If you were able to assign a bunch of social scientists (psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, etc.) to study the most important questions in the world, what questions would you ask?
This post is inspired by the lack of EA relevant academic literature in the behavioral sciences. Excellent exceptions to this rule include work by Lucius Caviola and Stefan Schubert (e.g., “The Many Obstacles to Effective Giving”, http://journal.sjdm.org/19/190810/jdm190810.pdf; and “The Psychology of Existential Risk: Moral Judgments about Human Extinction”, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-50145-9 ). But outside of their work, there seems to be very few people studying human behavior from an EA perspective.
For a few more examples of the kinds of important questions social scientists could be working on, check out this article on why AI Safety research needs more social scientists: https://distill.pub/2019/safety-needs-social-scientists/
Personal background: I am a Princeton Psychology PhD student working on projects ranging from neuroimaging to infohazard reduction and promotion of effective giving. I would love to hear what the EA Forum thinks academics should be studying :)
My brain dump “Potential priority areas within cognitive sciences (psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind)”:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12m_KDzKWfwQebrHGN4G4XCVIYPUHrm05Z6SB_loZr5w/edit
This is cool, thanks for sharing! Looks like Lucius Caviola’s and Stefan Schubert’s research projects are already on your radar ;)
A lot of cause-specific research relates to these disciplines! I don’t have a go-to list that answers your question directly as asked, but here are a few examples of resources that touch on this that might help to spark some ideas
https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/research-agenda
https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast/episode-15.html
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LpkXtFXdsRd4rG8Kb/reducing-long-term-risks-from-malevolent-actors
Some quick thoughts (there is certainly already research on these but they seem important, and I don’t know about reliability of existing research):
Scope insensitivity: e.g. why do people find it hard to care proportionally more about proportionally bigger things?
Probabilistic reasoning: e.g. how can decision makers be ‘taught’ to take seriously low probability, high impact events?
Decision-making under uncertainty: e.g. how can this be improved? Can be people be efficiently taught to become more bayesian?
Group decision making: e.g. do more diverse groups really make better decisions?
Meta: e.g. how can social science become more reliable?
I like these a lot! Thanks for sharing :)
80,000 Hours made a list of Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline. The disciplines include psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience, economics, sociology, and some other potentially relevant disciplines.
Also, I made a central directory for open research questions, and many of the questions that can be found via that either are behavioural science questions or could inspire behavioural science questions. (The 80,000 Hours article drew on the directory, so it contains a more curated and organised-by-discipline selection from that, but the directory provides a larger total menu.)
Skimming through my directory for collections that I think might be particularly relevant, some that stand out are:
Longtermist/GCR stuff:
Technical AGI safety research outside AI—Richard Ngo, 2019
Also Cognitive Science/Psychology As a Neglected Approach to AI Safety
Crucial questions for longtermists—Michael Aird for Convergence Analysis, 2020
Animal welfare/longermist stuff:
On the longtermist case for working on farmed animals [Uncertainties & research ideas] - Michael Aird, 2021
Sentience Institute’s research agenda − 2019
Sentience Institute’s summary of “Foundational Questions for Effective Animal Advocacy” − 2019
“Less explored” foundational questions in effective animal advocacy—Sentience Institute, 2019
Forecasting stuff:
Forecasting AI Progress: A Research Agenda—Gruetzemacher, Dorner, Bernaola-Alvarez, Giattino, & David Manheim, 2020 (comments here)
How valuable would more academic research on forecasting be? What questions should be researched? - Michael Aird, 2020
Other:
What are the open problems in Human Rationality? - Raemon, 2019
Happier Lives Institute’s research agenda—Michael Plant, 2019
Qualia Research Institute’s research agenda, no date
Health and happiness: some open research topics—Derek Foster, 2019
Research Directions on Improving Policymaking—EA Geneva, probably 2020
(Those categories are pretty arbitrary and quick and only for the purpose of this comment.)
This is really cool! Thanks for sharing, Michael :)
Great question! These are just some initial instincts—I’m not sure any of these questions are overly neglected, and they are too broad to be research questions, but curious to hear what others think:
How can we [most effectively—implicit in all questions below] expand individuals’ moral circles (including over temporal dimensions), particular during key choice points (e.g. choosing what to eat, whether/where to donate, what/who to vote for)?
How can we improve political decision-making (i.e. ensuring political choices are consistent with individuals’ values)?
How can we improve judgement and decision-making under uncertainty (including deep uncertainty) more generally? And do these differ for individuals vs. small groups vs. large groups/organisations?
How can we ensure individuals and groups behave more consistently with their decisions/intentions?
How can we increase effective democratic behaviours more generally (i.e. behaviours outside of well-defined political decisions that are generally regarded to contribute towards a well-functioning democracy)?
How can we increase cooperation between individuals and groups, particular individuals and groups that are distant (physically, temporally, socially, etc)?
I think these are really important questions too!
I’ve proposed a number of things that I would love to see tested:
- Can we adapt Carl Rogers to real life? Inspire people to see ourselves in others (empathy), see the best in others (positive regard), and bring out the best in others.
- Can we expand Can Do attitudes? Can we put aside our doubts, do the work, and end up understanding, respecting, cooperating with, and bringing out the best in others in unexpected ways?
- Can we use our complex buying behaviors to foster empathy and positive regard? We buy different things, but we often have similar coveting, budgeting, browsing, shopping, and hoarding experiences. Can knowledge and sophistication in buying widgets help people build empathy and positive regard for people who buy doodads?
- Can exposing people to different kinds of biases help them better understand different kinds of discrimination?
- Safe driving allows us to foster altruistic and cooperative behavior on a global scale. Can we expand it to general society? Teach everyone to listen (instead of yield), check their biases (instead of the blind spots), reject Ideological Rage (instead of road rage).
More details here:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7srarHqktkHTBDYLq/bringing-out-the-best-in-humanity
How must we get systematically organized to alleviate suffering in the world?