Pic c/o [email protected]
Apparently, it's now official: "Perhaps the most powerful influence on human behaviour is other people"
So says, David Halpern, the supersmart chief of the HM Government's Nudge Unit in a piece in the Guardian here - so it must be true.
As you will know dear reader, we''ve been saying for an awful long time that this is true.
We like and admire the work they've been doing testing the insights from Behavioural Econonics and their relevance for policy making. Some genuinely good stuff here.
However,regular readers will also know that we have repeatedly criticised the focus of much such work on individual based models - e.g. in the landmark Mindspace report.
It's nice to know that the evidence base being built up in UK policy circles points much the same way as we - and so many others - have been pointing.
But I wonder if this means a downplaying of all the cognitive quirks mallarky that dominates much thinking in this space...?
Not until other folk do it?