to big data to inform decision-making, the findings of this research contradict assumptions that data provide neutral and objective ways of knowing students.

Nudging är ett verktyg som används inom fler och fler områden. Så även inom re- kryteringsområdet där nudging bland annat nyttjas för att hjälpa rekryterande chefer att undvika vanliga fallgropar vid urvalsbedömningar och beslut. Uppsatsen granskar och analyserar Thaler &amp; Sunsteins definition av nudging, för att sedan undersöka om några utvalda nudingtekniker inom rekryteringsområdet med rätta kan kallas nud- ging enligt Thaler och Sunsteins definition, samt om de kan matchas in under Sunsteins tio viktigaste nudgingtekniker. Uppsatsen försöker identifiera vilket tanke- system nudgarna är tänkta påverka utifrån Kahnemans koncept om system 1 och sy- stem 2, samt om risken för fallgropar är mer förekommande under vissa delar under rekryteringsprocessen. Slutligen diskuteras om det föreligger en konflikt mellan nyttjande av nudging och statens krav på förtjänst och skicklighet som grund vid stat- lig anställning. Resultatet visar att de utvalda nudgarna i sju fall av åtta kunde kate- goriseras som nudgar enligt Thaler och Sunsteins definition, trots att rekryte- ringsnudgarna är framtagna för specifika tillämpningsområden. Definitionen skulle tjäna på en referens till kognitiva beteendebarriärer för att visa kopplingen till den beteendevetenskapliga grunden. Den skulle också tjäna på att tydligare koppla valar- kitekturen till en i tid närliggande valsituation. Forskningen pekar på att beslutsfat- tare faller offer för snabba system 1-beslut när de rekryterar, samt upplyser om hur detta kan undvikas; genom att antingen nudga system 1 att undvika vanliga fallgro- par eller genom att aktivera beslutsfattarens system 2, så att beslutsfattaren aktivt tänker igenom sina val. Endast tre av åtta valda nudgarna kunde matchas mot Sunste- ins tio viktigaste nudgingtekniker. Ingen konflikt eller etiskt dilemma identifierades i samband med användning av nudgar vid rekrytering i staten, då nudgarna syftar till att säkerställa att det är förtjänst och skicklighet som tillämpas vid urval och beslut. / Nudging is used in more and more situations to help people make better decisions. It is also used in the field of recruitment to help recruiting managers to avoid com- mon pitfalls when making decisions. This thesis reviews and analyses Thaler and Sunstein ́s definition on nudging, then examines whether a few selected nudging techniques qualify as nudging based on Thaler and Sunstein’s definition, criteria and tools, and if they can be matched with Sunstein ́s ten most important nudging tech- niques. The thesis seeks to identify which thought system the nudges are intended to influence based on Kahneman's concept of system 1 and system 2, as well as whether the risk of pitfalls is more prevalent during certain parts of the recruitment process. Finally, the thesis seeks to identify whether there is a conflict between the use of nudging and the state's requirement for merit and skill as the basis for state employment. Theresultsshowthatinsevencasesoutofeight,theselectednudges could be categorised as nudges according to Thaler and Sunstein's definition, even though the recruitment nods are designed for specific application areas. The defini- tion would benefit from a reference to cognitive behavioral barriers to make the connection to the behavioral science basis. It would also benefit from more clearly linking the choice architecture to the time of the decision situation. Research sug- gests that decision-makers fall victim to rapid system 1 decisions when recruiting and shed light on how to avoid it; either by nudging system 1 avoid pitfalls or by ac- tivating the decision maker's system 2, to make them actively think through their choices. Only three of the selected nudges could be matched against Sunstein's 10 most important nudging techniques. No conflict or ethical dilemma was identified in connection with the use of nudges in recruitment in the state, since the nudges aim to ensure that it is merit and skill that are the basis for all decisions.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka nudges utifrån dess design och psykologiskaeffekter för att skapa en förståelse för hur marknadsföringsmetoden nudging som växeralltmer, påverkar användares känslor, tankar och beteenden i valsituationer. Forskningsfrågorna för studien var 1) Vilken roll har design inom nudging? 2) Vilken psykologisk påverkan har nudging på användarna? 3) Vilken psykologisk påverkan har design på användarna? Studien är baserad på en kombination av en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ ansats som  tillämpats på 161 respondenter respektive 4 informanter. Först delades en surveyundersökning ut via sociala medierna Facebook, Instagram och Snapchat. Därefter tillhandahölls semistrukturerade, personliga intervjuer med två beteendedesigners samt två psykologer. Denna studie har utgått från teorierna; NUDGES, Teman för färgord som härledsav LDA-dual model, PAD - Emotionell tillståndsmodell, ABC-modellen av attityder,Platons tre funktioner av själen och Teorin om planerat beteende. Slutsatserna för studien är följande; 1) Design beaktas i dag endast som en del av designprocessen vid skapandet av nudgesnär det borde vara en utav grundpelarna för nudging. 2)Nudging påverkar användare psykologiskt genom att påverka de tre faktorernakänslor, tankar och beteenden. 3) Designs estetiska faktorer som färger, former och typsnitt påverkar användarnapsykologiskt genom känslor, tankar och beteenden. 4) I grund och botten är det inte nudgen som avgör beteendeförändringen när detkommer till att hålla avstånd i samband med Covid-19, utan det är den uppfattadebeteendekontrollen som styr användaren.

