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Last February, an otherwise little-noticed article called Helping People Help Themselves spent a day at the top of the New York Times' most emailed list. The article began by distilling of the science of behavioral economics. People, no matter how intelligent or well-educated, are subject to several well-documented mental catch-22s, among them "status quo bias", "averaging" and the most cocktail-party-ready: "parabolic discounting".

Status quo bias needs little explanation. (In fact none of these will-my bet is we recognize them instantly in ourselves.) All things being equal human beings will tend to choose the option that requires the least change. Averaging involves the misapplication of simple mathematical models to things like compound interest or geometric growth. It's the whole conundrum of the page folded in half again and again: the human brain is simply not equipped to conceptualize geometric phenomena very efficiently. (That's a broad statement likely to get me in trouble. It's a little like saying, "we're not very agile compared to the cheetah." Sure, Carl Lewis and Randy Moss are apt counterexamples, but...) I experience parabolic discounting every time I pull out the credit card to cover a night out-it's the human tendency to downplay long-term consequences and give too much weight to short term.

The author, Teresa Tritch, went on to argue that the public sector has only recently embraced behavioral economics, putting the science to use for things like anti-smoking campaigns and "opt out" retirement plans. Yet for all its apparent salience, behavioral economics has enjoyed astonishingly little attention this political season, even as we debate things like climate change and tax code.

Last week The Newshour ran a feature on prison reform in the southwest. Arizona, where prison crowding is rife, was experimenting with programs to provide jobs and education to inmates. The program, which offered incentives like greater freedom and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, gave inmates something to "shoot for"-a reason to behave well. It was also-to my delight-largely privately funded.

In explaining to my wife why I thought private funding was a more effective way to solve problems in America than government programs (which basically boiled down to the fact that anything that depends for its funding on voters' whims about tax policy is on shaky ground) I unwittingly sparked a much larger argument. Why, she asked, were Americans not willing to pay for things from which they undoubtedly received long-term benefit? (Low recidivism, lower rates of incarceration, more efficiency in the prison system in this case.)

We returned to a recurring theme in our recent discussions-health care and pensions. Why are Americans unwilling to pay slightly (or even greatly) more taxes for a system that relieves them of their anxiety about health care and retirement? Is the knowledge that the loss of one's job and a medical problem won't cause bankruptcy or destitution not worth a few more dollars out of the paycheck?

I've written elsewhere about my trips to Europe and Taiwan and the difference in the attitudes of the workforce I've observed between other "advanced" countries (relaxed employees who work hard because they're interested in doing the job well) and the US (chronically stressed, working only hard enough to avoid getting fired). Now, my anecdotal observations do not a scientific study make. Moreover, there are doubtless many reasons for the differences in work ethos--a company culture that promotes from within and retains workers for life, a superior work ethic fostered by stable families, an emphasis on and respect for education all but unknown in the US--all contribute. But there's another nagging fact-Taiwan and the vast majority of European Union countries all offer some kind of universal health care and social safety net.

Much has been made this election season about why, with the American economy in a downturn born of irresponsible speculation in the investment banking sector, millions of people being foreclosed from their homes, still more going bankrupt every day because of medical expenses, and large pillars of our infrastructure-bridges, air traffic control-deteriorating, things are still so close. A peek at the declining dollar relative to the Euro ought to inspire envy. A walk through a boarded-up neighborhood in Baltimore or the Southwest or a look at a new-construction home looted for all its metal components and left unsalvagable ought to inspire outrage. Every story we read about someone whose illness caused him to lose a job, which in turn caused loss of health care coverage and financial ruin, ought to scare us. And of course it does. Americans are sufficiently scared, outraged and angry to embrace just about any solution we believed would help us.

Part of the dichotomy, doubtless, is a legitimate difference of opinion on the role the government ought to play. Many who are well aware of the limitations of the free market to protect all but the strongest stakeholders nonetheless believe private citizens, and not the government, are best equipped to look after their interests. But far too little effort has been made to understand how the common traps of human nature-like parabolic discounting-are shaping our national opinions.

Take the debate over offshore drilling. The basic premise-providing short-term relief to people suffering under the pall of high gas prices-is laudable. But economists insist it will provide little long-term benefit: the US has only 3 percent of the world's petroleum reserves but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. And remember Al Gore? Two summers ago, when gas was cheap, global warming was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Now few dare venture the environmental argument against expanded oil drilling. Put in the context of parabolic discounting, however, it's easy to understand why people would favor a short term solution of dubious merit over any solution that required short term sacrifice but would pay of in the long run. We're talking about the same species that knows smoking will eventually kill us but takes up smoking all the same.

Status quo bias and something called the "endowment effect" (our tendency to "endow" our immediate possessions, like paychecks, with importance disproportionate to their actual worth) work against any attempt to ask people to pay more taxes. If employers can't get their employees to contribute 2 percent of their monthly paycheck toward a 401K why would we expect them to part with far larger sums in order to fund national health care? And few outside the medicare system have experienced universal coverage-it's an unknown. The status quo, however flawed, can still feel "safer", especially to those of us with employer-provided insurance and few (knock on wood) ailments.

Much has been made of the irresponsibility that got Americans into the housing crisis and led us to take on unprecedented levels of personal debt. Relatively little weight, however, has been assigned to parabolic discounting and averaging, or to lenders' astute understanding of human nature. But how else to explain "teaser" interest rates and needlessly complex disclosure literature? By making getting in just a bit easier and understanding what you're getting into just a tad more difficult, credit companies capitalized on the worst of human tendencies.

Finally, why would Americans support the invasion of Iraq when its benefits were so tenuous and long-term risks to both national and economic security so tangible? Viewed through the prism of behavioral economics it's not hard to understand-the desire to do something-anything-to eliminate a perceived threat outweighed any risks down the road.

Tritch's article explained how some agencies could use behavioral economics to make our tendencies work for our long term well being instead of against it. In 2006 congress passed the pension reform law, which changed the "opt in" rule governing pensions to an "opt out" one. By automatically enrolling people in a retirement savings plan but giving them the choice to opt out, you're not denying them freedom, but making status quo bias work in their favor. To curb smoking Tritch proposed requiring a free identification card to buy cigarettes. The card would require no special qualification to smoke besides being of legal age and willingness to apply, so it would not curtail personal liberty. It would, however, add one extra hurdle to lighting up-one familiar to anyone who's ever pondered whether getting up and trudging to the kitchen during the best part of your favorite show is really worth it for that next beer.

Could similar incentives work on larger-scale problems? We don't have "opt out" taxes, and that's probably a good thing. (I'd hate to picture congress levying a tax that I have an opportunity to vote against "whenever I get around to it." That congress wouldn't last very long either.) But an approach to regulating investment banks and the credit industry informed by behavioral economics (realizing, for instance, that the idea that citizens always act in their rational self-interest is demonstrably false)might just prevent the next big financial crisis.

But we need to start having the right conversation. We need to recognize a choice that deliberately plays against our human biases for what it is: a false choice.