Public servants flock to PCO’s first-ever behavioural economics briefing

I am a fan of nudges and Kirkman captures the reality that current politics already incorporate nudges, and so the question is more what kind of nudge is more effective as part of policy and program design, rather than more existential questioning.

As readers already know, I am also a fan of behavioural economics, and found the insights in Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow particularly relevant to policy makers who may not be as aware of their thinking processes as needed:

Elspeth Kirkman, North American head of the Behavioural Insights Team’s head of North American operations, was asked during a presentation how she responds to criticism that she’s involved in “social engineering.” She said governments cannot get away from the fact they have to encourage certain kinds of behaviour from people, so it might as well be done effectively.

“Departments and governments are already nudging people in terms of how they present information to them, how they ask them to do things, how they structure their defaults, and all we’re doing really is being mindful about that,” she said. “We’re saying, actually, let’s just understand what the implication in the way that we’re structuring that choice is.”

Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, told the audience that sometimes more than a “nudge” is needed when it comes to public policy.

“I’m a big fan of nudges … but nudges are a very modest attempt to interfere minimally, often at a very low cost, when you’re politically somewhat helpless, in ways that that help people,” he said.

“But there’s a lot more than that. And if you think about what policy does throughout, whether it’s the design of emergency rooms or what it takes to make a nation healthy and happy, there are profound psychological questions that lie at the core of what we do.”

When asked to elaborate in what qualifies as a nudge and what’s seen as more, Mr. Shafir noted how buildings are often designed—in terms of where stairs, elevators, and parking lots are placed—to promote physical activity, and he feels buildings that are constructed in ways to encourage certain behaviours represent the kind of policy that goes beyond nudges.

Ms. Kirkman talked about an EAST model—which stands for easy, attractive, social, and timely—for creating conditions for public compliance with government policies.

She talked about using plain language and less “legalese” to make it easier for people to understand government communications. She used an example of a U.S. city that had an unfortunate practice of sending out very technically worded letters to homeowners whose properties did not meet municipal standards.

“The letter actually starts with: ‘According to Chapter 156 and/or Chapter 155 and/or Chapter 37 in the [municipal] ordinances process, we have found your property to be in violation of inspection.’ And it kind of just goes on and on and on like this, and it doesn’t actually say, ‘Hey, you need to fix your property and here’s what’s wrong with it.’ ”

In terms of making things attractive, Ms. Kirkman used an example how different styles of texting unemployed people from a job centre in the Britain to inform them about a new supermarket that was holding a job fair. She said 10 per cent of the people notified would typically attend such a non-mandatory event. However, when people’s individual names were used in the message, that increased to 15 per cent. When the message appeared to come from the unemployed people’s employment advisers, it increased to 17 per cent. Finally, that rate increased to 26 per cent when the individuals were told their advisers had booked them a time-slot at this event.

The social aspect of encouraging certain actions is shown by Mr. Treusch’s example of publicizing how most people pay their taxes, Ms. Kirkman said.

Another factor is who conveys the message, she said. She recalled how the British government once sent letters signed by the chief medical officer that advised certain physicians to prescribe antibiotics less often, and the campaign was a success. She said the message would have been less effective with this particular audience if it came from the health minister. These physicians were also told how the majority of their peers were prescribing fewer antibiotics, she added.

An example of timeliness focused on a police force Britain that was found to be much less ethnically diverse than the community it serves. Research ultimately uncovered that most applicants of minority ethnicities were failing an online test in which they were asked how they would react, as a police officer, to certain situations.

Ms. Kirkman said it’s believed the effect of “stereotype threat” was at work, where people who are part of groups that have negative stereotypes tend to perform worse in certain instances if reminded of those stereotypes just before the task.

She said when the wording of the email asking applicants to take this test was changed to be “warmer” and contain a preamble asking them to think about what it would mean to their community if they became a police officer, the gap in success in the test between white applicants and others was closed.

Source: Public servants flock to PCO’s first-ever behavioural economics briefing |