Nudging the Issue | Global Dashboard - Blog covering International affairs and global risks

Nudging the Issue Jules Evans

August 23, 2010 | More on Global system, Influence and networks | 5 comments

News here that David Cameron has approved the establishment of a ‘behavioural insight’ unit, led by policy advisor David Halpern, to find ways to implement the ideas of behavioural psychologist Richard Thaler, who is also apparently working with the unit.

Thaler is, together with Cass Sunstein, the author of Nudge, a study of humans’ poor and often irrational decision-making processes (such as preferring books with easy-to-remember one-word titles) and how governments can manipulate or ‘nudge’ these processes towards more enlightened choices.

Putting a picture of a fly on a urinal, for example, nudges people to pee more in the urinal, and less on the floor. Creating bins that make a funny noise when you drop things into them encourages people to put more rubbish into them. And so on!

There are other, more far-reaching ways you can use behavioural psychology to affect public decision-making. For example, if you present a policy decision to citizens, you could either offer them a box to tick to sign up to it, or a box to tick if they want to opt out of it. Making people tick a box to opt out makes us more likely to opt in.

Why? Because we’re lazy, bored, distracted, inert and irrational creatures. We’re monkeys, so the government needs to present our choices in such a way as to make us pick the right banana.

Thaler and Sunstein call this sort of social manipulation ‘libertarian paternalism’. People are still free to choose how to live. But, knowing that homo dufus often makes bad decisions, governments and companies should structure the choices they prresent so they pick the more enlightened option.

There are two ripostes to this approach.

1) It has only been proved useful on minor interventions. Musical rubbish bins are fun, but not profoundly transformative.

2) Governments should try to appeal to and develop their citizens’ conscious, rational decision-making processes, not manipulate their limbic systems, even if it is for ‘good’ aims. Who is to say the aims are good?

The same sort of manipulation techniques could just as easily be used by corporations for their own short-term profit – just as tobacco companies used the psychological manipulation techniques of Edward Bernays, nephew of Freud and the grand-daddy of Nudge, to sell their cigarettes. They could also be used by a militaristic government to nudge the people to war (see the video below).

The alternative approach to Nudge has been called Think. It’s a bit more old-fashioned – you try to explain things to people to allow them to make a more free, informed and rational decision. Ridiculous idea, I know…

And a middle ground between Nudge and Think has been suggested by the RSA, called Steer. You nudge people towards decisions, and then explain to them how you did it. The Penn and Teller approach to nudge politics.

I propose an alternative psycho-manipulative approach. I call it Bore: you bang on about policy choices in such a dry, tedious and obfuscating way that the public lose interest, turn on the TV, and leave you to rule the country.

5 comments »

Daniel Florian on August 23rd, 2010 at 10:09 am:

Your criticism of "nudging" is unfair, I believe. The book was clearly meant to make citizens being better off, not worse. And simply because corporations use misleading information to sell more credits, houses etc., it is important that the government protects consumers and makes sure they have all the information they need. "Nudge" provides some examples how this might look like. There are other examples where "nudging" is important, for example in pension planning, where the short-term interests of citizens conflict with long-term interests.

There is of course a risk of being misleaded by government – not only since the invention of nudging. But why should only corporations use the science of behavioural economics and not governments? If people don't want to be nudged by their PM and his Ministers, they can simply vote for another government. But I would imagine that many would welcome a friendly "nudge" …
Jules on August 23rd, 2010 at 10:58 am:

Hi Daniel,

I know that the book says we can use nudging to nudge people to more enlightened decisions. But the book is about manipulation techniques, and those techniques can be used for all sorts of different ethical and political goals.

The insights of behavioural economics can be used two ways:

1) People are prone to all sorts of cognitive biases and mistakes. Therefore, work with these biases and manipulate them to achieve your goals (which may be enlightened, or selfish).

2) People are prone to all sorts of cognitive biases and mistakes. Therefore, educate people about them and try to help them become less in thrall to them, and more rational in their pursuit of wellbeing.

Nudge is an example of approach (1). I'd prefer approach (2).
Daniel Florian on August 23rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm:

I take your point, and I'd prefer approach (2) as well. But I also see that many people (and I do not exclude myself) are lazy and don't want to learn about their biases and become educated before being able to sign up for a retirement plan.

What I liked about "Nudge" was the idea of changing the default positions. That way, people could still decide to have no retirement plan and spend all their money on expensive watches and holidays in the Caribbean, but they would in fact be encouraged to save their money.

And I see no ethical problems if governments (or in this case corporations) change default options …
Jules on August 23rd, 2010 at 2:52 pm:

You're talking about 'presumed consent' – when the default option is opt in, rather than opt out.

I think the idea of 'presumed consent' can be dangerous when used by governments or corporations. It's kind of hiding things in the small print, isn't it? It's assuming people are too lazy and dumb to really think about the choices in front of them, and taking advantage of that to achieve something YOU want.

Governments are talking about introducing presumed consent for organ donation. But should governments presume consent for this? What are the limits of presumed consent? When can it ethically be used, and when not?

I mean, surely on really serious issues, we shouldn't be using opt in or opt out – we should make people actively choose one option or another, and try to present the choice as clearly as possible, so they don't get 'buyer's regret', when they realized they signed up to something they weren't aware of.

In general, behavioural economics emphasizes how irrational, automatic and unconscious much of our decision-making is. But it also asserts that we CAN become more rational, more conscious, more self-aware.

I would like a politics based on the Socratic idea of people being educated to be more reasonable, more responsible, more autonomous, rather than unconsciously manipulated by enlightened controller-wonks. Unless I'm in control of course. In which case I'm all for enlightened autocracy.
Daniel Florian on August 24th, 2010 at 7:06 am:

Just for the record: I would not want to be associated with anything like "enlightened autocracy" and don't think that's what Cass and Sunstein had in mind when writing "Nudge". Anyway, it seems that it's a very controversial issue and it'll be interesting to see what Cameron's "nudge unit" will propose – I'll follow your blog for harsh criticism of the government

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