ABSTRACT
Many social programs that yield positive results in pilot studies fail to yield such results when implemented at scale. A variety of possible explanations aim to account for this failure. In this chapter we emphasize the potential role of cognitive biases in the decision-making process that takes an intervention from an idea to a fully implemented program. In that process, researchers, practitioners, program participants, and funders all make decisions that influence whether and how the program is implemented and evaluated and how evaluations are interpreted. Each decision is subject to the cognitive biases of the decision maker and these biases can increase the chance that false positive evaluation results lead to scaled—and in this case, failed—implementation. Although the potential for cognitive biases to influence the scale-up process is large, the research evidence is nearly nonexistent, suggesting the need for a psychologically informed understanding of the scale-up process.