Legislation, economic incentives and informational campaigns are traditional tools of government used to exert its influence on citizens. More recently, other behavioral interventions called nudges and boosts have also come into usage to influence behavior. Nudges exploit faults in human decision making, pushing the individual in a direction of a specific choice, hence the name nudge. Boosts instead try to foster existing competences in the individual, effectivizing decision making while still preserving the individual’s own agency. Both nudges and boosts have proved to be cost-effective ways of influencing behavior, making them attractive alternatives to traditional behavioral interventions. An a priori way to investigate the effectiveness of behavioral interventions without their implementation is by measuring their acceptance. This thesis investigates the acceptance for nudges and boosts compared to traditional behavioral interventions when used in the domain of energy saving practices. The results show that acceptance differs greatly depending on which behavioral intervention is used, which energy saving domain the behavioral intervention is applied to, and to an extent the demographic characteristics of the individuals exposed to the behavioral intervention.

This thesis explores the impact of the city of Stockholm􏰀s 2015 Green Parking Rates guideline on transportation mode shift. The guidelines were established in hopes of nudging occupants of newly built residential developments towards a mode shift and in so doing, towards car-light, car- free and more sustainable living. This nudging is facilitated through the utilization of positive mobility services such as the offering of bike-share and car-share services to residents, in hopes of reducing their need and desire for private automobiles. As a result of incorporating positive mobility services, the development community receives a reduction on the parking spaces they are obligated to construct, which come at a high economic cost to the individual property developers, those purchasing or renting their units as well as society as a whole. Consequently, the guidelines are a meant to be a tool to help the city of Stockholm reduce congestion and meet their newest sustainability goals. This thesis explores the perspectives of the development community as well as the planning departments at the city of Stockholm through the conducting of a policy analysis as well as through 16 semi structured interviews and explores some of the successes and challenges in establishing a mode shift. However, due to the short time period since the establishment of the guidelines, the city of Stockholm nor the development community have conducted a comprehensive evaluation to assess the guidelines􏰀 utility in facilitating a mode shift. The thesis suggests that a more collaborative process pre, during and after the development of projects would better serve Stockholm and its development community in achieving its sustainability goals.

Social construction, social constructionism, and social constructivism are widely-discussed topics in the humanities and social sciences, particularly in fields such as gender studies, psychology, and economics. These terms refer to the idea that some objects and phenomena are created or controlled by social and cultural factors, rather than by natural causes. Examples of this include currency and laws, but even seemingly mundane objects such as the Christmas tree and the chair in our homes are dependent on social and cultural norms.The central motivation behind my research is to demonstrate that the objects around us are regulated by social norms, contrary to the belief that they have intrinsic or “natural” functions and meanings. In this thesis, I will examine product and furniture design from the perspective of social constructivism, and explore the designer’s role beyond physical form-giving.

This Doctoral thesis studies how nudges can help protect the environment. Three empirical and one theoretical studies investigate applications of green nudges and identify situations where they should, or should not, be used to promote environmental conservation. In Chapter 1, we explore the interplay between nudges and financial policy instruments using an incentivized online experiment that reproduces daily energy behaviors. We find that these two tools do not perform better when implemented together than individually. Our results suggest that in some situations, displacements between behavioral and financial policy tools are more likely to arise than synergies. Chapter 2 presents a field study in which a behavioral intervention is used to promote energy conservation in the workplace. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find a significant reduction in branches’ monthly consumption outside the work schedule only, but not on overall consumption. Our findings suggest that nudges that are effective in the household context do not necessarily prompt behavioral change in the working environment. In Chapter 3, we develop a behavioral model for the usage of in-home displays that provide real-time feedback on energy consumption, focusing on social housing. On top of the cost-benefit analysis between financial and moral utility, on the one hand, and the effort from using them, on the other hand, we add the role of cognitive biases. This study seeks to improve the design of behavioral policies aimed at tackling energy poverty. Chapter 4 presents an incentivized online experiment that studies moral cleansing in the interpersonal and environmental domains. We find that bad behaviors that impact others trigger costly moral cleansing, whereas those that impact the environment do not even trigger costless cleansing. This empirically shows that people perceive environmental issues differently from other moral issues.

