Nudging Public Behaviour

Attended a presentation last week by Richard Thaler who’s been in the news recently for advising Barack Obama and David Cameron on how to ‘Nudge’ the public into different forms of behaviour (see http://www.nudges.org/index.cfm).  Very pertinent for local government and partners when over half of the ten most popular LAA targets rely on changing behaviour (see www.idea.gov.uk/laa).

 

Approaches available include making the ‘default’ option one that you want (e.g. you have to present school meals in some way, and if one encourages more healthy eating, why not choose it?), use social norms (people will recycle more if they think everyone else is), and expect error so make things easier for people (‘tell me again, can you put yoghurt pots in the plastic recycling?’).

 

Not all new (e.g. see ‘Behavioural economics: seven principles for policy-makers’ from the New Economics Foundation http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=213 and “Creatures of Habit: the art of behavioural change” from the Social Market Foundation http://www.smf.co.uk/creatures-of-habit.html) but interesting stuff.  And he did a great job of deflecting criticism.  They call it ‘libertarian paternalism’ and disarmingly suggest they picked two of the most unpopular words available – but actually the two cancel each other out to some extent.  He accepted that this isn’t the only way of changing behaviour (not much use against terrorism), but if it’s there, why not use it.  And against the charge that this is manipulation or social engineering, he said that if influencing how people choose is inevitable – there’s no neutral option – why not choose the arrangement that is in the best interests of the chooser and society more generally.