Alan Kennedy has a sceptical piece in TCW on the Nudge Unit and its offshoots.
Sage advice built on fraud and confusion
FOR two years our daily lives in the face of Covid have been ruled by a coterie of experts in ‘behavioural psychology’, a breed of psychologist that seems to have appeared from nowhere. I speak as a psychologist who has been in the business for a good many years. It is worth asking, who are these people, and how did they come by these insights into the workings of the human psyche? Insights so profound that they merited our unthinking obedience? ...
A useful orienting date for an answer is 2011 – the year the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee produced a report on ‘Behaviour Change’. A succession of experts from the world of social psychology had induced their lordships to swallow Nudge Theory hook, line and sinker (the infamous MINDSPACE protocol dates from 2010). Their report is still worth reading, if only to see how groupthink works. The committee accepted as hard fact a host of assertions which were, even then, patently questionable; for example, the proposition that our thought processes (and behaviour) are largely under the control of factors of which we are unconscious. We may be rational if we want to be, but it’s the environment that unconsciously nudges us, like prodded sheep, one way or another.
My impression from way outside the field is that psychology attracts far too many inadequate and even crooked recruits. Yet it is also possible to discern some silver linings such as this example via the MINDSPACE link above - the number of deaths needed to receive as much media attention as 1 death from a volcano.
A useful orienting date for an answer is 2011 – the year the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee produced a report on ‘Behaviour Change’. A succession of experts from the world of social psychology had induced their lordships to swallow Nudge Theory hook, line and sinker (the infamous MINDSPACE protocol dates from 2010). Their report is still worth reading, if only to see how groupthink works. The committee accepted as hard fact a host of assertions which were, even then, patently questionable; for example, the proposition that our thought processes (and behaviour) are largely under the control of factors of which we are unconscious. We may be rational if we want to be, but it’s the environment that unconsciously nudges us, like prodded sheep, one way or another.
My impression from way outside the field is that psychology attracts far too many inadequate and even crooked recruits. Yet it is also possible to discern some silver linings such as this example via the MINDSPACE link above - the number of deaths needed to receive as much media attention as 1 death from a volcano.
The numbers may not be generally known, but media distortion is certainly well understood. Amid the fraud and confusion, we could eventually see a kind of gravitational attraction towards good data and a corresponding attraction towards governments as a craft where there is some degree of pride in basing policies and decisions on good data.
This kind of sceptical outlook as represented by the TCW piece is not difficult to find, nor is it difficult to understand. Over time, easy to find and easy to understand ought to take us somewhere better.
9 comments:
I've noticed in several industries how gullible senior managers are to snake oil. I've seen this close up in the IT industry and in Schools.
Some keen entrepreneur/startup comes up with a 'new insight' into whatever is suboptimal and proposes a solution. Senior managers, who have struggled for years to improve matters, willingly accept that the latest snake oil will work for their organisation, and that they will get the kudos for turning around a previously intractable problem.
A moments thought will show that the proposed idea are either dependent upon very favourable interpretations of doubtful data, or (even worse) just previously tried ideas gussied up with a new set of Powerpoint slides.
A second moments thought will reveal that the entrepreneur/startup will be paid extra for implementation but not for results.
Sturgeon's law is an adage stating "ninety percent of everything is crap."
DiscoveredJoys corollary... except for self help and business process gurus where the amount of crap approaches 99%
I hadn't realised draughts were so deadly.
Interesting scale. Also distance is a factor.
Here in New Zealand,we still have not yet managed to remove the grip of the "Safety at all costs" Brigade, although there are signs that it is weakening as the Government is now sliding in the Opinion Polls. The death toll has risen, but no one seems to notice that the majority of deaths are of the very elderly. For example, of the 24 deaths today, 14 are people aged 80 or 90 years and the average age at death is 76. What a surprise, old people are dying.As I myself am 84, I know that any illness can be the last one, but would prefer not to be forced to shelter behind closed doors for whatever time I have left.
A government using "good data" to make rational and controlled decisions has been the holy grail since the European Enlightenment. Two things stand in its way. The first is the point - made here a couple of weeks ago - that people often prefer the impetus of prejudice, emotion, and feeling to rationality. I suspect Johnson's wife Carrie is in this category. She runs on feelings, and hence her mind will gravitate in a greenish direction regardless of the data. The same might apply to the war in Ukraine. It might be rational to accept peace on Russian terms, but then there is national pride and the commitment to justice.
The second confounding factor is the speed of events. If a strange new virus strikes, you have to act quickly. Building a team and some procedures is important. But if they are built hastily....
In my opinion, speaking as someone who originally trained in physics and maths, I don't think sufficient thought is given to the quality of the data being relied upon and the concept is never mentioned in the media or common discourse. An inference drawn from data is going to be suspect because of the veracity of it's assumptions and the degree of efficacy of the logic of its interpreters in the first place. If the quality of the data is poor or otherwise compromised, all conclusions and actions taken as an outcome will likely be worthless.
DJ - the odd thing about consultants is how the duds are soon rumbled by the shop floor but apparently not by those who appointed them. As if their real function is to assist in evading direct responsibility.
dearieme - ha ha, I missed that. Old houses must be real killers.
Sackers - familiarity too. Decades of famine relief appeals blunt the genuine horror of famine.
John - that's our attitude, we don't want to shelter behind closed doors for whatever time we have left. Two relatives of ours did lock themselves away and now seem to regret the time lost. One has admitted as much.
Sam - I'm sure you are right and Johnson's wife does run on feelings. It's an odd experience if you ever cross swords with such people, because they often give no real weight to data or evidence. As if the feelings are too physiologically real - like a fear of heights they cannot be suppressed.
Tammly - and there appear to be huge numbers of dud scientists generating suspect data as a way to be published. It's one of those major issues which lie just below the surface because the media don't tackle them. Of course if they did, it would make many of their stories suspect.
On dud data. The abuse of unreasonable precision; for example how can there be a global average temperature measured to a fraction of a degree.
djc - good point and historical temperatures are even more uncertain. When my lab looked after a small Met Office weather station in the 1980s, temperature was measured using an ordinary greenhouse max/min thermometer which was never calibrated.
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