UC San Diego

This dissertation explores the complex history of self-control within the framework of dual-mind models in the behavioral sciences, including experimental psychology, microeconomic theory, and behavioral economics. By using historical texts, archival documents, this dissertation shows how dual-mind models developed out of racist scientific models of evolution that (mis-)characterized differences between so-called “civilized” populations and “savage” populations. Chapter 1, using primary and secondary texts, shows how early experimental psychologists, using reaction time tests and other psychometrics, represented the modern civilized man as having some of these same psychological traits, though with a part of the mind that the “savage” lacked. This “evolutionarily recent” part of the mind allowed the civilized to repress the “savage” part of their mind. Similarly, as Chapter 2 shows, economic thinkers developed their concepts of temporal discounting through contrasting traits between “rational man” and “savages”. While there was much interaction between race science, economics, and psychology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this history has been ignored or suppressed. Chapter 3 updates this history by showing the role of race and biological determinism in the development of modern behavioral economics by exploring primary documents and archival sources from the first behavioral economics working group. Through interviews, Chapter 4 reveals the rhetorical strategies contemporary behavioral economists use to make sense of their field, including differences in training, and to support their methodological and theoretical choices as behavioral researchers. These interviews are also sources for Chapter 5, which explores the development of behavioral policy interventions and the role of nudge theory in policy and behavioral science today. Many of the behavioral economists interviewed saw their role as “strategic scientists” in their attempts to both describe human behavior, while also attempting to influence human behavior through design and policy interventions. The conclusion chapter not only reviews the findings from the previous chapters, but also brings in critical literature from various fields, including Science & Technology Studies, Economic Sociology, and Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, to make sense of the development of behavioral economics and nudge theory today.