Dr Richard Whittle and Stuart Mills from MMU analyse the potential of ‘nudges’ during a pandemic

The UK Government’s initial handling of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has come under serious criticism from many citizens.

One of the reasons for this is because the Government is using behavioural science to decide how to coordinate its response to the pandemic.

According to the principles of behavioural science, people don’t act rationally.

But if we can understand people’s actions, and how they act irrationally, then we can intervene to change behaviour. Such interventions are typically called ‘nudges’.

These can be powerful tools for influencing how people behave but with the added benefit of allowing them to make their own choices.

Nudges usually offer positive reinforcement or indirect suggestions that aim to influence decision making and behaviour in people.

Using some behavioural science to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic may make sense, as Nobel Laureate and economist Richard Thaler has recently argued.

For instance, supermarkets have started using floor signs at check-outs to encourage customers to maintain a safe distance while purchasing groceries.

But what has many experts worried is the government’s reliance on the idea of ‘behavioural fatigue’.

No clear definition of behavioural fatigue exists. But as best understood, behavioural fatigue is the idea that eventually people get bored of doing one thing and start engaging in other, sometimes undesirable, behaviours.

For example, if people are placed in quarantine, they may initially be very compliant. But after some time, this compliance will wither away.

And it may possibly happen – as the UK Government claims – at precisely the moment when compliance is most needed.

There has been a clear overreach of behavioural science in policy design and implementation.

Techniques which may prove beneficial in smaller, more managed and stable circumstances such as increasing pension participation, organ donation, tax compliance and litter reduction, have been viewed as both cheap and effective.

In practice and effective design, behavioural interventions are targeted to a particular group.

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 on to the behaviourally informed policy response, which in essence can be defined as a soft paternalistic response.

A liberal state does not want to sanction draconian social control measures (known as hard paternalism) and would prefer to nudge the population into taking the correct action rather than enforce it.

This may have some advantages, notably being less disruptive in the short term to the economy and the lives of citizens.

However, according to the World Health Organization, a hard paternalism strategy of social distancing and lockdowns, coupled with mass testing and investment in medical infrastructure, would be better.

While governments increasingly 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.

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 thousands of volunteers offering registration through a mobile app.

Pro-social nudging will conceivably become more important should the current pandemic become protracted.

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.

This could include encouraging households to design family routines, rather than individual routines, so members reinforce each other’s behaviour.

Exercise regimes could be encouraged by disseminating information about typical pre-lockdown activity-levels and easy-to-make recipes could be shared to encourage healthy eating.

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 solution.

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