Psychology Commons^™

Efficiently Exploring The Causal Role Of Contextual Moderators In Behavioral Science, Cameron A. Hecht, Carol S. Dweck, Mary Murphy, Kathryn M. Kroeper, David S. Yeager

Psychology Faculty Publications

Behavioral science interventions have the potential to address longstanding policy problems, but their effects are typically heterogeneous across contexts (e.g., teachers, schools, and geographic regions). This contextual heterogeneity is poorly understood, however, which reduces the field's impact and its understanding of mechanisms. Here, we present an efficient way to interrogate heterogeneity and address these gaps in knowledge. This method a) presents scenarios that vividly represent different moderating contexts, b) measures a short-term behavioral outcome (e.g., an academic choice) that is known to relate to typical intervention outcomes (e.g., academic achievement), and c) assesses the causal effect of the moderating context …