The second lens is standard economic theory, which doesn’t ask people what they do and doesn’t even observe what they do. Instead it assumes a narrow and overly ‘rationalistic’ view of human motivation, by focusing on a theoretical, one-dimensional conception of what it believes humans are trying to do. Again, behavioural economics has shown that it provides an incomplete and sometimes misleading view of human behaviour – neither the business nor the policy worlds have paid sufficient attention to the failings of economics and research.
