Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Innovations that benefit the greater good are introduced almost every day. But these new technologies do little good unless people actually choose to use them. So what can we do to promote the diffusion of social innovations? Research published recently in Nature sheds new light on this question, and provides a surprisingly simple answer. The research, led by MIT Sloan School of Management Professor David Rand and Yale psychology graduate student Gordon Kraft-Todd, studies the factors that convince people to adopt products and behaviors that are individually costly but beneficial to society—also known as contributing to public goods. They focused on residential solar panel installation, which remains extremely rare—despite the fact that everyone would be better off if we all switched to solar and reduced our carbon emissions….   Please read bmd January