This document discusses and compares the concepts of "nudge" from the book of the same name and "connected" from the book Connected. Nudge focuses on influencing individual decisions through libertarian paternalism like choice architecture and defaults. Connected examines how social networks shape individuals' choices through concepts like three degrees of influence and emergent properties. Both approaches could inform policy design, though connected may be more complex to apply given uncertainties about operationalizing social network theory and the need to address behavior at both individual and group levels.
2. BOOKS
• “Nudge: Improving decisions about health,
wealth and happiness” Richard Thaler and
Cass Sunstein (2008) Yale University
Press
• “Connected: The amazing power of social
networks and how they shape our lives”
Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler
(2010 Harper Press
3. TWO DIFFERENT
PROPOSITIONS
• NUDGE: nudge people in directions that
will make their lives better through
“libertarian paternalism”: (mostly an
individualistic approach)
• CONNECTED: the connections between
individuals, the nature and shape of those
ties affect the choices, attitudes and
outlooks of individuals: (a social network
approach.)
4. NUDGE:
BEHAVIOUAL ECONOMICS
• Unrealistic optimism is a feature of
human life
• Loss aversion: people mind more about
losing something than if they never had it
• Status quo bias: default options are
powerful nudges
• Expect error
5. NUDGE
Choice architecture
Rules of thumb:
• Anchoring: anchors serve as nudges
• Availability: assess the likelihood of
risks by how readily examples come to
mind
• Representativeness ; people do not
have accurate perceptions of what
random sequences look like ( clusters)
6. How to influence individual
decisions
• Incentives: lower pricing structures/rewards
• Framing: frames are powerful nudges
• Spotlight effect: people think others are looking at them
more than they are (odd one out)
• Priming: asking people in advance ( voting)
• Defaults: pad the path of least resistance( organ
donation, continuous subscriptions)
• Give feedback: ( energy monitor)
• Structure complex choices
• Collaborative filtering; (eg Amazon)
• Social influences: and peer pressure
7. Use of nudge in central government
policy
• Freezing Council tax incentive money
• New homes bonus incentive
• Pensions Act 2008: automatic enrolment
of over 22s into workplace pension default
• Can citizens be “nudged” into becoming
good citizens – to be part of the “Big
society”
8. CONNECTED: Important concepts
• Emergent properties: new attributes of a
whole that emerge from the interaction
and interconnection of the parts: the taste
of cake transcends the sum of its
ingredients.
• 6 degrees of separation: sending a letter
from Nebraska to Boston
• Three degrees of influence
• Dunbar’s number ( 150)
9. Rules of life in the network
1. We shape our network: homophily - we associate with
people who resemble us. We also choose the structure
of our network in 3 important ways
We decide how many people we are connected to
We influence how deeply interconnected our friends
and family are
We control how central we are to the social network
2. Our network shapes us
3. Our friends affect us
4. Our friends friends friends affect us
5. The network has a life of its own
10. Evolution and genetics
• Homo economicus ( self interested man) gives way to
homo dictyous ( network man)
Question: does this mean self interested citizens are
becoming more amenable to becoming part of the “Big
society” as they evolve into more networked individuals?
• Genetics: some traits that spread in social networks
also appear to be heritable ( obesity, smoking,
happiness, political behaviour) Happiness: long term
happiness depends 50% on a person’s genetic set point,
10% on circumstances and 40% on what people choose
to think and do. Happiness spreads 3 degrees just like
loneliness
11. Examples of networks in operation
• Mortality of widowers
• Politics: Obama;
www.my.barackobama.com 1.5m
accounts
12. APPLICATION
• Obesity; your friend’s friend’s friends can make you fat.
If a mutual friend becomes obese it nearly triples a
persons risk of becoming obese. Obesity is not a
unicentric epidemic but a multi centric one. Obesity can
spread but not from one spot, and social contacts are not
the only stimulus for weight gain. Imitation is not the only
way obesity can spread. “In real life we measure
ourselves against our friends. Inch for inch”
• Safe sex: campaigns should be targeted at high activity
members at the core/hub of their network
• Immunisation; targeting 30% of those central to the
network is as effective as immunising 99% of the
population randomly.
• Smoking; what flows through a network is a norm about
whether smoking is acceptable which results in a co-
ordinated belief by people who are not directly connected
13. APPLICATION
• Back pain: a culture bound phenomenon?
• Suicide contagion; banking contagion??. We can
“catch” emotional states by a) facilitating interpersonnal
bonds (b) synchronizing behaviour and c)
communicating information
• Crime: a persistent mystery about crime is its variation
across time and space. Much evidence suggests it is
partially due to the reverberation of social interactions.
As criminals act in a given time and place it increases
the likelihood that others will commit crimes in
collaboration with someone else. Nearly two thirds of
criminals commit crime in collaboration with someone
else.
“We might be better off helping interconnected groups of
people avoid criminal behaviour rather than
preventing/punishing crimes one at a time”
14. Some overlapping concepts
• You can change groups and communities
by influencing one person at a time until a
“critical mass” is generated
• The influencing methods of “nudge” can
be deployed to impact networks and
groups
• Individuals who are the subject of
“nudging” are affected by “peers”, culture
and environment
15. Some problems and uncertainties
• “operationalising” social network theory appears quite
complicated and requires a degree of community insight
that we don’t yet have.
• No one knows if the impacts of “nudges” can be
sustained over long term
• There is an argument that change is driven by a mix of
both broad social argument and small policy steps: eg
smoking: regulation combined with better information,
advertising, prohibition of smoking advertisement,
changing social norms
• Perhaps both “nudge” and “connected” can form useful
checklists to inform really good policy intervention
design.
16. New social trends
• Enormity: a vast increase in networks and numbers
who might be reached to join them
• Communality: broadening of the scale by which we can
share information and collective efforts
• Specificity: increase in the particularity of ties we can
form
• Virtuality: ability to assume virtual identities.
• The internet is making interactions rushed; it opens us
up to a loss of privacy. People will replace close
friendships within their communities with the weak
connection to distant friends. The nature of the
interaction is strongly influenced by the medium ( brief
bursts of conversation)
17. Properties of networks
• Social networks have a memory of their
structure and their function
• Networks become self replicating – they
outlast their members
• Large social networks require turnover to
survive ( like cell renewal)
18. CONNECTEDNUDGE
Looks to influence wider
group behaviour
Looks to influence
individual behaviour
Observes and explains the
behaviour and outlooks
of groups
Seeks to actively
encourage individual good
choices and behaviours
Policy applications
complex , difficult to
identify, and unique to
areas.
Has policy applications
which are being
implemented in
government
Linked to social
media, open data,
internet
Bespoke, stand alone
More of a tool for
understanding group
dynamics
Might be seen as
manipulative
