The Importance of Information and Beliefs

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Sally Kohn: I think information is merely one piece of that. Because there's a lot of other variables going on there besides information. One could be motivation, one could be beliefs about the self and another could be just things you can imagine. And so any stimulus, whether that that is like a piece of information or something else, it works by updating your mental models," she says.

Read the full transcript here.

Can giving people a sense of agency and dignity be better than giving them access to food, shelter, clothing, or cash? And what exactly can be done in practice to expand human agency? How does the value of agency-oriented interventions compare to the value of more tangible interventions? How robust are the findings about all of the above in light of the replication crisis? In general, how much confidence should we place (with or without the replication crisis) in the findings of social science research? How tight should the feedback loop be for organizations that do both research for and implementation of charitable interventions?

Richard Sedlmayr works with a private foundation called the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, where he funds research and innovation to promote pro-poor economic development. He is also involved in the setup of The Agency Fund, a philanthropic partnership investing in ideas and organizations that support people in the navigation of difficult lives. Richard's background is in behavioral, development, and financial economics, and he has a PhD in Public Policy from Oxford. Richard has lived in a dozen countries and is currently based in the Bay Area. You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn.

Staff