Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Year of the grizzly: how 2021 conflicts might shape our perspectives on bears – Missoulian

Editor's note:

This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have comemoreinto focusin recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced byreporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

OVANDO - Which grizzly bear defined the summer of 2021?

Was it Monica, the aging sow on the northern edge of Glacier National Park who had to be killed by game wardens after she and her subadult cubs of the year went on garbage-raiding sprees at cabins along the North Fork of the Flathead River?

Or Felicia, an equally prolific female with cubs who became a traffic hazard on Togwotee Pass east of Grand Teton National Park, inspiring a posse of volunteer bear patrollers who tried to keep the peace between camera-slinging tourists and bears trying to make a living along a federal highway?

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Or was it the unnamed 4-year-old male grizzly that killed a bike-camper in her tent in Ovando, roughly halfway between Glacier and Grand Teton, in the middle of whats fast become one of the most contentious Endangered Species Act debate in the nation?

The July 6 mauling death of Leah Davis Lokan, 65, made international headlines.

To say the incident happened in downtown Ovando overstates the size of the ranching center along Highway 200 thats grown equally popular with trout anglers and long-distance bike tourists. But looking at where Lokan pitched her tent, a dozen feet from the Brand Bar Museum, next door to the post office and across the main street from a grocery, caf, and fly-fishing store, puts the attack squarely in the center of human habitat.

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Jamie Jonkel, a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife management specialist, helped search for the bear that was involved in the fatal Ovando mauling.

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Businesses in Ovando were open the day after the attack. The mauling remained a topic of discussion.

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State wildlife officials eventually matched DNA taken from a grizzly killed on July 9 to evidence from the fatal mauling in Ovando on July 6. The suspect grizzly had also raided two chicken coops in the Ovando area, and was killed by a federal Wildlife Services agent near one of the coops.

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One of five bear traps that was set up in Ovando shortly after the attack.

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Jamie Jonkel, a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife management specialist, helped search for the bear that was involved in the fatal Ovando mauling.

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Businesses in Ovando were open the day after the attack. The mauling remained a topic of discussion.

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State wildlife officials eventually matched DNA taken from a grizzly killed on July 9 to evidence from the fatal mauling in Ovando on July 6. The suspect grizzly had also raided two chicken coops in the Ovando area, and was killed by a federal Wildlife Services agent near one of the coops.

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One of five bear traps that was set up in Ovando shortly after the attack.

The details of the other two grizzlies, including the names Monica and Felicia, illustrate how humans have pushed the other way, into places grizzlies used to dominate. When Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery at the opening of the 19th century, an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears inhabited the Lower 48 States west of the 100th meridian the longitudinal line running roughly from North Dakota to Texas.

A dozen decades later, the bear emblazoned on the flag of California was nearly extinct throughout its natural range. Systematic destruction of its habitat and numbers, by ranchers, farmers and government agents, removed the grizzly bear from virtually every place except the preserves of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

Remarkably, the grizzlys attractiveness to tourists spared it from National Park Service predator culls. An 1895 Yellowstone superintendents report mentions the bears had increased notably after the U.S. Army put out garbage to feed them, while other bounty hunters were eradicating the wolves, mountain lions and coyotes in the park.

When the grizzly bear became the eighth animal given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, somewhat fewer than 600 individual bears remained between Canada and Mexico. Over the next 45 years, two numbers changed: Grizzly populations grew from 600 to an estimated 2,100 in the recovery zones of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. And humans in the same space expanded from 1.9 million to 3.4 million.

What didnt change was the size of the landscape. Put another way, people in the Rocky Mountain West went from 5.9 per square mile to 10.3 per square mile between 1975 and 2020. Grizzlies went from .002 to .006 per square mile.

Monica the North Fork grizzly was about 20 years old when Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks killed her and her three yearling cubs in early September. In her lifetime, annual visitation to Glacier National Parks Polebridge entrance went from 31,000 to 89,000, data shows.

While she often spent time near homes and was observed by residents, she did not cause conflicts that we knew about until the fall of 2018 when she had just two of her three yearlings with her, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Tim Manley noted in a report to the North Fork Preservation Association. The initial reports we had were that the family group had ripped into a yurt, damaged two vehicles, got into unsecured garbage and had pushed on a trailer.

Wardens captured Monicas two yearlings, who were suspected of causing the most trouble, and killed them. She gave birth to three more cubs in 2020, but had no reported conflicts. Things stayed quiet until this summer.

Manley said in late August, Monica and her triplet yearlings got into trouble all over the Polebridge vicinity. They knocked over barbecues, broke into improperly closed bear-resistant trash cans, pulled garbage out of a horse trailer, broke windows out of a pickup topper to get food, damaged a car that didnt have any food, and tore the wall out of a camper trailer to get a big food reward.

The sow and all three of her yearlings were captured and killed.

I have said it many times before, killing bears is the worst part of my job, Manley told the homeowners. We try to avoid having to do it, but when bears become very food-conditioned and start causing property damage and breaking into vehicles, trailers and cabins, those bears are removed.

Outside Grand Teton, the opposite problem developed. People wouldnt leave Felicia alone.

Wildlife biologists call the bear by her number, 863, which means she was the 863rd bear to be caught and affixed with a telemetry collar in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. On social media, she became Felicia.

Either way, the female with cubs wholikes to munch on grass and clover near Highway 26/287 in western Wyoming has become one of the most famous grizzly bears after fellow Grand Teton Bear 399. And her propensity to be near traffic and apparent nonchalance about hordes of people gathering to take pictures helped make her into a bit of a social media sensation. She also created a traffic hazard, according to Wyoming wildlife and law enforcement officials, not to mention the daily possibility that one of those photographers will inch just a little too close before everyone remembers too late that grizzly bears on the side of the road are still grizzly bears.

Wildlife watchers pull off along the side of U.S. Highway 26/287 east of Moran, Wyoming, to catch a glimpse of grizzly bear 863, known as Felicia.

Were trying to alter the bears behavior but also trying to fix peoples behavior, and thats where the big challenge is, said Dan Thompson, large carnivore section supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. From a human psychological standpoint its been fascinating to be involved with.

Draw a line about 25 miles to the south and the human behavior aspect of the story changes.

Ranchers say theyre struggling against an increasing number of grizzlies preying on their cattle. Problem grizzlies must be managed, and often lethally removed. Their ranching livelihoods depend on it. Conservation groups are suing to stop those killings, and leasing in general. Grizzlies and cattle dont mix, they say, among other things.

At the same time, new homeowners are buying houses and property, often sight unseen, throughout the stretch of land bordering Yellowstone National Park on any side. The buffer has long been a place where grizzlies could wander with minimal impact, with its human residents long-ago trained in the art of keeping food away from bears. Wildlife managers worry the flood of new residents may not be so bear wise, and that conflicts will only increase.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Highway Patrol and Forest Service tried placing flashing signs telling people not to stop on the side of the road. They threatened tickets to those standing in traffic, ignoring oncoming vehicles. Eventually, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to spend a couple of weeks hazing the female with cubs to make her leave the road and move further into the mountains.

Jack Bayles understands that some people behaved irresponsibly. Watchers started a live video stream from Togwotee Pass to alert anyone following them when she appeared. People from as far as Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah and Colorado came to the area, and some approached her and her cubs far too closely.

The grizzly sow known as Felicia and her cub of the year saunter down the highway onTogwotee Pass in 2019. A multi-agency effort has begun to haze the grizzly away from the roadside due to regular traffic jams.

But the best reaction wasnt to shoot the bear with rubber bullets and bean bags, he said. Instead, Bayles said he believes officials should have managed the human side of the situation.

They have no problem when that section is a parking lot in the weekend in the winter and people are dragging trailers 90 mph down icy roads, Bayles said. Its not the land of many uses, just the land of uses we approve of.

Bayles is one of countless guides in the Yellowstone region and across bear country stretching from Jackson to Katmai National Park in Alaska that take people out to watch bears and other wildlife. He started his business in 2015 with his wife, Gina, and named it Team 399 after the regions other famous bear.

The accidental ambassador of her species, she is representative of a new age in human wildlife relationships where coexistence and understanding are the new way, where a love of the wild is foremost in our hearts and minds, their website reads.

He wants to raise awareness for conservation issues. He wants to give back to the wild places and wild creatures that have given so much to us. He also knows that most people coming to Yellowstone or other areas with grizzly bears are there, at least in part, for the chance to see a grizzly bear.

Its the only place in the world where the common middle class person can see a grizzly bear in the wild, Bayles said. You could say over the course of our life, bear 399 is a billion-dollar bear to the Wyoming economy.

Grizzly bear No. 399 and her four cubs cross a road as Cindy Campbell stops traffic in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Nov. 17, 2020. Many people watched and followed the travels of the well-known 24-year-old bear and her cubs right up until they denned for the winter.

There is going to be conflict between bears and people, Thompson said. We will have to lethally remove grizzly bears for the greater good theres the potential for humans to be injured and even killed, and thats the reality of it. The notion of a future of bears and humans together without conflict is very nave.

As far as the future? I dont think its going to get any easier.

In Ovando, the future holds a lot of work.

While complete details surrounding the death of Lokan await the release of a Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Board of Review report, a big part of the small town was on the scene that night, trying to staunch the campers fatal wounds and wondering what had triggered the attack.

For many, it was a replay of The Night of the Grizzlies, the famous book chronicling the 1967 tragedy when two women in two separate campgrounds were attacked and killed by two separate grizzlies on the same night in Glacier National Park. At the time, resort managers in both Glacier and Yellowstone national parks deliberately left garbage out to attract grizzly bears for tourist viewing. Some Yellowstone hotels even set up bleachers to watch the evening show.

That food conditioning combined with growing popularity of backcountry camping put two 19-year-old hotel workers in the path of two predators in a place marketed and managed for recreation.

