Nudge Taking a Knock
Is nudge - a popular way of describing how Behavioural Science looks to influence behaviours - on the way out?
Two articles in the past few days caught my eye, made me wonder.
One by Magda Osman, Research Assocation at Cambridge Universtiy in Decision making:
Nudges: Four Resasons to Doubt....
Entitled "Nudges: Four Reasons to Doubt Popular Technique to Shape People's Behaviour", it focuses uniquely on the limitations and downsides of what used to be referred to as behavioural engineering.
She looks at four aspects:
- the limits and fragility of so-called "soft" interventions
- ethnical concerns
- how nudges can fail or backfire
- the lack of theoretical backing
I am certainly no expert on Behvaioural Science, but was struck by the lack of positives highlighted by someone in an academic, and therefore neutral context.
It's a great and short read, full of links - so check it out.
Conscious of the effect of publication bias, I posed the question of how authoritative the article seemed to the person sharing on LinkedIn, Colin Strong, Head of Behavioural Science at Ipsos, as yet no response.
The second one was more mainstream - but influential nonetheless.
Simon Ruda, co-founder of the UK Government's Nudge Unit, talks about the nudge's potential for uninteded harm - with hard-hitting phrases such as "Nudging made subtle state influence palatable, but mixed with a state of emergency, have we inadvertently sanctioned state propaganda".
It refers to the pandemic, and what he sees as mistakes in the level of fears engendered amongst the general public by nudge-style interventions.
You can read the original article here:
Will Nudge Theory survive the Pandemic?
It got picked up by some of the more conservative-leaning UK mainstream papers, which you can find quickly via google.
The timing is interesting. Both came to my attention over the past 7 days. Both from UK sources.
The UK Government is looking to embrace, it seems, a different strategy with the pandemic, moving away from on-off-lockdowns to one of living with the virus, re-classifying it as endemic.
The BBC no less even asks if the pandemic is entering the end-game:
Time to end the fear agenda - and begin a process of relativising, backing away from the BE underpinning?
If this is a tipping point, it may impact on market research, even analytics.
There's a whole eco-system out there. Behavioural Economics spawned a whole raft of change over the past 15 years or so - the originally named BrainJuicer built its core original proposition on System 1/ System 2 Thinking as popularised by the likes of Prof. Daniel Kahnemann.
Many other MR agencies have since built up units to help clients explore decision making structures, framing options - from larger operations like Ipsos to many other excellent smaller players. Some look to apply BE approaches and lenses to whole study designs - with success documented by awards.
The ad world - whatever is left of it - has been impacted. Ogilvy Consulting has a Behavioural Science unit for example.
Academia has moved to embrace the discipline. You can study Behavioural Science at the LSE, no less.
Is this eco-system now looking a bit shaky, given the changes that are perhaps underway?
Market research is often still a downstream operation - and impacted by what floats down from the powerful and influential.
If the BE music is now changing - perhaps in response to changes in policy at a Governmental level - then certain sections of the industry will perhaps follow suit.
Curious, as ever, as to others's views.