Cnn.com reports that at least 160 people were killed in a retaliotory attack by the Israeli’s against Hamas in Gaza.

Dennis Embry and I published the following several weeks ago in the Eugene Register Guard. We will not put an end to such violence until we make use of behavioral science knowledge about why such exchanges occur.

Prevailing views about the “war” on terror are directly contrary to scientific understanding of human behavior. Human beings who are traumatized by attack become highly motivated to counterattack. Yet government leaders in the U.S. pursue a military strategy that pays little attention to these effects. Scientific understanding of human behavior confirms the bumper sticker that says: “We are making terrorists faster than we can kill them.”
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NPR had a story on Paul Farmer this morning. He is a physician and anthropologist who is devoting his life to helping people achieve the most basic nurturing condition, adequate health care. Until people have health care they will find it difficult to nurture their children’s development in other ways. Farmer speak of his idealism in seeking health care for everyone.

Behavioral science can help make this a reality. Influencing the organizations of society to support universal health care is a matter that can be studied using the tools of science. For example, whether Oregon finally provides health care to the more than 100,000 children who do not have it will be a matter of whether influential business and health care organizations can be influenced to support it. That is a matter of creating consequences that make it benefical for these organizations to support it.

In future posts, I will discuss how analyzing the consequences to organizations is vital to influencing their behavior.