by Arjun Walia, The Pulse:

Behavioural science is a discipline that draws on a wide range of psychological interventions that, according to their proponents, can achieve ‘low cost, low pain ways of “nudging” citizens … into new ways of acting by going with the grain of how we think and act’. The expressed goals of the ‘nudgers’ sound altruistic, aspiring to ‘improve people’s lives and communities’ by applying ‘behavioural insights to inform policy, improve public services and deliver results for citizens and society’. Experts in this form of persuasion are now embedded in many government departments, both in the UK and in other countries, shaping policies, processes and communication strategies, striving to influence citizens to ‘do the right thing’. There is, however, a major drawback: the psychological techniques used by these ubiquitous influencers raise profound ethical concerns. And – troublingly – the powers that be seem extremely reluctant to discuss them, resorting to a combination of avoidance, disingenuousness and even a failure to attend a government committee to answer questions.