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This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

How the power elite can – and does - manipulate us - Part 4 of the series on the political class

I’ve often in the past 20 years had to put myself in the shoes of Ministers and senior civil servants to help them develop “road maps” to their destinations of reform….An important technique I’ve used in these endeavours has been to get my counterparts to list why they think people behave the way they do – whether as officials, as citizens, politicians or businesspeople  – and what that tells us about the best way to try to get them to change. 
After all, the projects I’ve led only exist because someone has decided the present state of affairs is no longer acceptable…..so what aspects of whose behaviour are we talking about? And what is it that is most likely to make target groups change their behaviour?
-                Simple instructions?
-                Threats? Incentives?
-                Explanations and understanding?
-                Moral exhortation?

I have then developed, over the past couple of decades, this table which focuses on the assumptions we make about motives - and then explores the various mechanisms which are available to those trying to change beliefs and behaviour

The “behavioural turn” - Tools in the change process

Motivating Factor


Example of tool
Particular mechanism
1. Understanding
Training
Campaigns
Functional review
Rational persuasion

Factual analysis
2. Commitment
Leadership
Communications
Training
Legitimisation; inspiration

Pride
3. Maximising Personal Benefit
Pay increase and bonus
Promotion (including political office)
Good publicity
Winning an award
Monetary calculation
ambition

Reputation;
Psychological Status
4. Minimising Personal Cost
Named as poor performer
Demotion
Report cards
Psychological (Shame)
Monetary
Pride
5. Obligation
Law
Action plan
Family ties
Courts
Managerial authority
Social pressure
6. Peer influence
Bribery
Quality circles
Pressure
Support
7. Social influence


Opinion surveys
Feedback from public about service quality

The explosion of interest in behaviour
In the last decade, the question of changing (other) people’s behaviour has become a central one for government, business and NGOs. Professors Thaler and Cass may have “nudged” interest with their 2008 Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness but it was in fact the UK Cabinet Office which arguably set the ball rolling four years earlier with its Personal Responsibility and changing behaviour – the state of knowledge and its implications for public policy (2004) - an example which was followed with Changing Behaviour – a public policy perspective (Australian Government 2007).

The Nudge book certainly inspired the Cameron government some 7 years later to set up a Nudge Unit in the Cabinet but the British government had in 2008 been exploring this issue in its  The Use of sanctions and rewards in the public sector (NAO 2008) the very same year - accompanied by a literature review drafted by Deloitte
Even the House of Lords was not to be outdone – with the voluminous evidence of its Behaviour Change in 2011. And the voluntary sector put down an early marker with its Common Case – the case for working with our cultural values (2010) – which showed more familiarity with the marketing approach than did the economistic and rationalistic assumptions which were embedded in the erly British attempts.
So the World Bank was rather lagging behind when in 2015 its Annual Development Report got round to dealing with the issue - in its Mind, Society and Behaviour

In parallel to this burgeoning interest, the emergence of “behavioural economics” has represented a shamefaced admission by the “discipline” that their models had been based on utterly stupid assumptions of rationality…

However, policy geeks such as yours truly have perhaps been a bit slow to make the connection between the “behavioural turn” and “Big Data” - let alone the scandal of Cambridge Analytics


Useful Further Reading
articles
Reports and Books
Mind, Society and Behaviour (World Development Report; World Bank 2015)
Behaviour Change (House of Lords (2011)
Nudge, nudge, think, think; book by Peter John, Smith and Gerry Stoker (2011
It was accompanied by a literature review drafted by Deloitte

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