Public Policy and Behavioural Change

Behavioural change continues to feature prominently in the news - just this week the government announced plans designed to increase the amount that we give to charity. And a House of Lords Committee is currently investigating approaches to behavioural change applied to many economic and social issues.The Institute for Government has just published a new document - MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy - which focuses on the contribution that insights from behavioural economics might play in shaping public policies. MINDSPACE is an acronym capturing nine separate influences on our behaviour (listed below). The document contains some case studies of where behavioural nudges have been tried in local communities.

• Messenger - we are heavily influenced by who communicates information
• Incentives - our responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts such as strongly avoiding losses (loss aversion)
• Norms - we are strongly influenced by what others do (social norms)
• Defaults - we go with the flow? of pre-set options
• Salience - our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant to us
• Priming - our acts are often influenced by sub-conscious cues
• Affect - our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions
• Commitments - we seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts
• Ego - we act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves

Top economist and Tutor2u contributor Paul Ormerod spoke at the RSA about the connections between network economies and behavioural economics - his talk is available here