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Year of the grizzly: how 2021 conflicts might shape our perspectives on bears - Missoulian

Human Behavior

Coughing down toward the ground reduces the spread of COVID droplets, researchers say – WGNO New Orleans

WASHINGTON (StudyFinds.org) Feel a cough coming on? Look down, fast! Researchers say the best way to keep virus particles from spreading indoors this winter is to point our heads down when we feel the need to cough.

As more people head indoors during the winter months, how the public keeps COVID-19 droplets from spreading in tight, enclosed environments becomes vitally important. Previous studies show that coughs and sneezes spread viral aerosols up to six feet away and possibly even farther.

To see how human behavior can eitherhelp or hurt this flow, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences modeled how respiratory droplets react when people go up or walk down a flight of stairs.

Two different patterns of droplets dispersion are observed due to the different wake flows, reports researcher Hongping Wang in amedia release. These results suggest that we should cough with the head down toward the ground to ensure that most of the droplets enter the wake region.

Study authors used mannequins expelling white resin tosimulate coughsfrom people on stairs. They also positioned the mannequins to lean forward, in the way many people do while walking upstairs, and lean back like many do while walking down.

In a water tunnel, results revealed a wake forming around the bodies while they were in motion. This wake was able to sweep up coughing particles falling towards the ground. However, particles above the head were able to spread outover a relatively large area as if the particles were coming from the very top of the persons head.

For mannequins simulating people walking up the stairs, most of the particles stayed below the shoulder, moving downward over a short distance. For the mannequins simulating people walking down the stairs, more particles moved above the head and were able totravel farther through the air.

The major challenge is how to use particles in water to simulate the droplets in the air, Wang says. The most surprising part was that the particles higher than the head can travel a much longer distance than those particles lower than the head due to the induction of the wake flow.

The study is published in the journalAIP Advances.

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Coughing down toward the ground reduces the spread of COVID droplets, researchers say - WGNO New Orleans

Human Behavior

Letters to the editor Jan. 9 – Daily Inter Lake

Second Amendment

Dont let the anti-Second Amendment crowd distract you from the actual problem we face with violence here in the USA.

We dont just have a gun violence problem here in the United States of America we have a people violence problem. Whenever people are using guns, knives, baseball bats, hammers, sticks, stones, vehicles, explosives, or poison to kill each other, it is never the fault of the method, or inanimate object used. It is always due to the common denominator; criminal minded humans.

Humans are very ingenious when it comes to harming their fellow humans. Humans are also very ingenious at skirting the law when they are so inclined. It is extremely foolish to try and control human behavior by controlling the inanimate objects used to commit crimes. Humans have been harming each other since we first appeared on Earth and will continue to do so long after guns, etc. have been replaced with more potent weapons. At this point all object control laws will be obsolete, but behavior control laws will not.

A criminal mind set is a character flaw and that is what needs to be controlled. The motive for any criminal act is a perceived reward. Remove that reward and replace it with an unwanted consequence and the criminal will be discourage from doing it.

The severity of the unwanted consequence is not what stops criminal acts. It is the surety of that consequence that does it.

Lets put our thinking caps on and make sure each criminal act results in an appropriate unwanted consequence for the criminal and only the criminal.

Catch-and-release is not working and repeatedly writing ineffective laws against inanimate objects while expecting a different result is insane.

Gerald W Hurst, Marion

The Dec. 8 edition of the Inter Lake included a story entitled No Permit, No Problem, about Montana joining the growing number of states allowing constitutional carry of guns. Some proponents of the permitless carry bill argue that people needing protection quickly do not have time to take an eight-hour class or wait through the permitting process. I believe that by eliminating the requirement for gun owners to take classes and undergo background checks to carry a firearm, the likelihood increases that unhinged people with easy access to concealed firearms will put law enforcement and citizens at greater risk of harm.

For example, a Helena court recently sentenced a Montana man charged with felony assault with a weapon and two concealed weapons charges. Police alleged that he got into an altercation with employees at a Helena restaurant when he was asked to wear a mask. He reportedly threatened the restaurant manager and employees, at one point patting his handgun and saying, Im going to get you.

Montanas attorney general Austin Knudsen told the Lewis and Clark County prosecutor to dismiss the concealed carry charges. Although the district judge strongly disagreed with Knudsens decision, he reduced the sentence to disorderly conduct, a $100 misdemeanor charge.

As another example, a year-old Inter Lake article entitled Flathead Man with Long Criminal Record Gets Prison Time, a local man stole an unlocked truck containing a handgun. During three reported confrontations, he used the handgun to intimidate and threaten individuals. He was eventually spotted by Montana Highway Patrol and a high-speed chase ensued, some of it the wrong way down U.S. 93. HIs criminal record dates back 20 years. He is precisely the wrong person you want having easy access to firearms.

I believe that those who threaten violence when asked by restaurant staff to follow public safety rules or flee at high speeds armed with stolen guns pose a danger to all of us. Making guns accessible to all without background checks invites lawlessness and chaos. There is an old adage: when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. We have arrived at a place, the Wild West, where all of us have guns including the outlaws.

Joseph Biby, Kalispell

Just like the frog in slow boiling water who didnt notice the danger, we seem to be in a similar situation where things are consistently changing at every moment. But because the change is small, most of us fail to notice it.

The Epoch Times newspaper put out a series of articles on How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World.

The series explains: The specter of communism has been working for centuries to corrupt and destroy humanity. It began by crippling man spiritually, divorcing him from his divine origins. From here, the specter has led the peoples of the world to cast out their millennia-old cultural traditions that the divine had meticulously arranged as the proper standards for human existence.

The series explains how the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our family values, schools, universities, government, media, real estate every aspect of American life, bringing the U.S. into a chaotic state, and how it is causing the destruction of our beliefs. This series helps us to understand how we are being slowly manipulated into accepting communism. Also, this global pandemic could have been avoided if the CCP hadnt been deceitful and lied.

Katherine Combes, Kalispell

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Letters to the editor Jan. 9 - Daily Inter Lake

Human Behavior

Life in Our Foothills January 2022 – Mountain Page Theater – The Tryon Daily Bulletin – Tryon Daily Bulletin

Mountain Page Theater Local Stage and Creative Haven

Story and Photographs By Erin Boggs

If you want to escape the hustle and bustle of our modern life, one of the best ways to refocus is through creative pursuits. What better place to retreat than a little cabin in the woods of Saluda, N.C. known as Mountain Page Theater?

Whether a performer in the Theaters YAK Group (Young Acting Krew) or an audience member, you will feel a marked change in your mood as soon as you pull into your parking space. Handmade glass and metal sculptures surround the building, evoking childhood memories of characters from C.S. Lewiss The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lewis Carrolls Alice In Wonderland all at once. The sculptures, a whimsical, fantastical mix of animals, plants and everyday objects, were created and donated to the Theater by local artist Susan Cannon. At first sight you know you are about to enter a very special and creative place.

In fact, the entirety of the Theater is a donation. Everything from the building to the paint and dcor, the sound system, fireplace, lighting and stage, and even the snacks for the YAK crew and after school program held weekly, are all provided by Saluda community members. Warm colors and sights surround you as soon as you enter. A cozy hearth and kitchen welcoming actors and visitors alike immediately set one at ease.

The Mountain Page Community is the oldest settlement in Henderson County, where the headwaters of the Pacolet River flow into our foothills of South Carolina. The building was donated to the cause in 2018 by the Theaters very first patron Hilda Pace, and after extensive renovations by community members and professionals, Mountain Page Theater was established in 2020. Originally the building and land belonged to Hildas family and was the long-closed site of Mountain Page Community Center. The 13 actors who formed the original group in 2016, after Executive Director Corinne Gerwe posted a notice at the Post Office about starting up a theater troupe, rehearsed at several local venues before finding their permanent home in Mountain Page. Funded by profits made from plays and the YAK Concession Stand, along with donations of supplies and professional services, the work to breathe new life into the building began.

Executive Director Corinne Gerwe, an internationally known neuropsychologist, researcher, professor and author, designed the theater to be a haven for children in the community, where they can develop their creative talents in a safe, warm and inclusive environment. Her lifes work has focused on understanding how the experiences of childhood impact a persons entire life.

As a neuropsychologist, she has worked around the world with high-risk behavior individuals and addiction treatment. Corinne says, During the course of my work, I came to one startling revelation, that when I would investigate the life histories of most of my patients, it just seemed to me that this was where, during their childhood developmental period, their most damaging behavior stemmed from. It could have been averted if these children had been able to talk about what they experienced, or told someone, or at least had another outlet other than the dysfunction that they were caught in, or the abusive situation they were caught in, or whatever damage was done.

After realizing that only writing about it, or working in hospitals where funding was not available, or teaching about it at universities was not a sufficient way to effect the most change, Corinne decided the best way to combat this systemic dysfunction was to work directly with children in a positive and nurturing environment. Practicing many years as a clinician, writer and teacher, Corinne didnt realize at first that the theater would be the next iteration of her career. But when the original 13 young actors showed up, she says When I looked at those kids, I thought this is what Im supposed to do. This is it!

Corinne says I have come full-circle in fulfilling an early childhood desire to live an artistic life, and as a writer I wanted to develop intriguing characters and stories based on what I had learned about human behavior and its extraordinary variations and motivations. Ive always been interested in theater and Im a big fan of anything in the arts. I always thought thats what I should have done, but I was led in that other direction. Now after living for over thirty years in Saluda, Corinne is able to realize her true gifts and brings her invaluable experience to help children and families in the community through the Theater.

Besides directing the YAK Group, Corinne also hosts an after-school program at the Theater on Thursdays for children K-5. She hopes to expand the program to Saturdays as well, with the parents also participating on that day.

The YAK troupe performed a musical play for Christmas, Scrooge, which included members of the Theaters adult player group. The performances on December 17th and 18th, were from an adaptation of the play by Corinne from Charles Dickens original, and she added songs from various Scrooge musicals that have been done through the years, as well as a song that has never been done in any performance of Scrooge.

