Casting later start times as the norm rather than an aberration would also help the advocates’ cause, according to the researchers, given that social pressure is a significant factor in human decision-making. When people see peers who are similar to them doing something, they are likely to imitate that action. One odd example: According to a study, hotel guests who are told that past guests staying in their specific room reused their towels are more likely to choose to reuse than those who are simply told that guests in the same hotel have done it. The authors suggest that people advocating for later start times in a given district find a school that did push the first bell back and put it in contact with a similar school that’s conflicted on the issue.

Since the paper is a set of suggestions, it does not provide findings, and without data it’s unclear whether these tools can indeed be applied to the school start-time debate. Those who oppose late start times may disagree with the study’s underlying premise and dismiss behavioral-economics tricks as ineffective in the face of what they see as clear logistical concerns. And a substantial number of anecdotes do support their concerns about delaying class; some students have said they have less time to complete their homework, for example, and some school districts have noted that students feel more rushed getting to sports games or other activities after a later last bell, while others have reported traffic and overcrowding on buses, which sometimes makes students late for school.

Asked about the practical arguments against later start times, Ziporyn pointed to the many districts that have successfully found solutions to the logistical challenges. “When schools change their hours, all of these things adapt accordingly,” she said. She noted that many schools that have moved their bell times still have students winning sports competitions and continue to see growing rates of extracurricular participation. Ziporyn also pointed to a recent RAND Corporation report predicting that later start times are economically beneficial in the long run; the report estimates that the decrease in fatal car accidents and increase in academic achievement as a result of later start times would lead to a stronger workforce and nationwide economic gains over the course of the next decade, and that immediate benefits could be seen in as soon as two years. Even those who complain about later start times tend to agree that solving the logistical challenges is possible—it’s just that the solutions take time, unified leadership, and often money, resources which can be difficult for some schools to come by.

Malone, the research scientist at NYU and one of the study’s authors, said that the authors knew they were embarking on something “new and different” when they decided to apply behavioral-economics principles to an issue of public policy, which often gets mired in bureaucracy and logistics, rather than a case of individual choice-making. It’s also possible that for some decision-makers, the choice doesn’t appear as one between what is beneficial and what is harmful; some might see it as a balancing of, say, health benefits with logistical benefits.

All in all, the authors’ hope is to “create a climate in which people want to change”—a climate that may be difficult to create just by talking to parents about the scientific evidence, Ziporyn said. “People don’t want to be told that they’re hurting their children,” she said. “It sounds like we’re telling people they’re bad parents. And that’s not the point. The point is, this is something you want to do.”