tom wein

Research agenda for behaviour change

A recent piece for Elina Halonen’s Indecision Blog, where I’m now a contributor, laying out a three part research agenda for moving forward in the behaviour change field.

The three priorities are:

1. “linking linear behaviour change with our understanding of complex systems;
2. developing a good basis for selecting behaviours to change; and
3. understanding what we mean by behaviour in the first place.

Underlying all of this, a constant presence, is the need to check our work and replicate our findings.”

Read the whole piece here.

Behavioural insights and conflict

Nothing holds back development so much as conflict. It is one of the most important factors in determining levels of development. Consequently, understanding conflict, and devising ways to predict, avoid and mitigate it, is a task for which every development actor has a responsibility.

I recently published an article with BehaviouralEconomics.com, charting some of those efforts to comprehend conflict, by academics and by governments, that have been informed by psychology and ideas from behavioural science.

An excerpt from that piece:

In the academy, there have also been attempts to integrate psychology into conflict studies. The study of norms has long been a central plank of political science, and groupthink has been extensively examined; there have been several attempts to integrate political psychology into international relations. There has been important, exciting and often brave work on behaviour in conflict. Jason Lyall and colleagues have done much empirical work around identity and decisions in Afghanistan and beyond - their list and endorsement experiments have also offered a way forward in the face of fearsome field research challenges. Kenneth Payne, of KCL’s well-regarded War Studies department, has made a major contribution with his study ‘The Psychology of Strategy’. Oliver Kaplan has sought to understand how armed groups might be ‘nudged’ into taking different paths. Vera Mironova and her co-researchers have conducted a series of fascinating experiments among combatants and civilians in Syria and Ukraine. To that we can add some longstanding efforts to understand and model the behaviour and decision-making of terrorism and radicalisation. More widely, some of the best work at this nexus can be tracked by following the Political Violence @ a Glance blog.

Read the full piece here: Using Psychology to Comprehend War.

Lord of the Rings and The Appendix

Think for a moment about Lord of the Rings. A rollicking fantasy adventure that can read and enjoyed by nearly anyone, that also provides the depth to delight a legion of fans for whom the term hardcore is inadequate. How does it please these two very different audiences?

One of the secrets lies in the appendices. At the end of The Return of the King, lie Appendices A-F – 120 pages of extra detail. It is this extra detail (and many of the other publications of Middle Earth could be considered supplements or appendices to the main story) that allows the two audiences to find such satisfaction. Those who want the story can stick to the story; those who want more know where to go to find it.

You are always writing for different audiences with different interests. Writing policy reports, I imagine three different audiences: decision-makers, who want snappy recommendations; desk specialists, who want nuanced findings about their area; and scientists, who care about epistemology and methodology. As an academic, you must concisely advance the field for your peers in ways that can be understood and appreciated by a lowly undergraduate, or a visitor from an adjacent area of study.

It’s rarely possible to please all those audiences within the flow of a single piece of prose. Good signposting and clear structures will help, of course, but real depth on an issue will unbalance a narrative and frustrate at least some of your readers.

There are no page limits on the internet; the only limitation on length is what people are prepared to read. More and more journals now expect the publication of statistical code and of data alongside an article. Why stop there? If in the course of your research you prepared a database of relevant organisations, or profiled a particular aspect of policy, or transcribed interviews, why not post them? The body of the article, the peer-reviewed bit, remains sacrosanct, but you could transform someone else’s research by providing additional material beyond that.

Lord of the Rings has been cited by 1,279 academic articles; perhaps one day your work could inspire fans to line up in costume at midnight to be the first to see the blockbuster films it inspired.  

Labour Leadership

Labour supporters, your ballots will arrive today.

For those of you planning on voting, I urge you to reject Jeremy Corbyn. I think his policies are wrong on their merits, and I am horrified by his foreign policy positions - not because he talks to unpleasant groups, which is commendable, but because he actively supports them.

But most of all, because politics is not a game of self-affirmation - it is a duty of service. We serve those in need best from the centre of the stage. Speeches and marches are worthy tools, but they pale in comparison to what can be achieved in just a day - if that day is spent in power, in government.

And government is within Labour’s grasp. The Conservative majority is just twelve - and after two terms, it will surely not increase. If the party readies itself quickly, campaigns well and shows itself to be a credible alternative government, then it can win. But not with Corbyn.

Corbyn is a misdiagnosis. What he offers is honesty. Those who say that he will win can only say it if they believe that dishonesty - and only dishonesty - is what kept us from power. It is true that people want honest politicians. But they also want politicians who can lead and unite - which he can’t - and who proffer wise and effective policies for the management of the country - which he does not even try to do.