Formerly from Los Angeles and now a Saluda resident, television, movie and stage actor Gerard Prendergast brought all his experience with childrens theater and donates his time and expertise to the group. Now the Theaters Director, Gerard played Scrooge in the December performances. A big fan of classic radio, Gerard also provided the idea for the troupes performance earlier this year of an on-stage old time radio show featuring Westerns Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger, with the stage set up like the studios from the Golden Age of Radio, complete with vintage microphones and sound effects. The next radio shows will begin this month and will include suspenseful Sherlock Holmes, then comedy by George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Richard Rutherford, also formerly from L.A. and now a Saluda resident, lives within walking distance of the theater and created the state of the art stage, donated the sound system, and handles all the sound and lighting for the Theater. Local electrician Chad Blotner has given many of his weekends to install all the electrical work. Singer and Songwriter Dan Foster from Atlanta also supports the troupe, writing original songs about the Saluda area.

On November 12th and 13th, the Theater hosted Dacre C. Stoker for the event Stoker on Stoker, the Mysteries Behind the Writing of Dracula. Mr. Stoker is an author and the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. The performance featured dramatic readings by Gerard Prendergast and Susan Theodosia Parke, and details all the behind the scenes research and never published text and photographs, a true delight for Dracula fans and scholars around the world.

If you are interested in tickets for any of the upcoming performances mentioned here, learning more about the Theater, or becoming a volunteer or actor in the troupe, you may contact the Mountain Page Theater at: https://mountainpage.theater https://m.facebook.com/groups/792646134782145/

Phone: 828-749-4803

Address: 1303 Mountain Page Rd, Saluda N.C. 28773

For further reading about Corinne Gerwe and her written and professional work, you may visit her website at: https://corinnefgerwe.com

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Life in Our Foothills January 2022 - Mountain Page Theater - The Tryon Daily Bulletin - Tryon Daily Bulletin

Human Behavior

Comment: Closing schools won’t halt omicron; it will hurt kids | HeraldNet.com – The Daily Herald

By Westyn Branch-Elliman, Elissa Schechter-Perkins and Shira Doron / Special To The Washington Post

With the omicron variant raging across the country, school systems are again shutting down in-person learning as communities grope for ways to protect school staff and ease the strain on overburdened hospitals. Just this week, schools in Chicago and parts of metropolitan Washington, D.C., announced they would move temporarily to remote learning, and more are likely to head in this direction as cases of covid-19 continue to mount.

This approach is rooted in misunderstandings about how viruses spread and a refusal to acknowledge what we have learned two years into the coronavirus pandemic. We have ample evidence that closing schools is not an effective way to contain the virus and is, in fact, harmful to children. We have better ways of keeping the community safe than robbing children of valuable in-school learning.

Consider first what we know about the coronavirus, including the omicron variant. Cases in the United States started skyrocketing over the holidays, while children were home for the winter break and not in school. This is due to the properties of the virus, specifically omicrons higher contagiousness compared with earlier variants and its ability to infect vaccinated people. This is also because of human behavior: People traveled around and gathered indoors for the holidays.

We also know from many studies from the United States and around the world that schools are not major drivers of community spread. A study published in October in the journal Nature Medicine found that, in the 12 weeks after schools reopened in 2020, there were no significant increases in hospitalizations or deaths in surrounding communities.

One reason for this is that the alternative to in-person schooling is not a perfect lockdown; people continue to mix and socialize, and most transmission occurs at home and in social settings, among family and friends when people let their guard down. Schools, on the other hand, are relatively controlled environments, where mitigation measures can be implemented and monitored.

Parents who cannot send their kids to school are forced to find other child care options, which may lead to more mixing and less consistent use of mitigation measures. And other businesses like indoor restaurants and large sports venues where people who do not usually interact gather together and where mitigation measures such as masking cannot be enforced remain open. For all these reasons, kids will get covid-19, whether schools are open or closed.

Another factor to consider is that we have powerful vaccines that dramatically reduce the risk of severe disease. These are widely available for school-age children, ages 5 and older, as well as adults. Many people have access to additional doses that bolster their protection against the worst outcomes. Additionally, although the case numbers are reaching record highs, a glimmer of hope is that omicron appears to cause milder disease, possibly because of mutations that render it less able to infect lung cells.

If in-person learning is not driving the exponential rise in cases or increase in hospitalization rates, then switching to remote learning clearly wont succeed in relieving the strain on the health care system. It might even worsen it.

Schools are not islands; they exist as part of a larger, interconnected community and system. The entire complex community network, including the health care system, relies on open schools to function. More than 4.6 million health care workers are parents of children under the age of 14, according to the Center for American Progress. Many of these health care workers are women, who are responsible for the majority of child care in our society. Hospitals are already struggling with staff shortages and are on the verge of implementing crisis-level staffing to stay afloat. Closing schools will only exacerbate this strain; school closures may mean that at least some of the 30 percent of health care workers who are also parents of young children will stay home to take care of their children, worsening the health care staffing and burnout crisis.

Schools unlike some other businesses are essential, both for children and for working parents. We also know that remote school is a failed experiment; children have suffered learning loss, behavioral challenges abound, and the surgeon general has declared a pediatric mental health crisis.

Nevertheless, schools are closing. And in many of the districts that have not, unscientific and, in some cases, harmful mitigation measures are being implemented, such as silent lunches, instructions to pull masks down only to take bites and then pull it back up to chew, and keeping all doors and windows open in frigid environments.

Living in a constant state of fear and stress is harmful to kids. So why are school leaders doing this, at a time when children need these forms of human connection and normalcy more than ever to help alleviate so much of the damage already done? School leaders may be responding to the fear that staff and families are communicating to them, but fear-based decision-making is not appropriate at this stage of the pandemic. We now know much more than we did about how to maintain safety in school settings and about the harms we are inflicting with school closures.

The pressure on school leaders to act is understandable. Rising cases are often publicized on district dashboards, and leaders are worried they will be accused of making unsafe choices. But the reality is that doing something is not always better than doing nothing; and many of these measures undertaken out of an abundance of caution do more harm than good. The unfortunate reality is that the virus is here to stay, and there will always be another variant. The time is now to commit to putting the best interests of children first.

The other unfortunate reality is that schools across the country may be forced to close because of unsafe staffing ratios when staff members with covid-19 need to isolate. With community case rates as high as they are, some closures are inevitable. However, these closures are of practical necessity, and need to be temporary and short-lived, rather than pandemic-control policy.

Two years ago, those calling for school closures could argue that we didnt know what the impact might be. But now we do; and they are severe. School closures are not an effective measure for controlling spread, they hurt children, and they limit our ability to keep the hospitals open. Theres no justification for putting these policy options back on the table.

Westyn Branch-Elliman is an infectious diseases specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Elissa Schechter-Perkins is vice chair of research in the department of emergency medicine at Boston Medical Center and associate professor of emergency medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Shira Doron is an infectious-disease physician and the hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. She is an associate professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

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Comment: Closing schools won't halt omicron; it will hurt kids | HeraldNet.com - The Daily Herald

Human Behavior

The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains – pnas.org

Significance

Changing individuals behavior is key to tackling some of todays most pressing societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic or climate change. Choice architecture interventions aim to nudge people toward personally and socially desirable behavior through the design of choice environments. Although increasingly popular, little is known about the overall effectiveness of choice architecture interventions and the conditions under which they facilitate behavior change. Here we quantitatively review over a decade of research, showing that choice architecture interventions successfully promote behavior change across key behavioral domains, populations, and locations. Our findings offer insights into the effects of choice architecture and provide guidelines for behaviorally informed policy making.

Over the past decade, choice architecture interventions or so-called nudges have received widespread attention from both researchers and policy makers. Built on insights from the behavioral sciences, this class of behavioral interventions focuses on the design of choice environments that facilitate personally and socially desirable decisions without restricting people in their freedom of choice. Drawing on more than 200 studies reporting over 450 effect sizes (n = 2,149,683), we present a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions across techniques, behavioral domains, and contextual study characteristics. Our results show that choice architecture interventions overall promote behavior change with a small to medium effect size of Cohens d = 0.45 (95% CI [0.39, 0.52]). In addition, we find that the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions varies significantly as a function of technique and domain. Across behavioral domains, interventions that target the organization and structure of choice alternatives (decision structure) consistently outperform interventions that focus on the description of alternatives (decision information) or the reinforcement of behavioral intentions (decision assistance). Food choices are particularly responsive to choice architecture interventions, with effect sizes up to 2.5 times larger than those in other behavioral domains. Overall, choice architecture interventions affect behavior relatively independently of contextual study characteristics such as the geographical location or the target population of the intervention. Our analysis further reveals a moderate publication bias toward positive results in the literature. We end with a discussion of the implications of our findings for theory and behaviorally informed policy making.

Many of todays most pressing societal challenges such as the successful navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic or the mitigation of climate change call for substantial changes in individuals behavior. Whereas microeconomic and psychological approaches based on rational agent models have traditionally dominated the discussion about how to achieve behavior change, the release of Thaler and Sunsteins book NudgeImproving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (1) widely introduced a complementary intervention approach known as choice architecture or nudging, which aims to change behavior by (re)designing the physical, social, or psychological environment in which people make decisions while preserving their freedom of choice (2). Since the publication of the first edition of Thaler and Sunstein (1) in 2008, choice architecture interventions have seen an immense increase in popularity (Fig. 1). However, little is known about their overall effectiveness and the conditions under which they facilitate behavior changea gap the present meta-analysis aims to address by analyzing the effects of the most widely used choice architecture techniques across key behavioral domains and contextual study characteristics.

Number of citations of Thaler and Sunstein (1) between 2008 and 2020. Counts are based on citation search in Web of Science.

