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Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

economist.com

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Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#31

Post by [deleted] »

vintermann wrote: post #11
martingoodson wrote: post #5

This is a poor headline (from The Economist) that does not reflect the referenced work. The correct interpretation is that nudges need to be tested in the field to find out if they work. This is common knowledge in behavioural science. Experts are not good at predicting which nudges are going to work in practice[1]. Trials are always needed. This is no different to the requirement for drug trials. Drugs are not relea…

I wonder if the problem with "nudge" is that for publicity reasons, people only call it a nudge if it sounds like a tiny thing that doesn't sound like it would work. If it's an obvious intervention, such as a default option in a pension form, or higher prices on tobacco, or condom vending machines in hotel restrooms, they don't call it a nudge anymore. And I also have the feeling some of these may be babies that the…

[deleted]

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#32

Post by nervousvarun »

winReInstall wrote: post #18
ariendj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of miss honesty, though.

Honest debate was the ultimate adventure. Sad its gone, replaced by yelling matches in feeling hive-mind choirs. Guess this how medieval times felt, with oppossing faiths.

"Guess this how medieval times felt, with oppossing faiths."

And we all know that led to...crusades?

Welp.

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#33

Post by klibertp »

winReInstall wrote: post #18
ariendj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of miss honesty, though.

Honest debate was the ultimate adventure. Sad its gone, replaced by yelling matches in feeling hive-mind choirs. Guess this how medieval times felt, with oppossing faiths.

At least for now we still have the yelling matches where people of different faiths can yell at each other without fear of burning at a stake. Getting "cancelled" as a result of yelling the unpopular thing is still less painful than torture and execution on the town's plaza.

"For now" and "still" are the words which I had to insert in the above, and their forced presence seriously scares me.

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#34

Post by ZeroGravitas »

vintermann wrote: post #11
martingoodson wrote: post #5

This is a poor headline (from The Economist) that does not reflect the referenced work. The correct interpretation is that nudges need to be tested in the field to find out if they work. This is common knowledge in behavioural science. Experts are not good at predicting which nudges are going to work in practice[1]. Trials are always needed. This is no different to the requirement for drug trials. Drugs are not relea…

I wonder if the problem with "nudge" is that for publicity reasons, people only call it a nudge if it sounds like a tiny thing that doesn't sound like it would work. If it's an obvious intervention, such as a default option in a pension form, or higher prices on tobacco, or condom vending machines in hotel restrooms, they don't call it a nudge anymore. And I also have the feeling some of these may be babies that the…

Nudges are basically the opposite of dark patterns.

If a headline seems dubious when you swap the two then it's probably got an agenda.

"Dark Patterns don't work anyway, so we should carry on using them" vs "Nudges don't work anyway, we should stop using them"

https://www.simpleusability.com/inspiration/2019/03/dark-pat...

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#35

Post by meltyness »

This seems like a healthier language for these types of incentives.

Without discussion, engineering a system where the elevator is on the top floor always is torture, sadism even.

But what of scholarships? Is money truly the common language spoken at the tender ages these are issued? How do you convince students, once beyond the drudgery of state-mandated public school, that the sudden tradition, idolatry, and care of academia is even a change? How do you put that fruit at eye-level without using cash to whip scholars into meeting minimums, as adjudicated by paper examination?

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#36

Post by jansan »

prohobo wrote: post #10

The chair of behavioral insights advisory in the WHO is one of the co-authors of Nudge Theory. So it's probably safe to say that government health programs - in any country that is supported by the WHO - also implement Nudge to some extent.

Freddie Sayers made a really, really good comment at the end of his recent UnHerd video about this:

"It's not a conspiracy. It's no a communist plot. But what it is, is taking a particular worldview, a view about how society should operate, and removing it from the normal democratic conversation, where people can battle it out, and instead hardwiring it into poerful supranational organizations."

Here is the part of the video that I am referring to: https://youtu.be/Lm-S5zlnHIk?t=528

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#37

Post by chasd00 »

refurb wrote: post #23
asimpletune wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know a lot about this, but would an example be like when Draghi was at the ECB and he responded with "Whatever it takes" when asked about the S. Europe debt crises? Or how exactly does nudging look like in practice?

I thought a good example is when you get a drivers license and it asks if you'd like to become an organ donor, it "pre-checks" the "yes" box rather than leaving it blank. The idea being people who are on the fence are more likely to just accept the "yes" than go through the effort to check "yes"

Or why the “subscribe me to all your spam and your third party’s spam” checkbox is always checked by default.

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#38

Post by cobbzilla »

yourusername wrote: post #27
AmericanChopper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turning the option that most people want into the hardest/most tedious/most onerous option for them to select is a great way to foster contempt for your system.

I think nudges are supposed to be subtle enough that you don't notice them. And probably for every not so subtle manipulation we notice there are 5 we don't notice.

Some are meant to be noticed: mandated calorie counts on food menus (nudge to health eating), or dire warnings on cigarette packs (nudge to quit smoking). Neither of these have had any measurable impact on their goals; I welcome evidence to the contrary.

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#39

Post by brandmeyer »

jansan wrote: post #36
prohobo wrote: post #10

The chair of behavioral insights advisory in the WHO is one of the co-authors of Nudge Theory. So it's probably safe to say that government health programs - in any country that is supported by the WHO - also implement Nudge to some extent.

Freddie Sayers made a really, really good comment at the end of his recent UnHerd video about this: "It's not a conspiracy. It's no a communist plot. But what it is, is taking a particular worldview, a view about how society should operate, and removing it from the normal democratic conversation, where people can battle it out, and instead hardwiring it into poerful supranational organizations." Here is the part of t…

> It's not a conspiracy ... poerful [sic] supranational organizations.

Come on. You can't claim that something isn't a conspiracy and then invoke world-government conspiracies in the same paragraph and expect to be taken seriously.

Re: Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky

#40

Post by AzzieElbab »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #2

Following the same erroneous line of thought the next strategies might now situate themselves between nudging and strong enforcement. Something to really look forward to. Asking people or setting an example are of course ideas that have to be discarded, applied statistical analysis is far more convenient and you have to write some kind of paper. They don't strictly have to but are certainly decisively nudged to do th…

It seems weird to me that no one mentions the importance of timing and source of "nudging". I hoped govs and agencies would learn not to go overboard with nudging when trust levels in their policies was low to begin with.
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