The power of the Nudge

Here's an interesting article on the power of the 'nudge' from the Sunday Times.

Politicians are devouring a book called Nudge, written by two American academics, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which demonstrates how "thoughtful choice architecture can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice". That is, by knowing how people think, we can design 'choice environments' that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society.

The article mentions one example of this type of 'choice environment' - an ingenious little gadget called the Wattson which displays the amount of electricity you are using through colours and numbers, thus encouraging users to reduce the amount they use.

As the article explains, 'Nudge' is also encouraging politicians to think creatively about the power of social norms to influence our behaviour. As well as reducing our electricity consumption, other examples of areas in which social norms might provide a 'nudge' include organ donation and rubbish disposal.

...Realising that financial incentives and penalties such as green taxes had a limited effect on behaviour, Schultz set out to analyse how the energy usage of 300 people in San Marcos, California, could be changed for the better by invoking social norms.

He arranged for the participants to be told on their energy bills what the typical usage in the area was.

"Telling people what others are doing does tend to have an effect," he said. "But there are instances where it can boomerang – if you are using less energy than your neighbours, say by making a sacrifice by not running your air-conditioning, you can feel like a sucker." The result: your energy consumption goes up, not down, to meet the norm.

...Schultz’s solution was to add a little nudge. Some of the participants in his study had a smiley face added to their bill if they used less energy than the norm and a sad face if they used more. The results were startling. Among the participants receiving the emoticon, the boomerang effect completely disappeared. High users reduced their consumption by even more and low users kept their own down.

Disarmingly simple. So simple, in fact, that you wonder why no one's done it before!

Or, what about this "clever use of choice architecture [to] find a middle way for organ donation":

... "We quite like the idea of ‘mandated choice’ in this context," he said. This does not involve any presumption of opt-in or opt-out. Instead it requires people to make a deliberate choice by tacking the process onto something else, such as applying for a driver’s licence or a passport. That solves the problems of both our inertia and bias in the system.

You can see why the politicians are interested in this stuff. Something so simple is surely worth a try? But, as the article states, "it sounds too good to be true. Is it more wishful thinking than sensible policy? Can social norms really change our behaviour?"

Surface Design Websites and Wall Decals

Check out the Print & Pattern blog - a website showcasing surface design of all kinds. There are some awesome prints on there.

Also, I just stumbled across Wall Decals - self-adhesive vinyl 'stickers' that you use to decorate walls etc (and can be repositioned). I bought some for a birthday present for someone recently without realising what they were (they're selling kiddie versions in B&Q). But there are some fab designs out there...


Urban Outfitters - trendy but sadly US-based

Supernice Blik Graphics - lots of cool designs here, but not cheap!

The Threadless designs are pretty groovy as well.

  

Openness, the future and God's foreknowledge

One of the points that's often misunderstood about the Open Theism that Greg Boyd and others espouse, is that they are not saying that God does not know the future. On the contrary, they affirm that God does indeed have knowledge of everything, including what is still to come. What openness argues against is the idea that God only knows one future, in other words that the cosmos runs along a single timeline of 'ordained' possibility (Boyd calls this the 'blueprint worldview'). Open Theism states that God knows every possible future, an infinity of real possibilities (which exist within certain boundaries, of course). Openness asserts that God has given real freedom to individuals within creation to make choices that actually affect what happens in the world, choices for which they are responsible and will be held accountable. Within this He has set out certain conditions and boundaries - e.g. there will be a time of judgement and new creation etc. And of course God is not a detached observer of these events, but in fact the most active participant, always at work to redeem and restore His creation.

It is worth emphasising in this view that while free agents make real choices about the future, no choice or possible future is outside God's (fore)knowledge. God is never caught unaware! (although Jer 32.35 is interesting!) Every choice you make, every infinite possibility of decision has indeed been known by God since before the creation of the world. And in every single one of those infinite possible timelines God has been working for the good of those who love him. Not only has every  individual ever created been loved by God, but every single timeline has been known and lovingly worked into his glorious purpose.

This infinite, sovereign 'intelligence' is much more difficult for us to grasp than infinite controlling power. We have examples of controlling power that we can 'multiply up', but we have very few analogies for the type of intelligence required to weave together infinite possibilities. Perhaps the nearest model we can think of (although it has some significant flaws), and an example I've heard Boyd use, is that of the Chess Grand Master. If I play a Grand Master at Chess he doesn't have to know for certain every move I will make to predict (with 99.9999999% certainty!) that he will win. In fact probably most of the moves I make will be boringly predictable! Really good chess players see possibilities many moves in advance. But God, to use the same analogy, has seen every single possible move, planned his 'counter-attack' for each one and seen the final endgame before the first move was even made!

There are many other ideas I could talk about that fit alongside openness: for example, what it means for God to be in genuine relationship with us; the understanding that God's will is not always done (thus Jesus teaching us to pray "Your will be done...") and so on, but I think this post is long enough for now!

Altogether I find Boyd, in particular, pretty persuasive on this whole topic. I don't agree with everything he states (he's generally more systematic than I'm comfortable with), but I have a feeling that he - and folks like Prof John Polkinghorne - may be on the right lines. And part of why I find it so compelling is that it seems to match up with what the physical universe is actually like. The argument about the relationship between epistemology (what may be known) and ontology (what actually is) in quantum physics may have a little ways to go (does the limit of what it is possible to know correspond with what actually is?), but most physicists will tell you that at the most fundamental level it makes no sense to talk about certainties (future or present). In the strange universe we live in there seems to be something more 'real' about possibilities. As Polkinghorne says, reality is a lot 'fuzzier' than we'd like to think.

[See also: Ben Witherington's view on the 'script']