Traditional microeconomic intervention approaches are often built around a rational agent model of decision making, which assumes that people base their decisions on known and consistent preferences that aim to maximize the utility, or value, of their actions. In determining their preferences, people are thought to engage in an exhaustive analysis of the probabilities and potential costs and benefits of all available options to identify which option provides the highest expected utility and is thus the most favorable (3). Interventions aiming to change behavior are accordingly designed to increase the utility of the desired option, either by educating people about the existing costs and benefits of a certain behavior or by creating entirely new incentive structures by means of subsidies, tax credits, fines, or similar economic measures. Likewise, traditional psychological intervention approaches explain behavior as the result of a deliberate decision making process that weighs and integrates internal representations of peoples belief structures, values, attitudes, and norms (4, 5). Interventions accordingly focus on measures such as information campaigns that aim to shift behavior through changes in peoples beliefs or attitudes (6).

Over the past years, intervention approaches informed by research in the behavioral sciences have emerged as a complement to rational agent-based approaches. They draw on an alternative model of decision making which acknowledges that people are bounded in their ability to make rational decisions. Rooted in dual-process theories of cognition and information processing (7), this model recognizes that human behavior is not always driven by the elaborate and rational thought processes assumed by the rational agent model but instead often relies on automatic and computationally less intensive forms of decision making that allow people to navigate the demands of everyday life in the face of limited time, available information, and computational power (8, 9). Boundedly rational decision makers often construct their preferences ad hoc based on cognitive shortcuts and biases, which makes them susceptible to supposedly irrational contextual influences, such as the way in which information is presented or structured (1012). This susceptibility to contextual factors, while seemingly detrimental to decision making, has been identified as a promising lever for behavior change because it offers the opportunity to influence peoples decisions through simple changes in the so-called choice architecture that defines the physical, social, and psychological context in which decisions are made (2). Rather than relying on education or significant economic incentives, choice architecture interventions aim to guide people toward personally and socially desirable behavior by designing environments that anticipate and integrate peoples limitations in decision making to facilitate access to decision-relevant information, support the evaluation and comparison of available choice alternatives, or reinforce previously formed behavioral intentions (13) (see Table 1 for an overview of intervention techniques based on choice architecture*).

Taxonomy of choice architecture categories and intervention techniques

Unlike the assumption of the rational agent model, people rarely have access to all relevant information when making a decision. Instead, they tend to base their decisions on information that is directly available to them at the moment of the decision (14, 15) and to discount or even ignore information that is too complex or meaningless to them (16, 17). Choice architecture interventions based on the provision of decision information aim to facilitate access to decision-relevant information by increasing its availability, comprehensibility, and/or personal relevance to the decision maker. One way to achieve this is to provide social reference information that reduces the ambiguity of a situation and helps overcome uncertainty about appropriate behavioral responses. In a natural field experiment with more than 600,000 US households, for instance, Allcott (18) demonstrated the effectiveness of descriptive social norms in promoting energy conservation. Specifically, the study showed that households which regularly received a letter comparing their own energy consumption to that of similar neighbors reduced their consumption by an average of 2%. This effect was estimated to be equivalent to that of a short-term electricity price increase of 11 to 20%. Other examples of decision information interventions include measures that increase the visibility of otherwise covert information (e.g., feedback devices and nutrition labels; refs. 19, 20), or that translate existing descriptions of choice options into more comprehensible or relevant information (e.g., through simplifying or reframing information; ref. 21).

Not only do people have limited access to decision-relevant information, but they often refrain from engaging in the elaborate cost-benefit analyses assumed by the rational agent model to evaluate and compare the expected utility of all choice options. Instead, they use contextual cues about the way in which choice alternatives are organized and structured within the decision environment to inform their behavior. Choice architecture interventions built around changes in the decision structure utilize this context dependency to influence behavior through the arrangement of choice alternatives or the format of decision making. One of the most prominent examples of this intervention approach is choice default, or the preselection of an option that is imposed if no active choice is made. In a study comparing organ donation policies across European countries, Johnson and Goldstein (22) demonstrated the impact of defaults on even highly consequential decisions, showing that in countries with presumed consent laws, which by default register individuals as organ donors, the rate of donor registrations was nearly 60 percentage points higher than in countries with explicit consent laws, which require individuals to formally agree to becoming an organ donor. Other examples of decision structure interventions include changes in the effort related to choosing an option (23), the range or composition of options (24), and the consequences attached to options (25).

Even if people make a deliberate and potentially rational decision to change their behavior, limited attentional capacities and a lack of self-control may prevent this decision from actually translating into the desired actions, a phenomenon described as the intentionbehavior gap (26). Choice architecture interventions that provide measures of decision assistance aim to bridge the intentionbehavior gap by reinforcing self-regulation. One example of this intervention approach are commitment devices, which are designed to strengthen self-control by removing psychological barriers such as procrastination and intertemporal discounting that often stand in the way of successful behavior change. Thaler and Benartzi (27) demonstrated the effectiveness of such commitment devices in a large-scale field study of the Save More Tomorrow program, showing that employees increased their average saving rates from 3.5 to 13.6% when committing in advance to allocating parts of their future salary increases toward retirement savings. If applied across the United States, this program was estimated to increase the total of annual retirement contributions by approximately $25 billion for each 1% increase in saving rates. Other examples of decision assistance interventions are reminders, which affect decision making by increasing the salience of the intended behavior (28).

Despite the growing interest in choice architecture, only a few attempts have been made to quantitatively integrate the empirical evidence on its effectiveness as a behavior change tool (2932). Previous studies have mostly been restricted to the analysis of a single choice architecture technique (3335) or a specific behavioral domain (3639), leaving important questions unanswered, including how effective choice architecture interventions overall are in changing behavior and whether there are systematic differences across choice architecture techniques and behavioral domains that so far may have remained undetected and that may offer new insights into the psychological mechanisms that drive choice architecture interventions.

The aim of the present meta-analysis was to address these questions by first quantifying the overall effect of choice architecture interventions on behavior and then providing a systematic comparison of choice architecture interventions across different techniques, behavioral domains, and contextual study characteristics to answer 1) whether some choice architecture techniques are more effective in changing behavior than others, 2) whether some behavioral domains are more receptive to the effects of choice architecture interventions than others, 3) whether choice architecture techniques differ in their effectiveness across varying behavioral domains, and finally, 4) whether the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions is impacted by contextual study characteristics such as the location or target population of the intervention. Drawing on an exhaustive literature search that yielded more than 200 published and unpublished studies, this comprehensive analysis presents important insights into the effects and potential boundary conditions of choice architecture interventions and provides an evidence-based guideline for selecting behaviorally informed intervention measures.

Our meta-analysis of 455 effect sizes from 214 publications (N = 2, 149, 683) revealed a statistically significant effect of choice architecture interventions on behavior (Cohens d=0.45, 95% CI [0.39, 0.52], t(340)=14.38, P < 0.001) (Fig. 2). Using conventional criteria, this effect can be classified to be of small to medium size (40). The effect size was reliable across several robustness checks, including the removal of influential outliers, which marginally decreased the overall size of the effect but did not change its statistical significance (d=0.42, 95% CI [0.37, 0.46], t(338)=17.06, P < 0.001). Additional leave-one-out analyses at the individual effect size level and the publication level found the effect of choice architecture interventions to be robust to the exclusion of any one effect size and publication, with d ranging from 0.43 to 0.46 and all P < 0.001.

Forest plot of all effect sizes (k = 455) included in the meta-analysis with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Extracted Cohens d values ranged from 0.69 to 4.69. The proportion of true to total variance was estimated at I2 = 99.67%. ***P<0.001.

The total heterogeneity was estimated to be 2=0.23, indicating considerable variability in the effect size of choice architecture interventions. More specifically, the dispersion of effect sizes suggests that while the majority of choice architecture interventions will successfully promote the desired behavior change with a small to large effect size, 15% of interventions are likely to backfire, i.e., reduce or even reverse the desired behavior, with a small to medium effect (95% prediction interval [0.48, 1.39]) (4042).

Visual inspection of the relation between effect sizes and their corresponding SEs (Fig. 3) revealed an asymmetric distribution that suggested a one-tailed overrepresentation of positive effect sizes in studies with comparatively low statistical power (43). This finding was formally confirmed by Eggers test (44), which found a positive association between effect sizes and SEs (b=2.28, 95% CI [1.31, 3.25], t(339)=4.61, P < 0.001). Together, these results point to a publication bias in the literature that may favor the reporting of successful as opposed to unsuccessful implementations of choice architecture interventions in studies with small sample sizes. Sensitivity analyses imposing a priori weight functions on a simplified random effects model suggested that this one-tailed publication bias could have potentially affected the estimate of our meta-analytic model (43). Assuming a moderate one-tailed publication bias in the literature attenuated the overall effect size of choice architecture interventions by 26.79% from Cohens d = 0.42, 95% CI [0.37, 0.46], and 2=0.20 (SE=0.02) to d=0.31 and 2=0.23. Assuming a severe one-tailed publication bias attenuated the overall effect size even further to d=0.03 and 2=0.34; however, this assumption was only partially supported by the funnel plot. Although our general conclusion about the effects of choice architecture interventions on behavior remains the same in the light of these findings, the true effect size of interventions is likely to be smaller than estimated by our meta-analytic model due to the overrepresentation of positive effect sizes in our sample.

Funnel plot displaying each observation as a function of its effect size and SE. In the absence of publication bias, observations should scatter symmetrically around the pooled effect size indicated by the gray vertical line and within the boundaries of the 95% confidence intervals shaded in white. The asymmetric distribution shown here indicates a one-tailed publication bias in the literature that favors the reporting of successful implementations of choice architecture interventions in studies with small sample sizes.

Supported by the high heterogeneity among effect sizes, we next tested the extent to which the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions was moderated by the type of intervention, the behavioral domain in which it was implemented, and contextual study characteristics.

