The 11th  annual Capitol Hill Exhibition for NSF-funded research, sponsored by the  Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), was held on the evening  of June 21nd.  The Federation is a member of CNSF and invited  Dr. Sheena Iyengar, a psychologist from Columbia University's Business  School, to represent the Federation and NSF's Social, Behavioral, and  Economic Sciences Directorate.  Dr. Iyengar's exhibit, "The  Psychological Costs of Ever Increasing Choice: When Too Many Options  Lead to Suboptimal Retirement Savings Decisions," featured her research  on the types of decisions we make when presented with varying numbers of  options (see our "Advocacy Update" below for more details on Dr.  Iyengar's research).                                

Also  representing the behavioral sciences were Federation member societies APA  and AERA.  The American Psychological Association featured Sujeeta Bhatt,  PhD (Georgetown University Medical Center) with an exhibit on "Catching  Spies: Psychological Science and fMRI," and the American Educational  Research Association's exhibit, "Kids as Working Scientists," highlighted  the work of Dr. Nancy Songer (University of Michigan).  Only four of the 34  exhibits were from the behavioral sciences, making the participation of  groups such as the Federation, APA, and AERA a crucial component to the  exhibit's success.

Exhibition  attendees, some of whom are pictured on this page, included:  Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD),  Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY),  Lois Capps (D-CA), Howard Coble (R-NC),  Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ),  Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Bob Etheridge (D-NC), Bob Inglis (R-SC),  Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), Dan Lipinski  (D-IL), Edward Markey (D-MA), Michael R. McNultey (D-NY), Jerrold Nadler  (D-NY), Deborah  Price (R-OH). Also,  David Lightfoot,  PhD, Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at NSF,  and Jim Turner, Minority Chief Council, House Science Committee.

Advocacy Update

Several hours before the  CNSF exhibition opened, Federation Policy Analyst Jill Egeth and Dr. Iyengar  met with staff members of the Senate Finance committee to discuss potential  applications of Dr. Iyengar's research to Social Security reform.  Her  research focuses on the type and quality of choices that we make when  presented with varying numbers of options.  She has examined choice in a  multitude of contexts ranging from employee motivation and performance in a  global organization, to chocolate displays at Godiva, to the magazine aisles  of grocery stores and, still further, to mutual fund options in retirement  benefits plans.  Her findings suggest that while we are more attracted to  large numbers of potential options, we tend to completely opt out of or  postpone decision-making when our choices are too plentiful.  Additionally,  those of us who do manage to make decisions when presented with an  over-abundance of options report lower levels of satisfaction with their  choices than those who make selections from a less bountiful selection.  

These findings have  important implications for the current and future implementation of  retirement savings plans.  Many company- or university-sponsored benefit  plans offer hundreds of different savings portfolio options.  Dr Iyengar's  research on benefit plans indicates that these large numbers of savings  options lead people to either make sub-optimal investment decisions or to  completely opt out of the savings plan.  We met with staff members of the  Senate Finance Committee (the committee with jurisdiction over Social  Security) to share Dr. Iyengar's findings and discuss their relevance to the  administration's plans to privatize Social Security, which could lead to  even more potentially  overwhelming options for American's trying to save for their retirement.

To learn more about Sheena  Iyengar's research, visit her homepage:  http://www.columbia.edu/~ss957/
  

 For information on the  Coalition for National Science Funding, please click here: www.cnsfweb.org