The limits of nudge

Dr Richard Whittle and Stuart Mills says huge shift in everyone’s lives caused by COVID-19 doesn’t prove that behaviours can’t be changed by techniques like ‘nudging’ but they do show its limits 

The role of behavioural science so far in the pandemic response, has been to clearly display its limitations. That is not to say that it doesn’t have a useful part to play, going forward.

These recent failures are ones we have seen again and again in terms of nudging and policy. It’s not necessarily a failure of theory, not even necessarily a failure of application, but a failure to realise that the tweaks, benefits and incremental improvements of nudging don’t work in every circumstance, particularly this one of mesmerising scope and uncertainty. There is a clear overreach of behavioural science in policy design and implementation. Techniques which may prove beneficial in smaller more managed and stable circumstances around increasing pension participation, organ donation, tax compliance and litter reduction, are seen as both cheap and effective. In practice and effective design, behavioural interventions are targeted to a particular group, a subset of taxpayers, individuals at the margin making pension saving decisions etc. No clever nudge design is going to make workers who cannot afford their pension contribution sacrifice food in order to save for their future, a nudge may encourage those who can afford to, but don’t save to do so.

This brings us onto the behaviourally informed policy response, which in essence is a soft paternalistic response. A liberal state does not want to enact draconian social control measures and would prefer to nudge the population into taking the correct action rather than enforce it (hard paternalism). The liberal state would prefer that media footage of Key Workers surrounded by empty shelves and unable to purchase necessary goods from supermarkets would prevent panic buying (although there is a risk of confirming the individual belief in food shortages leading to panic). But it turns out that hard intervention limiting the number of items per shopper is required. The key word here is panic, behavioural science rightly deals with cases of irrational behaviour and explains and provides appropriate policy solutions to irrational behaviour in normal times. However, the fear prompting this panic buying is way beyond standard examples of irrational behaviour. This is fear for lives and livelihoods, the basic desire to protect yourself and your family. Yes, panic buying is irrational from a societal viewpoint, if everyone bought as normal there would be no issue. But this irrationality is not the irrationality which prompts somebody to put off their pension, delay their tax return or not get around to registering to donate their organs. This behaviour is the guttural fear and panic response to an overwhelming, fast moving and hitherto unimaginable situation. Here no amount of nudging will have the immediate effect required to calm the populace. Indeed, on an individual level with partial information and in individual circumstances panic buying may seem all too rational.

What remains true, and what represents both a challenge and an opportunity for behavioural science, is the ubiquity of choice architecture regardless of whatever measures are ultimately taken. While governments increasing pivot from soft paternalism strategies towards hard paternalist measures such as nationwide lockdowns, this does not and should not mean a rejection of behavioural science. An argument may even be made that now, with a population more at risk of agitation than ever before, intelligent and considerate behavioural science will be crucial.

The UK-wide lockdown, for instance, raises several behavioural challenges. An immediate challenge is one of social and community cohesion. On the one hand, a sense of us all being in this together can create vital social links which will be necessary to support the most vulnerable in our communities. On the other, this collective spirit may also be expressed as an antagonistic attitude against those who – for legitimate reasons – fail to adhere to the lockdown. What’s more, the mere act of separation could begin to undermine the concept of shared spaces and experiences.

Behavioural science offers strategies for nudging the formation of normative behaviour within the lockdown. For instance, encouraging families to arrange to eat at the same time, and to videocall while eating, bridges a spatial divide. Another nudge might involve volunteering. By making it easy and convenient for people to get involved, communities may be able to raise an “army of volunteers” relatively quickly. As recently seen, the NHS has been able to sign up some hundreds pf thousands of volunteers offering registration through a mobile app. However, it’s important to not be complacent – once the novelty of signing up has worn off, additional nudges will likely be needed to transform that initial enthusiasm into productive activity. Embracing strategies such as these will become vital, as only constructive social norms will enable the lockdown policy to be sustained for the longer-term, if indeed that is necessary.

Social norms remain, however, very much a pro-social behavioural consideration, with the benefits largely flowing to the community as a whole. While pro-social nudging is important and will conceivably become more important should the current pandemic become protracted, in the shorter-term, pro-self behaviours, where individuals primarily benefit, should also be considered.

While an initial few days of disruption might come across as novel, and even cognitively simulating, there is a significant potential for harmful behaviours developing as the scale of lockdown disruption bites. Behaviours, such as sustained unhealthy eating or a reduction in exercise, will have knock-on effects both during and after the current pandemic. Tackling the deleterious behaviour of individuals is where nudging has shown its greatest potential, and may be helpful.

A plethora of opportunities to nudge come to mind: encouraging households to design family routines, rather than individual routines, so members reinforce each other’s behaviour; encouraging exercise regimes by disseminating information about typical pre-lockdown activity-levels; helping those home-schooling by establishing easy rules-of-thumb for their kids, such as the proportion of Maths to English to playtime a child of a given age should receive; sharing easy-to-make recipes for healthy meals.

All these nudges have potential, though only time may determine their ultimate effectiveness. This is the caveat which must be maintained throughout and should have been emphasised over recent weeks – behavioural science can help, but it is not a panacea. For instance, the examples offered here are all contingent on intelligent use of information channels. Pro-social nudges may lend themselves more to being disseminated via national news, where the notion of ‘speaking to the nation’ is normalised. Equally, pro-self nudges may benefit from being distributed via social media channels, as these channels are generally more personalised and said to ‘speak to the individual.’

Richard Whittle is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of Strategy, Enterprise and Sustainability at Manchester Metropolitan University and this piece has been co-authored with Stuart Mills, a PhD researcher and fast becoming a leading expert in Behavioural Science and nudging. He also contributed to the Conversation on how the UK Government is using behaviourial science.