Our first analysis focused on identifying potential differences between the effect sizes of decision information, decision structure, and decision assistance interventions. This analysis found that intervention category indeed moderated the effect of choice architecture interventions on behavior (F(3,337)=9.79, P < 0.001). With average effect sizes ranging from d=0.31 to 0.55, interventions across all three categories were effective in inducing statistically significant behavior change (all P<0.001; Fig. 4). Planned contrasts between categories, however, revealed that interventions in the decision structure category had a stronger effect on behavior compared to interventions in the decision information (b = 0.17, 95% CI [0.03, 0.31], t(337)=2.32, P = 0.02) and the decision assistance category (b=0.24, 95% CI [0.11, 0.36], t(337)=3.79, P < 0.001). No difference was found in the effectiveness of decision information and decision assistance interventions (b=0.07, 95% CI [0.19,0.05], t(337)=1.16, P = 0.25). Including intervention category as a moderator in our meta-analytic model marginally reduced the proportion of true to total variability in effect sizes from I2=99.67% to I2=99.57% (I(3)2=92.44%; I(2)2=7.13%; SI Appendix, Table S3).

Forest plot of effect sizes across categories of choice architecture intervention techniques (see Table 1 for more detailed description of techniques). The position of squares on the x axis indicates the effect size of each respective intervention technique. Bars indicate the 95% confidence intervals of effect sizes. The size of squares is inversely proportional to the SE of effect sizes. Diamond shapes indicate the average effect size and confidence intervals of intervention categories. The solid line represents an effect size of Cohens d = 0. The dotted line represents the overall effect size of choice architecture interventions, Cohens d = 0.45, 95% CI [0.39, 0.52]. Identical letter superscripts indicate statistically significant (P < 0.05) pairwise comparisons.

To test whether the effect sizes of the three intervention categories adequately represented differences on the underlying level of choice architecture techniques, we reran our analysis with intervention technique rather than category as the key moderator. As illustrated in Fig. 4, each of the nine intervention techniques was effective in inducing behavior change, with Cohens d ranging from 0.30 to 0.62 (all P < 0.01). Within intervention categories, techniques were generally consistent in their effect sizes (for all contrasts, P > 0.05). Between categories, however, techniques showed in parts substantial differences in effect sizes. In line with the previously reported results, techniques within the decision structure category were consistently stronger in their effects on behavior than intervention techniques within the decision information or the decision assistance category. The observed effect size differences between the decision information, the decision structure, and the decision assistance category were thus unlikely to be driven by a single intervention technique but rather representative of the entire set of techniques within those categories.

Following our analysis of the effectiveness of varying types of choice architecture interventions, we next focused on identifying potential differences among the behavioral domains in which interventions were implemented. As illustrated in Fig. 5, effect sizes varied quite substantially across domains, with Cohens d ranging from 0.25 to 0.72. Our analysis confirmed that the effectiveness of interventions was moderated by domain (F(6,334)=4.62, P < 0.001). Specifically, it showed that choice architecture interventions, while generally effective in inducing behavior change across all six domains, had a particularly strong effect on behavior in the food domain, with d=0.72 (95% CI [0.49, 0.95]). No other domain showed comparably large effect sizes (for all contrasts, P < 0.05). The smallest effects were observed in the financial domain. With an average intervention effect of d = 0.25 (95% CI [0.12, 0.37]), this domain was less receptive to choice architecture interventions than the other behavioral domains we investigated. Introducing behavioral domain as a moderator in our meta-analytic model marginally reduced the ratio of true to total heterogeneity among effect sizes from I2=99.67% to I2=99.58% (I(3)2=94.56%; I(2)2=5.02%; SI Appendix, Table S3).

Forest plot of effect sizes across categories of choice architecture interventions and behavioral domains. The position of squares on the x axis indicates the effect size of each intervention category within a behavioral domain. Bars indicate the 95% confidence intervals of effect sizes. The size of squares is inversely proportional to the SE of effect sizes. Diamond shapes indicate the overall effect size and confidence intervals of choice architecture interventions within a behavioral domain. The solid line represents an effect size of Cohens d = 0. The dotted line represents the overall effect size of choice architecture interventions, Cohens d = 0.45, 95% CI [0.39, 0.52]. Identical letter superscripts indicate statistically significant (P < 0.05) pairwise comparisons.

Comparing the effectiveness of decision information, decision structure, and decision assistance interventions across domains consistently showed interventions within the decision structure category to have the largest effect on behavior, with Cohens d ranging from 0.33 to 0.86 (Fig. 5). This result suggests that the observed effect size differences between the three categories of choice architecture interventions were relatively stable and independent from the behavioral domain in which interventions were applied. Including the interaction of intervention category and behavioral domain in our meta-analytic model reduced the proportion of true to total effect size variability from I2=99.67% to I2=99.52% (I(3)2=91.86%; I(2)2=7.67%; SI Appendix, Table S3).

Last, we were interested in the extent to which the effect size of choice architecture interventions was moderated by contextual study characteristics, such as the location of the intervention (inside vs. outside of the United States), the target population of the intervention (adults vs. children and adolescents), the experimental setting in which the intervention was investigated (conventional laboratory experiment, artifactual field experiment, framed field experiment, or natural field experiment; ref. 45), and the year in which the data were published. As can be seen in Table 2, choice architecture interventions affected behavior relatively independently of contextual influences since neither location nor target population had a statistically significant impact on the effect size of interventions. In support of the external validity of behavioral measures, our analysis moreover did not find any difference in the effect size of different types of experiments. Only year of publication predicted the effect of interventions on behavior, with more recent publications reporting smaller effect sizes than older publications.

Parameter estimates of three-level meta-analytic models showing the overall effect size of choice architecture interventions as well as effect sizes across categories, techniques, behavioral domains, and contextual study characteristics

Changing individuals behavior is key to solving some of todays most pressing societal challenges. However, how can this behavior change be achieved? Recently, more and more researchers and policy makers have approached this question through the use of choice architecture interventions. The present meta-analysis integrates over a decades worth of research to shed light on the effectiveness of choice architecture and the conditions under which it facilitates behavior change. Our results show that choice architecture interventions promote behavior change with a small to medium effect size of Cohens d = 0.45, which is comparable to more traditional intervention approaches like education campaigns or financial incentives (4648). Our findings are largely consistent with those of previous analyses that investigated the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions in a smaller subset of the literature (e.g., refs. 29, 30, 32, 33). In their recent meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across academic disciplines, Beshears and Kosowksy (30), for example, found that choice architecture interventions had an average effect size of d=0.41. Similarly, focusing on one choice architecture technique only, Jachimowicz et al. (33) found that choice defaults had an average effect size of d=0.68, which is slightly higher than the effect size our analysis revealed for this intervention technique (d = 0.62). Our results suggest a somewhat higher overall effectiveness of choice architecture interventions than meta-analyses that have focused exclusively on field experimental research (31, 37), a discrepancy that holds even when accounting for differences between experimental settings (45). This inconsistency in findings may in part be explained by differences in metaanalytic samples. Only 7% of the studies analyzed by DellaVigna and Linos (31), for example, meet the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria of the present meta-analysis. Among others, these criteria excluded studies that combined multiple choice architecture techniques. While this restriction allowed us to isolate the unique effect of each individual intervention technique, it may conflict with the reality of field experimental research that often requires researchers to leverage the effects of several choice architecture techniques to address the specific behavioral challenge at hand (see Materials and Methods for details on the literature search process and inclusion criteria). Similarly, the techniques that are available to field experimental researchers may not always align with the underlying psychological barriers to the target behavior (Table 1), decreasing their effectiveness in encouraging the desired behavior change.

Not only does choice architecture facilitate behavior change, but according to our results, it does so across a wide range of behavioral domains, population segments, and geographical locations. In contrast to theoretical and empirical work challenging its effectiveness (4951), choice architecture constitutes a versatile intervention approach that lends itself as an effective behavior change tool across many contexts and policy areas. Although the present meta-analysis focuses on studies that tested the effects of choice architecture alone, the applicability of choice architecture is not restricted to stand-alone interventions but extends to hybrid policy measures that use choice architecture as a complement to more traditional intervention approaches (52). Previous research, for example, has shown that the impact of economic interventions such as taxes or financial incentives can be enhanced through choice architecture (5355).

In addition to the overall effect size of choice architecture interventions, our systematic comparison of interventions across different techniques, behavioral domains, and contextual study characteristics reveals substantial variations in the effectiveness of choice architecture as a behavior change tool. Most notably, we find that across behavioral domains, decision structure interventions that modify decision environments to address decision makers limited capacity to evaluate and compare choice options are consistently more effective in changing behavior than decision information interventions that address decision makers limited access to decision-relevant information or decision assistance interventions that address decision makers limited attention and self-control. This relative advantage of structural choice architecture techniques may be due to the specific psychological mechanisms that underlie the different intervention techniques or, more specifically, their demands on information processing. Decision information and decision assistance interventions rely on relatively elaborate forms of information processing in that the information and assistance they provide needs to be encoded and evaluated in terms of personal values and/or goals to determine the overall utility of a given choice option (56). Decision structure interventions, by contrast, often do not require this type of information processing but provide a general utility boost for specific choice options that offers a cognitive shortcut for determining the most desirable option (57, 58). Accordingly, decision information and decision assistance interventions have previously been described as attempts to facilitate more deliberate decision making processes, whereas decision structure interventions have been characterized as attempts to advance more automatic decision making processes (59). Decision information and decision assistance interventions may thus more frequently fail to induce behavior change and show overall smaller effect sizes than decision structure interventions because they may exceed peoples cognitive limits in decision making more often, especially in situations of high cognitive load or time pressure.

