So after the shock of New Scientist's lead article on what I have been banging on about here and elsewhere for the last few years - i.e our herd instinct and the primacy of social influence in shaping human behaviour - today's Guardian editorial goes one step further (see pic)
In a robust discussion of the UK government's new Change4life programme, the editorial highlights the newfound importance of "harnessing our herd nature" (as my subtitle put it) to change people's behaviour:
"Mockery is an oblique way of enforcing social norms, but it can be done more directly. American social psychologists have done experiments in hotel rooms where they have alternated signs asking guests to reuse towels for the good of the environment, with others simply pointing out that most visitors reuse their towels. The second, observational, notices were 26% more effective."
And again, it underlines the relative importance of the gestural/behavioural rather than informational in shaping change:
"Rather than make injunctions, public service announcements can be more effective if they play on our herd instincts. This is a kind of normative judo, using the human desire to fit in for good. Cigarette packets could swap the signs about how smoking kills for ones that point out that three out of four people do not smoke at all. It is time public officials added peer pressure to their portfolio of persuasions. The private sector has found it helpful enough. What was that about eight out of 10 cats ... ?"
An odd feeling this: not so much I told you so, but well....
It's great to see these wierd and crazy notions of ours become mainstream, isn't it?
Think this year might be even more interesting than I thought...