
World Development Report 2015
Mind, Society, and Behavior
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Derek Perkins
-
Helen Clapp
-
Lisa HammGreenawalt
-
Michael Pearl
-
By:
-
World Bank
About this listen
This newly launched report argues that development policies based on new insights into how people actually think and make decisions will help governments and civil society more readily tackle such challenges as increasing productivity, breaking the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next, and acting on climate change.
Drawing from a wealth of research that suggests ways of diagnosing and solving the psychological and social constraints to development, the World Development Report identifies new policy tools that complement standard economic instruments. To inspire a fresh look at how development work is done, the report outlines three principles of human decision making: thinking automatically, thinking socially, and thinking with mental models. Much of human thinking is automatic and depends on whatever comes to mind most effortlessly. People are deeply social and are influenced by social networks and norms. Finally, most people do not invent new concepts; rather they use mental models drawn from their societies and shared histories to interpret their experiences.
Because the factors affecting decisions are local and contextual, it is hard to predict in advance which aspects of program design and implementation will drive the choices people will make. Interventions therefore need to take account of the insights found in this report and be designed through a "learning by doing" approach. This report applies the three principles to multiple areas, including early childhood development, productivity, household finance, health and health care, climate change, and more.
©2014 World Bank (P)2015 Brook Forest VoicesListeners also enjoyed...
-
Blind Spots
- Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
- By: Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- Narrated by: Kate McQueen
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.
-
-
Great book! Poor narration
- By Susie on 11-20-17
By: Max H. Bazerman, and others
-
Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
-
-
Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
-
The Power of Creative Destruction
- Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations
- By: Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, Simon Bunel, and others
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction - innovation that disrupts, but that over the past 200 years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity.
-
-
Great job!
- By Sam W on 03-21-22
By: Philippe Aghion, and others
-
Super Thinking
- The Big Book of Mental Models
- By: Gabriel Weinberg, Lauren McCann
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental models, and you can find them in dense textbooks on psychology, physics, economics, and more. Or, you can just listen to Super Thinking, a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need.
-
-
Author falls in the same mental traps he talks...
- By gimenez on 08-04-19
By: Gabriel Weinberg, and others
-
Systems Thinking for Social Change
- A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results
- By: David Peter Stroh
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation.
-
-
Listener beware: The word is causal NOT "casual"
- By darlene judson on 07-31-19
-
What Works
- Gender Equality by Design
- By: Iris Bohnet
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back, and de-biasing people’s minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Diversity training programs have had limited success, and individual effort alone often invites backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts.
-
-
Excellent book every women and executive should read
- By N LI on 05-10-21
By: Iris Bohnet
-
Blind Spots
- Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
- By: Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- Narrated by: Kate McQueen
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.
-
-
Great book! Poor narration
- By Susie on 11-20-17
By: Max H. Bazerman, and others
-
Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
-
-
Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
-
The Power of Creative Destruction
- Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations
- By: Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, Simon Bunel, and others
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction - innovation that disrupts, but that over the past 200 years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity.
-
-
Great job!
- By Sam W on 03-21-22
By: Philippe Aghion, and others
-
Super Thinking
- The Big Book of Mental Models
- By: Gabriel Weinberg, Lauren McCann
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental models, and you can find them in dense textbooks on psychology, physics, economics, and more. Or, you can just listen to Super Thinking, a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need.
-
-
Author falls in the same mental traps he talks...
- By gimenez on 08-04-19
By: Gabriel Weinberg, and others
-
Systems Thinking for Social Change
- A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results
- By: David Peter Stroh
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation.
-
-
Listener beware: The word is causal NOT "casual"
- By darlene judson on 07-31-19
-
What Works
- Gender Equality by Design
- By: Iris Bohnet
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back, and de-biasing people’s minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Diversity training programs have had limited success, and individual effort alone often invites backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts.
-
-
Excellent book every women and executive should read
- By N LI on 05-10-21
By: Iris Bohnet
-
Bulletproof Problem Solving
- The One Skill That Changes Everything
- By: Charles Conn, Robert McLean
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses, and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything, you'll learn the seven-step systematic approach to creative problem solving developed in top consulting firms that will work in any field or industry, turning you into a highly sought-after, bulletproof problem solver who can tackle challenges at which others balk.
-
-
Graphics Appendix Please
- By Luke Riley on 08-22-19
By: Charles Conn, and others
-
The Tyranny of Metrics
- By: Jerry Z. Muller
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging "gaming the stats" or "teaching to the test"....