The engagement of internal value and goal representations by decision information and decision assistance interventions introduces a second factor that may impact their effectiveness to change behavior: the moderating influence of individual differences. Nutrition labels, a prominent example of decision information interventions, for instance, have been shown to be more frequently used by consumers who are concerned about their diet and overall health than consumers who do not share those concerns (60). By targeting only certain population segments, information and assistance-based choice architecture interventions may show an overall smaller effect size when assessed at the population level compared to structure-based interventions, which rely less on individual values and goals and may therefore have an overall larger impact across the whole population. From a practical perspective, this suggests that policy makers who wish to use choice architecture as a behavioral intervention measure may need to precede decision information and decision assistance interventions by an assessment and analysis of the values and goals of the target population or, alternatively, choose a decision structure approach in cases when a segmentation of the population in terms of individual differences is not possible.

In summary, the higher effectiveness of decision structure interventions may potentially be explained by a combination of two factors: 1) lower demand on information processing and 2) lower susceptibility to individual differences in values and goals. Our explanation remains somewhat speculative, however, as empirical research especially on the cognitive processes underlying choice architecture interventions is still relatively scarce (but see refs. 53, 56, 57). More research efforts are needed to clarify the psychological mechanisms that drive the impact of choice architecture interventions and determine their effectiveness in changing behavior.

Besides the effect size variations between different categories of choice architecture techniques, our results reveal considerable differences in the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains. Specifically, we find that choice architecture interventions had a particularly strong effect on behavior in the food domain, with average effect sizes up to 2.5 times larger than those in the health, environmental, financial, prosocial, or other behavioral domain. A key characteristic of food choices and other food-related behaviors is the fact that they bear relatively low behavioral costs and few, if any, perceived long-term consequences for the decision maker. Previous research has found that the potential impact of a decision can indeed moderate the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions, with techniques such as gain and loss framing having a smaller effect on behavior when the decision at hand has a high, direct impact on the decision maker than when the decision has little to no impact (61). Consistent with this research, we observe not only the largest effect sizes of choice architecture interventions in the food domain but also the overall smallest effect sizes of interventions in the financial domain, a domain that predominantly represents decisions of high impact to the decision maker. This systematic variation of effect sizes across behavioral domains suggests that when making decisions that are perceived to have a substantial impact on their lives, people may be less prone to the influence of automatic biases and heuristics, and thus the effects of choice architecture interventions, than when making decisions of comparatively smaller impact.

Another characteristic of food choices that may explain the high effectiveness of choice architecture interventions in the food domain is the fact that they are often driven by habits. Commonly defined as highly automatized behavioral responses to cues in the choice environment, habits distinguish themselves from other behaviors through a particularly strong association between behavior on the one hand and choice environment on the other hand (62, 63). It is possible that choice architecture interventions benefit from this association to the extent that they target the choice environment and thus potentially alter triggers of habitualized, undesirable behaviors. To illustrate, previous research has shown that people tend to adjust their food consumption relative to portion size, meaning that they consume more when presented with large portions and less when presented with small portions (39). Here portion size acts as an environmental cue that triggers and guides the behavioral response to eat. Choice architecture interventions that target this environmental cue, for example, by changing the default size of a food portion, are likely to be successful in changing the amount of food people consume because they capitalize on the highly automatized association between portion size and food consumption. The congruence between factors that trigger habitualized behaviors and factors that are targeted by choice architecture interventions may not only explain why interventions in our sample were so effective in changing food choices but more generally indicate that choice architecture interventions are an effective tool for changing instances of habitualized behaviors (64). This finding is particularly relevant from a policy making perspective as habits tend to be relatively unresponsive to traditional intervention approaches and are therefore generally considered to be difficult to change (62). Given that choice architecture interventions can only target the environmental cues that trigger habitualized responses but not the association between choice environment and behavior per se, it should be noted though that the effects of interventions are likely limited to the specific choice contexts in which they are implemented.

While the present meta-analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the effectiveness of choice architecture as a behavior change tool, more research is needed to complement and complete our findings. For example, our methodological focus on individuals as the unit of analysis excludes a large number of studies that have investigated choice architecture interventions on broader levels, such as households, school classes, or organizations, which may reduce the generalizability of our results. Future research should target these studies specifically to add to the current analysis. Similarly, our data show very high levels of heterogeneity among the effect sizes of choice architecture interventions. Although the type of intervention, the behavioral domain in which it is applied, and contextual study characteristics account for some of this heterogeneity (SI Appendix, Table S3), more research is needed to identify factors that may explain the variability in effect sizes above and beyond those investigated here. Research has recently started to reveal some of those potential moderators of choice architecture interventions, including sociodemographic factors such as income and socioeconomic status as well as psychological factors such as domain knowledge, numerical ability, and attitudes (6567). Investigating these moderators systematically cannot only provide a more nuanced understanding of the conditions under which choice architecture facilitates behavior change but may also help to inform the design and implementation of targeted interventions that take into account individual differences in the susceptibility to choice architecture interventions (68). Ethical considerations should play a prominent role in this process to ensure that potentially more susceptible populations, such as children or low-income households, retain their ability to make decisions that are in their personal best interest (66, 69, 70). Based on the results of our own moderator analyses, additional avenues for future research may include the study of how information processing influences the effectiveness of varying types of choice architecture interventions and how the overall effect of interventions is determined by the type of behavior they target (e.g., high-impact vs. low-impact behaviors and habitual vs. one-time decisions). In addition, we identified a moderate publication bias toward the reporting of effect sizes that support a positive effect of choice architecture interventions on behavior. Future research efforts should take this finding into account and place special emphasis on appropriate sample size planning and analysis standards when evaluating choice architecture interventions. Finally, given our choice to focus our primary literature search on the terms choice architecture and nudge, we recognize that the present meta-analysis may have failed to capture parts of the literature published before the popularization of this now widely used terminology, despite our efforts to expand the search beyond those terms (for details on the literature search process, see Materials and Methods). Due to the large increase in choice architecture research over the past decade (Fig. 1), however, the results presented here likely offer a good representation of the existing evidence on the effectiveness of choice architecture in changing individuals behavior.

Few behavioral intervention measures have lately received as much attention from researchers and policy makers as choice architecture interventions. Integrating the results of more than 450 behavioral interventions, the present meta-analysis finds that choice architecture is an effective and widely applicable behavior change tool that facilitates personally and socially desirable choices across behavioral domains, geographical locations, and populations. Our results provide insights into the overall effectiveness of choice architecture interventions as well as systematic effect size variations among them, revealing promising directions for future research that may facilitate the development of theories in this still new but fast-growing field of research. Our work also provides a comprehensive overview of the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions across a wide range of intervention contexts that are representative of some of the most pressing societal challenges we are currently facing. This overview can serve as a guideline for policy makers who seek reliable, evidence-based information on the potential impact of choice architecture interventions and the conditions under which they promote behavior change.

The meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with guidelines for conducting systematic reviews (71) and conforms to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (72) standards.

We searched the electronic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, PubPsych, and ScienceDirect using a combination of keywords associated with choice architecture (nudge OR choice architecture) and empirical research (method* OR empiric* OR procedure OR design). Since the terms nudge and choice architecture were established only after the seminal book by Thaler and Sunstein (1), we restricted this search to studies that were published no earlier than 2008. To compensate for the potential bias this temporal restriction might introduce to the results of our meta-analysis, we identified additional studies, including studies published before 2008, through the reference lists of relevant review articles and a search for research reports by governmental and nongovernmental behavioral science units. To reduce the possibly confounding effects of publication status on the estimation of effect sizes, we further searched for unpublished studies using the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database and requesting unpublished data through academic mailing lists. The search concluded in June 2019, yielding a total of 9,606 unique publications.

Given the exceptionally high heterogeneity in choice architecture research, we restricted our meta-analysis to studies that 1) empirically tested one or more choice architecture techniques using a randomized controlled experimental design, 2) had a behavioral outcome measure that was assessed in a real-life or hypothetical choice situation, 3) used individuals as the unit of analysis, and 4) were published in English. Studies that examined choice architecture in combination with other intervention measures, such as significant economic incentives or education programs, were excluded from our analyses to isolate the unique effects of choice architecture interventions on behavior.

The final sample comprised 455 effect sizes from 214 publications with a pooled sample size of 2,149,683 participants (N ranging from 14 to 813,990). SI Appendix, Fig. S1 illustrates the literature search and review process. All meta-analytic data and analyses reported in this paper are publicly available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/fywae/) (74).

Due to the large variation in behavioral outcome measures, we calculated Cohens d (40) for a standardized effect size measure of the mean difference between control and treatment conditions. Positive Cohens d values were coded to reflect behavior change in the desired direction of the intervention, whereas negative values reflected an undesirable change in behavior.

To categorize systematic differences between choice architecture interventions, we coded studies for seven moderators describing the type of intervention, the behavioral domain in which it was implemented, and contextual study characteristics. The type of choice architecture intervention was classified using a taxonomy developed by Mnscher and colleagues (13), which distinguishes three broad categories of choice architecture: decision information, decision structure, and decision assistance. Each of these categories targets a specific aspect of the choice environment, with decision information interventions targeting the way in which choice alternatives are described (e.g., framing), decision structure interventions targeting the way in which those choice alternatives are organized and structured (e.g., choice defaults), and decision assistance interventions targeting the way in which decisions can be reinforced (e.g., commitment devices). With its tripartite categorization framework the taxonomy is able to capture and categorize the vast majority of choice architecture interventions described in the literature, making it one of the most comprehensive classification schemes of choice architecture techniques in the field (see Table 1 for an overview). Many alternative attempts to organize and structure choice architecture interventions are considered problematic because they combine descriptive categorization approaches, which classify interventions based on choice architecture technique, and explanatory categorization approaches, which classify interventions based on underlying psychological mechanisms, within a single framework. The taxonomy we use here adopts a descriptive categorization approach in that it organizes interventions exclusively in terms of choice architecture techniques. We chose this approach to not only omit common shortcomings of hybrid classification schemes, such as a reduction in the interpretability of results, but also to warrant a highly reliable categorization of interventions in the absence of psychological outcome measures that would allow us to infer explanatory mechanisms. Using a descriptive categorization approach further allowed us to generate theoretically meaningful insights that can be easily translated into concrete recommendations for policy making. Each intervention was coded according to its specific technique and corresponding category. Interventions that combined multiple choice architecture techniques were excluded from our analyses to isolate the unique effect of each approach. Based on previous reviews (73) and inspection of our data, we distinguished six behavioral domains: health, food, environment, finance, prosocial behavior, and other behavior. Contextual study characteristics included the type of experiment that had been conducted (conventional laboratory experiment, artifactual field experiment, framed field experiment, or natural field experiment), the location of the intervention (inside vs. outside of the United States), the target population of the intervention (adults vs. children and adolescents), and the year in which the data were published. Interrater reliability across a random sample of 20% of the publications was high, with Cohens ranging from 0.76 to 1 (M=0.87).