Economic preferences are crucial in decision making. While some preferences remain stable, changes in economic preferences have been linked to institutional and policy changes. We conduct three studies to explore the ways in which decision making might be impacted by economic preferences and underlying or changing policies. Our studies span the domains of preventative healthcare, strategic interactions, and education. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between cooperative decision making and changes in societal level institutions through a meta-meta analysis, incorporating experimental data from various previously conducted meta-analyses. We study the relationship between country or region level policy changes, as measured by economic freedom indices to experimental measures of prosocial and selfish behavior. Our results indicate a relationship between macro-level institutional changes and measures of co-operative behavior that varies based on the starting levels of economic freedom variables. This establishes a relationship between macro policies and individual behavior that suggests that governments should consider the consequences of policies on individual decision making. Chapter 3, using vignette experiments, explores how emotion reappraisal messaging interventions affect betrayal aversion and vaccine hesitancy. The measure of betrayal aversion in our study involves hesitancy in risking being betrayed in situations involving trust related to vaccines. We find that betrayal aversion is prevalent in about a third of our study participants and that two of our messaging interventions substantially reduce betrayal aversion involving vaccination decisions. Our results suggests a targeted messaging strategy for addressing a recently discovered new component of vaccine hesitancy, an important current topic in preventative healthcare. Chapter 4, introduces an active learning intervention in the form of a field experiment involving a health intervention nudge and explores its impact on class engagement and education outcomes of students. In addition, we look at the impact of the nudge on vaccination uptake among students. We find improved class engagement as well as improvement in test scores for students who had the opportunity and chose to participate in the nudge experiment. In addition, we find greater uptake of influenza vaccination, as targeted by the nudge treatment. Our results show that this effect is driven by men, with women having higher vaccination rates irrespective of the nudge treatment. JEL codes: C91, H1, 01, P5, I12, D91, A22, C93 / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores how policy changes in our environment, interact with our preferences and affect decision making in social decision making, healthcare and education domains. We explore macro policies designed to create country-level institutional changes, involving the legal system, monetary policy, trade and labor policy, as well as examining two individual-level interventions including targeted messaging to improve vaccination uptake, and course performance in introductory economics. These wide variety of policy interventions give us a wide spectrum of decisions to study across different domains. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between policy changes at the macro-institutional level and aggregate cooperative decision making. In this study, we establish a relationship between baseline institutional structure and changes in cooperative behavior corresponding to changes in societal level institutions. Our results suggests that current and historic societal level institutional structures should be kept in mind when designing policies. Chapter 3 explores the effect of messaging treatments targeting emotions on uptake of vaccination using a vignette experiment. Here, we study the effects on a particular emotion, betrayal aversion, which in our study, involves hesitancy related to the risk of getting betrayed in the context of vaccination. Our results suggest that a targeted messaging strategy, might prove to be effective in designing policies to improve vaccination uptake. Chapter 4 explores the impact of an active learning approach on class engagement and education outcomes of students in introductory economics. Providing students the chance to participate in a field experiment designed as a vaccination nudge, we incorporate the active learning component of the course and study the impact of participation in this active learning module. Our results suggest improved engagement and education outcomes among students who had the opportunity to participate in the experiment. Our results also suggest that proximity nudges might prove to be effective in improving vaccination uptake. We demonstrate the importance of designing context-specific policies for them to be instrumental in bringing about targeted change. At the aggregate country level, we find that similar type of policy interventions when introduced in countries with differing baseline institutional structures might lead to different results. At the individual level, we find evidence that targeted interventions does shape decisions. We find that targeted health communications messaging can lead to improvement in health behavior. We also find that introducing active learning modules improves learning outcomes among students. Taken together, the findings in this dissertation demonstrates how both economic preferences and underlying policies are important factors in decision making.

There are few women in the highest levels of leadership in most industries, including higher education. This intrinsic case study provides insight into the leadership journeys of 15 female leaders at Brigham Young University, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four prevalent themes emerged about their leadership journeys. First, a leadership role was not part of the participant's life plan. The remaining three themes related to acceptance of a leadership role. Participants reported feeling nudged to consider a leadership role, feeling a sense of relational responsibility in accepting a leadership role, and receiving a spiritual confirmation that they should accept a leadership role. Many Latter-day Saint women are not actively thinking about or seeking leadership opportunities. Leaders at Brigham Young University can encourage women to consider and accept leadership roles by intentionally nudging women to recognize their potential, understanding how relational responsibility motivates women, and encouraging them to seek for spiritual confirmation.

no / A distinction between the deserving and undeserving has been in some respects a distinguishing, and in many others, divisive, feature of the social work profession. The apparent distinction has traditionally been drawn on the basis of ethical and moral appraisals of virtue and vice. This tradition has a much longer pedigree dating from antiquity in which considerations of personal desert were crucial, indeed decisive, in redistributive and retributive justice (Zaitchik 1977). Over the passage of time, moral authority has yielded more and more power to knowledge (Foucault, 1973). Rationality has superseded dogmatism, and the assessment of those eligible for welfare has been well honed. Although income and means tests form the official basis for distributing welfare, whether or not moral desert has been abandoned remains in question. However, how might desert be managed, if it does indeed continue to exert a powerful, albeit covert, influence on claims to state-provided or sponsored welfare? One possible answer to this question follows, first by noting the obvious, though, unappreciated importance of, desert, followed by a discussion of its integral relation to justice, and finally outlining how social work could use it as a normative force. / The full text may be made available on permission from the publisher.