-
-
Opportunity Missed
- By Tim Acker on 02-22-19
By: Jerry Z. Muller
-
The Wisest One in the Room
- How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights
- By: Thomas Gilovich, Lee Ross
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned psychologists describe the most useful insights from social psychology that can help make you "wise": wise about why people behave the way they do, and wise about how to use that knowledge in understanding and influencing the people in your life. When faced with a challenge, we often turn to those we trust for words of wisdom. Friends, relatives, and colleagues - someone with the best advice about how to boost sales, the most useful insights into raising children, or the sharpest take on an ongoing conflict.
-
-
Not Really About Wisdom. Nothing New Here.
- By Douglas C. Bates on 05-02-16
By: Thomas Gilovich, and others
-
The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America
- By: Oren Cass
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking re-evaluation of American society, economics, and public policy, Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from to reveal how we lost our way. The good news is that we can still turn things around - if the nation’s proverbial elites are willing to put the American worker’s interests first. Which is more important, pristine air quality, or well-paying jobs that support families? Unfettered access to the cheapest labor in the world, or renewed investment in the employment of Americans?
-
-
Great book. Better policy recommendations
- By PeterGibbons on 02-08-19
By: Oren Cass
-
The Voltage Effect
- How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale
- By: John A. List
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Scale” has become a favored buzzword in the startup world. But scale isn't just about accumulating more users or capturing more market share. It's about whether an idea that takes hold in a small group can do the same in a much larger one. Translating an idea into widespread impact, says University of Chicago economist John A. List, depends on one thing only: whether it can achieve “high voltage”—the ability to be replicated at scale. In The Voltage Effect, List explains that scalable ideas share a common set of attributes, while any number of attributes can doom an unscalable idea.
-
-
Awefully stupid book
- By Jinru Li on 09-04-22
By: John A. List
-
The Nurture Effect
- How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World
- By: Anthony Biglan
- Narrated by: Stephen Paul Aulridge Jr.
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A fascinating look at the evolution of behavioral science, the revolutionary way it's changing the way we live, and how nurturing environments can increase people's well-being in virtually every aspect of our society, from early childhood education to corporate practices. If you want to know how you can help create a better world, listen to this book.
-
-
Behavioral Science Applied
- By Alex McCurdy on 06-13-17
By: Anthony Biglan
-
Dying for a Paycheck
- How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance and What We Can Do About It
- By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
- Narrated by: Pat Grimes
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You don't have to do a dangerous job to endure a health-destroying, possibly life-threatening workplace. Just ask the manager in a senior finance role whose immense workload required frequent all-nighters, leading to alcohol and drug addiction. Or the dedicated news media producer whose commitment to getting the story resulted in a 60-pound weight gain thanks to having no down time to eat properly or exercise. These individuals are not exceptions. Every industry is filled with them, and the costs, to both employees and their companies, is enormous.
-
-
Academic yet compelling
- By Lexie on 01-17-19
By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
-
The Darwin Economy
- Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good
- By: Robert H Frank
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who was the greater economist--Adam Smith or Charles Darwin? The question seems absurd. Darwin, after all, was a naturalist, not an economist. But Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist, predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics.
-
-
Distracting and Misleading.
- By Steven on 10-22-11
By: Robert H Frank
-
The Inner Level
- How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Well-Being
- By: Kate Pickett, Richard Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking investigation of how inequality infects our minds and gets under our skin.
-
-
Excellent! Necessary listening.
- By Christopher J. Albertyn on 10-11-23
By: Kate Pickett, and others
-
Engine of Impact
- Essentials of Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector
- By: William F. Meehan III, Kim Starkey Jonker
- Narrated by: C. J. Lengua
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are entering a new era - an era of impact. The largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will soon be underway, bringing with it the potential for huge increases in philanthropic funding. Engine of Impact shows how nonprofits can apply the principles of strategic leadership to attract greater financial support and leverage that funding to maximum effect.
-
-
Must listen for all nonprofit leaders
- By Peter A. Mello on 02-09-19
By: William F. Meehan III, and others
-
More Than Just Race
- Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time)
- By: William Julius Wilson
- Narrated by: Vince Bailey
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation’s diverse cultural reality, a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a Black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.
-
-
A long, sometimes vague, pointed research report
- By D Smith on 08-08-17
-
Economics for the Common Good
- By: Jean Tirole, Steven Rendell - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a "dismal science," is a positive force for the common good.
-
-
A Great Overview of the Challenges of Modern Econ
- By Zach Sullivan on 08-06-18
By: Jean Tirole, and others