We estimated the overall effect of choice architecture interventions using a three-level meta-analytic model with random effects on the treatment and the publication level. This approach allowed us to account for the hierarchical structure of our data due to publications that reported multiple relevant outcome variables and/or more than one experiment (7577). To further account for dependency in sampling errors due to overlapping samples (e.g., in cases where multiple treatment conditions were compared to the same control condition), we computed cluster-robust SEs, confidence intervals, and statistical tests for the estimated effect sizes (78, 79).

To identify systematic differences between choice architecture interventions, we ran multiple moderator analyses in which we tested for the effects of type of intervention, behavioral domain, and study characteristics using mixed-effects meta-analytic models with random effects on the treatment and the publication level. All analyses were conducted in R using the package metafor (80).

This research was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant PYAPP1_160571 awarded to Tobias Brosch and Swiss Federal Office of Energy Grant SI/501597-01. It is part of the activities of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research Competence Center for Research in Energy, Society and Transition, supported by the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse). The funding sources had no involvement in the preparation of the article; in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; nor in the writing of the manuscript. We thank Allegra Mulas and Laura Pagel for their assistance in data collection and extraction.

Author contributions: S.M., M.H., U.J.J.H., and T.B. designed research; S.M. and M.H. performed research; S.M. analyzed data; and S.M., M.H., U.J.J.H., and T.B. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no competing interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2107346118/-/DCSupplemental.

*While alternative classification schemes of choice architecture interventions can be found in the literature, the taxonomy used in the present meta-analysis distinguishes itself through its comprehensiveness, which makes it a highly reliable categorization tool and allows for inferences of both theoretical and practical relevance.

Please note that our results are robust to the exclusion of nonretracted studies by the Cornell Food and Brand Laboratory which has been criticized for repeated scientific misconduct; retracted studies by this research group were excluded from the meta-analysis.

Search terms were adapted from Szaszi et al. (73).

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The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains - pnas.org

Human Behavior

Ron Johnson announces run for third Senate term in Wisconsin | TheHill – The Hill

Sen. Ron JohnsonRonald (Ron) Harold JohnsonSenate Democrats release first TV attack ad against Johnson in Wisconsin The Hill's Morning Report - Voting rights takes center stage for Democrats Rebecca Kleefisch raises .3 million in Wisconsin gubernatorial bid MORE (R-Wis.) announcedSunday he will run for reelectionin November, setting up a high-stakes Senate battle in a key swing state.

Johnsons decision to run for a third term breaks a vow he made in his 2016 campaign that hed seek only two six-year stints in the Senate. However, he had increasingly sent signals that he planned to run againin November, maintaining his fundraising and making frequent appearances on Fox News.

In a statement and an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Johnson said he would prefer to retire but cast his decision to run for reelection as one made to fight against Democrats' unified control in Washington and "disastrous policies."

"During the 2016 campaign, I said it would be my last campaign and final term. That was my strong preference, and my wifeswe both looked forward to a normal private life. Neither of us anticipated the Democrats complete takeover of government and the disastrous policies they have already inflicted on America and the world, to say nothing of those they threaten to enact in the future," he wrote in the Journal.

Johnson also forecast a fierce campaign, warning that Democrats would attack him with language offering a nod to top culture war issues for the GOP.

"Tens of millions of dollars will be spent trying to destroy and defeat me. The mainstream media and Big Tech will contribute their powerful and corrupt voices as the unofficial but reliable communication apparatus of the Democrats. We face powerful forces that desire even more power and control over our lives. Their path, paved with false hope and greater dependency, always leads to tyranny. We cannot let them win," he wrote.

The announcement comesagainst the backdrop of what is anticipated to be a fearsome battle for the Senate, which is currently divided 50-50. Any one seat could decide which party controls the upper chamber come 2023, and both Republicans and Democrats have clamored for Johnson to make his bid official.

Republicans boast that Johnson is their strongest candidate in the Badger State. He unseated former Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in the Tea Party wave in 2010, overcoming a titan in Wisconsin politics despite being left for dead. He was similarly abandoned by the party establishment in 2016, when he unexpectedly fended off Feingold in a rematch, a victory GOP operatives suggest highlights a unique connection Johnson enjoys with the Wisconsin electorate.

Johnson is anticipated to cruise to the nomination, another advantage in addition to his already high name recognition as Democrats battle it out in a crowded primary.

However, Democrats too have clamored for Johnson to run again.

The urge runs counter to conventional wisdom, which contends that open seats are typically easier to flip than going against a sitting incumbent with an existing campaign bank account and large name recognition. But party operatives point to outlandish comments on the coronavirus, 2020 election, racial justice protests and more and view him as vulnerable.

Johnson has been dogged by criticism of provocative remarks since 2010, when he said sunspots were more likely to contribute to climate change than human behavior.

More recently, however, he has commented that mouthwash has been proven to kill the coronavirus and questioned the point of vaccines if fully vaccinated individuals can still catch COVID-19.

He has also been a vocal proponent of an election audit in Wisconsin and praised rioters who stormed the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as people who love this country.

Those comments and more are expected to be featured heavily in attack ads by Democrats who are chomping at the bit to take on the two-term senator.

Democrats also note that Johnson is closely allied with former President TrumpDonald TrumpGeorgia prosecutor says decision on Trump election interference case likely coming soon Overnight Defense & National Security US, Russia have face-to-face sit down Hillicon Valley Dems press privacy groups over kids' safety MORE, who narrowly lost Wisconsin in 2020.

Ron Johnson is what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby. And I hope that he does run. His candidacy makes the race far more competitive for Democrats, Wisconsin Democratic consultant Ben Nuckels told The Hill earlier this month.

Among the Democrats running in the race are Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson.

Democrats pounced on Johnson's announcement, noting his previous two-term pledge and casting the senator, who is independently wealthy, of looking out for his own interests over those of Wisconsinites.

"The only people celebrating Ron Johnsons announcement are his donors and the corporate special interest groups hes bailed out time and time again," Barnes said in a statement. "Lets get to work and retire this failed senator."

"Ron Johnson has spent the last decade catering to the ultra-wealthy millionaires and corporate interests who fund his campaign," Nelson added in his own statement. "Wisconsin needs a Senator that will promote Main Street solutions to our rigged economy, not another millionaire or billionaire."

Wisconsin for decades has been characterized by razor-thin margins in statewide contests and has been a top battleground for several consecutive cycles. Trump barely won the state in 2016 before losing it by a similarly tight margin in 2020. Wisconsin will also host a competitive gubernatorial election this year as Gov. Tony EversTony EversRebecca Kleefisch raises .3 million in Wisconsin gubernatorial bid Ron Johnson announces run for third Senate term in Wisconsin Ex-Rep. Duffy rejects Trump entreaties, won't run for Wisconsin governor MORE (D) fights for a second term.

Updated 11:00 a.m.

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Ron Johnson announces run for third Senate term in Wisconsin | TheHill - The Hill

Human Behavior

Science skepticism appears to be an important predictor of non-compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies – PsyPost

Attitudes about science were associated with compliance with shelter-in-place policies during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, according to research that analyzed anonymous cell phone location data. The study indicates that regions where people are more skeptical of science tend to adhere less strictly to stay-at-home orders. The findings have been published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, social scientists quickly became interested in studying factors that impact compliance with government policies that mandate physical distancing.

Since we are from economics and public policy backgrounds, we were naturally interested in studying individual behavior in response to public policy in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We got the idea for the paper when state governments across the U.S. started introducing shelter-in-place policies in a staggered fashion in March 2020, said study author David Van Dijcke, a PhD student at the University of Michigan.

We realized we could use the variation in the timing of when those policies were introduced to trace out their effects. Since it was apparent to us that non-compliance with the policies people not staying at home would be an important issue for their efficacy, we started thinking about what might affect such non-compliance. While we look at science skepticism, other studies have found important roles for partisanship and poverty as well.

Around the same time, we stumbled across SafeGraph, the company that provided us with the anonymized mobile device data that we used to estimate the extent to which people were staying home, Van Dijcke said.

The researchers measured responses to the shelter-in-place policies at the county level by analyzing location data from more than 40 million mobile devices across the United States.

Van Dijcke and his team used data from a previous study on climate change opinions, which aggregated data from 12 nationally representative surveys, to assess science skepticism. The surveys included responses from 12,061 individuals in total and the data were used to estimate the percentage of people per county who agreed with the statement that global warming is caused by humans.

Because of the lack of granular geographic data on science skepticism, we used belief in anthropogenic (human-made) global warming as a proxy for science skepticism and validated this measure by benchmarking it against measures of science skepticism from other, smaller-scale datasets, Van Dijcke explained.

Those other datasets included the American Values Survey, which asks respondents the extent to which they agree with the statement I am worried that science is going too far and is hurting society rather than helping it, and the World Values Survey, which includes survey items such as We depend too much on science and not enough on faith.

The researchers found that the proportion of people who stayed at home after shelter-in-place policies went into effect tended to be higher in counties with lower levels of skepticism compared to counties with higher levels of science skepticism.

Previous research has found that shelter-in-place policies tended to be less effective in regions with a greater share of Donald Trump voters. But Van Dijcke and his colleagues found that their results held even after controlling for political partisanship.

