Behavioral science is the study of how people make choices and act upon them. Instead of assuming people are perfectly rational and always make decisions in their best interests, the field borrows from multiple disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, design, among others to show that most people are susceptible to personal biases, logical fallacies, and heuristics. Such insights could then be used to design impactful solutions to overcome the barriers identified that prevent the right intentions to convert into desirable behaviors and actions.In the urban sector, providing services does not always ensure that people can or will access them: lack of awareness, complex eligibility criteria, involved application processes, and challenging language can compound to produce significant barriers to program enrollment by eligible people. In other words, the ways that many government programs are structured frequently do not align with how people make decisions. Further, living in difficult circumstances can cause an increased cognitive load that makes long-term planning more difficult for vulnerable populations.1 Interventions that apply behavioral science insights can help alleviate these challenges and better connect people to needed services. One element of behavioral science is a better understanding of context: what defines context and what constitutes the context in which people make decisions and actions. One element of context is space, which has not been studied extensively in the field. The objective of this research is to leverage insights from architecture and planning, and marry them with the discipline of behavioral decision making to situate the role of space in decision making. The insights from the study could help in designing better environments for people which can aid in better decision making process which can further lead to desired behavioral outcomes.
