Psychology and inferences about public policy

The research literature of psychology may be brought to bear on public policy issues in three ways. First, psychology may be useful in establishing procedures for determining public policy. Second, psychology may be useful in formulating the structure for policy and its implementation. Third, the literature of psychology may be reflected in the actual content of public policy. There are many issues involved in making inferences about public policy from the psychological literature. Among these issues are the generalizability of findings from basic science and problems of overadvocacy on the part of policy consultants. Researchers expect that inferences from the psychological literature would lead to innovations in the policy, but the innovations themselves must be evaluated.