The main takeaway is that whether or not people stayed at home during the first COVID-19 lockdowns in the States depended to a significant extent on whether they were skeptical about science, Van Dijcke told PsyPost. That is the case irrespective of peoples political affiliation, income, education, etc. We also find some evidence that science skepticism undermined compliance with other public health interventions during the pandemic, such as mask-wearing and vaccination. We think these are important findings since they underline the importance of science education and communication, as well as the danger of misinformation about these topics.

A caveat to our study is that it applies to the United States during the first wave of the pandemic, and thus may not be generalizable beyond that setting, Van Dijcke noted. The study examined the proportion of people who stayed at home between March 1 and April 19, 2020.

But the most important limitation of the study is the fact that the researchers had to rely on belief in anthropogenic global warming as their primary measure of science skepticism.

An obvious lacuna to fill is the availability of large-scale, representative data on science skepticism that can be mapped to granular geographies in the United States such as counties, Van Dijcke said. I think the pandemic has forcefully demonstrated how detrimental science skepticism can be to the implementation of public policy. Such data would open the way for a large array of additional questions regarding science skepticism to be studied, since researchers could link it to any other data available at the county level, most prominently Census data.

However, the results are in line with another study published in Nature Human Behaviour, which found that people with lower levels of trust in doctors, scientists, economists, professors, and experts were less likely to engage in behaviors intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The study, Science skepticism reduced compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies in the United States, was authored by Adam Brzezinski, Valentin Kecht, David Van Dijcke, and Austin L. Wright.

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Science skepticism appears to be an important predictor of non-compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies - PsyPost

Human Behavior

TokenSociety Bridging the Way to a Bright Future with Metaverse Project Times Square Chronicles – Times Square Chronicles

In 2022, the world has collectively recognized that we are joined through forces more powerful than what was provided through old-fashioned methods. No longer are we simply connected through finance with one mighty American dollar. No longer is there just one singular way to communicate. We are now all living on a planet that has bridged itself over murky waters and onto a bright and radiating land. Borders have dissipated only to create powerful entities such as TokenSociety.io

The company is an NFT and metaverse project launchpad for startups in the Web 3.0 space. It is an exciting concept through and through. The infinite possibilities are explosively compelling, as well as an opportunity to develop an incredible future.

Its a one-stop shop specializing in NFT promotion, NFT drops, NFT auctions, NFT Authentication andMetaverse-related NFTs and events. TokenSociety is the ideal platform to list NFT projects and to gaintraction for events in the Metaverse, offering exclusive drops and some of the worlds first TV shows financed and supported with NFTs which will be viewable in thevirtual world.

The California-based production and distribution company will develop, produce, and distribute theanimated sitcoms. This show is based on an NFT project which was launched on the TokenSociety.ioplatform. TokenSociety is also developing a version of the TV show that will be viewable in the metaverse allowing the viewers to interact and feel they are part of the show.The NFT market growth and recent mainstream interest in the metaverse is unique in that it iscurrently driven by entertainment and leisure as opposed to functional utility.We believe that entertainment is one of the most viable solutions for enhancing the metaverseexperience, stated Scott H. Weissman, Co-Founder and CEO of TokenSociety.io.

TokenSociety and Archstone Entertainment are now set to produce Gay Aliens in Metaverse, which is a new sitcom starting avatars from the Gay Aliens Society NFT Project.This is the second show to be financed and produced by TokenSociety. The project launchpad is currentlyco-producing Men of the House, the first TV show financed exclusively through the sale of NFTs, whichthey term Snippetz.Gay Aliens Society is a collection of 10,000 hand drawn avatars created by artist, Tima Marso. GayAliens NFT owners who wish to participate in the new sitcom will be given the chance to register their NFT via the projects official Discord server and participate in a community-driven casting. There will also be an open casting call in the official Discord for those who wish to participate in the show as a voice-over actor.Twenty avatars from the Gay Aliens Society NFT Collection will be selected for starring, co-starring,and supporting recurring roles in the show for the entire season of 10 episodes. Additional roles will bemade available for each episode giving all NFT owners a chance to take part as a guest star or extra.Each avatar has randomly generated traits including sun, moon, rising sun, and Venus zodiac signs which will be used to create the personalities of each character on the show.Owners of NFTs selected for the show will enter licensing agreements with the production, allowingthem to earn royalties from the show as well as anyancillary revenue streams.Bringing companies with an established track record of success onto new platforms is a great way toencourage mainstream adoption. Its also a very practical step because workable models can still beutilized on new architectures, as marketing psychology and human behavior are often independent of technological innovation.

Game on. This is the future and it is going to be amazing for all involved when it comes to TokenSociety.

#tokensociety#gayaliens#GayAliensSociety#NFT#ScottHWeissman#ScottWeissman

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TokenSociety Bridging the Way to a Bright Future with Metaverse Project Times Square Chronicles - Times Square Chronicles

Human Behavior

We Must Consider Benefits of Sending Life Outside of Solar System, Researchers Say – Sci-News.com

University of California, Santa Barbaras professors Philip Lubin and Joel Rothman and their colleagues contemplate launching small cryptobiotic lifeforms into interstellar space.

Our ability to explore the cosmos by direct contact has been limited to a small number of lunar and interplanetary missions. However, NASAs Starlight program points a path forward to send small, relativistic spacecraft far outside our Solar System via standoff directed-energy propulsion. These miniaturized spacecraft are capable of robotic exploration but can also transport seeds and organisms, marking a profound change in our ability to both characterize and expand the reach of known life. Lantin et al. explore the biological and technological challenges of interstellar space biology, focusing on radiation-tolerant microorganisms capable of cryptobiosis. Image credit: University of California, Santa Barbara.

I think its our destiny to keep exploring, said Professor Rothman, a researcher in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Look at the history of the human species. We explore at smaller and smaller levels down to subatomic levels and we also explore at increasingly larger scales.

Such drive toward ceaseless exploration lies at the core of who we are as a species.

The biggest challenge to human-scale interstellar travel is the enormous distance between Earth and the nearest stars.

NASAs Voyager missions have proven that we can send objects across the 19.3 billion km (12 billion miles) it takes to exit the bubble surrounding our Solar System, the heliosphere.

But the car-sized probes, traveling at speeds of more than 56,000 kmh (35,000 mph), took 40 years to reach there and their distance from Earth is only a tiny fraction of that to the next star. If they were headed to the closest star, it would take them over 80,000 years to reach it.

That challenge is a major focus of the teams work, in which they reimagine the technology it would take to reach the next Solar System in human terms.

Traditional onboard chemical propulsion is out; it cant provide enough energy to move the craft fast enough, and the weight of it and current systems needed to propel the ship are not viable for the relativistic speeds the craft needs to achieve.

New propulsion technologies are required and this is where the University of California, Santa Barbaras directed energy research program of using light as the propellant comes in.

This has never been done before, to push macroscopic objects at speeds approaching the speed of light, said Professor Lubin, a researcher in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mass is such a huge barrier, in fact, that it rules out any human missions for the foreseeable future.

As a result, the team turned to robots and photonics. Small probes with onboard instrumentation that sense, collect and transmit data back to Earth will be propelled up to 20-30% of the speed of light by light itself using a laser array stationed on Earth, or possibly the Moon.

We dont leave home with it. The primary propulsion system stays at home while spacecraft are shot out at relativistic speeds, Professor Lubin said.

The main propulsion laser is turned on for a short period of time and then the next probe is readied to be launched.

As the program evolves the spacecraft become larger with enhanced capability.

The core technology can also be used in a modified mode to propel much larger spacecraft within our Solar System at slower speeds, potentially enabling human missions to Mars in as little as one month, stopping included. This is another way of spreading life, but in our Solar System.

At these relativistic speeds roughly161 million kmh (100 million mph) the wafercraft would reach the next solar system, Proxima Centauri, in roughly 20 years.

Getting to that level of technology will require continuous innovation and improvement of both the space wafer, as well the photonics.

The basic project to develop a roadmap to achieve relativistic flight via directed energy propulsion is supported by NASA and private foundations such as the Starlight program and by the Breakthrough Initiatives as the Starshot program.

When I learned that the mass of these craft could reach gram levels or larger, it became clear that they could accommodate living animals, Professor Rothman said.

We realized that Caenorhabditis elegans could be the first Earthlings to travel between the stars. These intensively studied roundworms may be small and plain, but they are experimentally accomplished creatures.

Research on this little animal has led to Nobel prizes to six researchers thus far.

Caenorhabditis elegans are already veterans of space travel, as the subject of experiments conducted on the International Space Station and aboard the space shuttle, even surviving the tragic disintegration of the Columbia shuttle.

Among their special powers, which they share with other potential interstellar travelers that the authors study, tardigrades can be placed in suspended animation in which virtually all metabolic function is arrested.

Thousands of these tiny creatures could be placed on a wafer, put in suspended animation, and flown in that state until reaching the desired destination.

They could then be wakened in their tiny StarChip and precisely monitored for any detectable effects of interstellar travel on their biology, with the observations relayed to Earth by photonic communication.

We can ask how well they remember trained behavior when theyre flying away from their earthly origin at near the speed of light, and examine their metabolism, physiology, neurological function, reproduction and aging, Professor Rothman said.

Most experiments that can be conducted on these animals in a lab can be performed onboard the StarChips as they whiz through the cosmos.

The effects of such long odysseys on animal biology could allow the scientists to extrapolate to potential effects on humans.

We could start thinking about the design of interstellar transporters, whatever they may be, in a way that could ameliorate the issues that are detected in these diminutive animals.

The teams paper was published in the journal Acta Astronautica.

_____

Stephen Lantin et al. 2022. Interstellar space biology via Project Starlight. Acta Astronautica 190: 261-272; doi: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.10.009

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We Must Consider Benefits of Sending Life Outside of Solar System, Researchers Say - Sci-News.com