I shall be voting for Yvette Cooper and Stella Creasy. I have faith in their charisma and their wisdom and their principles.

Misbehaving at the LSE: Richard Thaler and Paul Dolan

“Behavioural economics, as a discipline, has been unusually blessed in the fluency of its leading lights. Kahneman, Sunstein, Halpern, Ariely and Mullainathan are all persuasive, entertaining communicators. That fact has surely contributed to the popular success of its ideas, which have now gone so far beyond the Academy. Thaler’s talk, studded with witticisms and catty asides, was economics leavened with star power; there was even a tentative whoop as he took the stage.”

Full piece here.

Behaviour Change is Political Change

“Three years of reading theories of sociology prepared Mike Kelly not at all for “the brutality of power” he experienced in counselling ministers, at the Health Development Agency and latterly as Director of the Centre of Public Health Excellence at NICE. Yet he is resolute in saying that this was not a bad thing; merely politicians doing their jobs, in roughly the way that they ought to. In a remarkably wide-ranging talk at the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, he argued that the onus is on scientists to understand the messiness of real change, and to adapt accordingly.”

Full piece here.

Behavioural Science & Development

A piece for the always-essential Stirling Behavioural Science Blog, on applying this discipline to international development - the progress we’ve made so far, and the challenges that remain. 

A taster extract:

“Finally, what can behavioural science do to ensure that it is fit for purpose in developing countries? I believe its standard bearers can better engage with existing debates about behaviour in development, including the use of Theories of Change and efforts to leverage the power of communities. As a discipline, it can emphasize parsimony, both in its research questionnaires and in its models. For the latter work, the UCL team’s Behaviour Change Wheel deserves particular acclaim; ‘Capabilities, Opportunities and Motivations’ is accessible enough to be jotted down on the back of an envelope – even in an ancient Toyota on awful dirt roads. Behavioural scientists must recognise that development professionals have long been trying to change behaviour, and that behavioural science is there to improve and supplement, not replace. Above all, they can continue to ensure that behavioural science remains a discipline that seeks not just to understand but to respond; methods and models must have the clearest possible link from data to specific, actionable recommendations, because development does not need more vague advice from learned thinkers.”

Read the whole piece here.

Why I’m Voting Labour

I don’t hate this government. I am wearied by the smallness of their vision, and I believe that by derailing a nascent recovery in 2011 they caused considerable unnecessary suffering, but I don’t hate them. I just think we could do better.

Governance in Britain is basically done by one of two clumps of centrists, supported by different shades of wingnuttery. You choose the group with the most competent centrists and the least offensive fools.

I find Labour’s outer wings far more congenial than the Tories’, but more importantly I think their centrists will be more effective. The Coalition government has amassed only a handful of effective ministers – Hague did good work at the Foreign Office, and Gove made progress on autonomy for schools, but few others distinguished themselves.

Above all, the central partnership has not been up to scratch. Cameron is a leaderly type who doesn’t do much leading. He spent the first half of the parliament buying off his backbenchers with promises of damaging referenda; he’s spent the second half pissing away the Union to buy a few English votes. Throughout he’s flitted from one big idea to the next: from big society moderniser to Europe’s reformer to saviour of Libya. Osborne is by all accounts a witty dinner companion, but he devotes at least as much time to hatching opportunistic political wheezes as to the economy. Neither has shown sufficient strategic vision.

By contrast, Miliband and Balls are the sort of people you would want in charge. Detailed, intelligent, geeky, careful. Ed Balls is the best economist in the Commons; Ed Miliband the most thoughtful of MPs. Both have already spent a decade at the heart of government. If we can have all that, and the major drawback is a rather nasal speaking style, then that’s a deal I’ll take.

Under another electoral system, I might be tempted to reward the Lib Dems for a reasonably effective, fairly responsible, stint in government. Or even the Greens, whose principles deserve a hearing even if their maths is suspect. But First Past the Post, even now, is a system which rewards ‘parties of government’, and your best bet for influence remains picking the right one and seeking to advance your views within it. For me, that one is Labour. I will vote for them and I hope you will too.

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Reith Lectures

I love the BBC Reith Lectures, and I’ve been writing short reviews of each of them as I work my way through the audio archive. You can read some of those reviews here.

The Power of Words

A few thoughts on the psychology of verbal communication, and a few papers that were worth bringing into the discussion. Link here.