Nudge plus: incorporating reflection into behavioural public policy

Banerjee, Sanchayan ORCID: 0000-0002-0176-0429 and John, Peter (2020) Nudge plus: incorporating reflection into behavioural public policy. Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Papers (232). Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

The authors of this paper outline a modified version of the behaviour change technique called ‘nudge plus’, which incorporates an element of reflection as part of the delivery of a nudge. Nudge plus builds on recent work advocating educative nudges and boosts. The authors claim that a hybrid nudge–think strategy can be a useful additional way to design pro-social interventions; combining a colour-coded ‘traffic lighting’ nudge with a salience-building ‘information plus’, for example, can increase the uptake of the nudge by agents, especially by those who might unconsciously ignore the visual cue implied by the colour coding of the nudge alone. Such a process is more plausible than the nudge-only strategies because combinations of nudges with reflective strategies are not only more liberty-preserving to the agent, but they can also generate stronger and persistent one-off effects. The authors suggest three key mechanisms of operationalising this nudge-plus: the plus could either come before and after (sequentially) or along with (simultaneous to) the nudge. Depending on when the ‘plus’ is administered with the nudge, it could embody various kinds of reflection; a plus that precedes a nudge, for instance, involves reflecting on the construct of the nudge or on the alternatives competing for availability to the decision-making agent. Finally, the authors compare the mechanistic scheme of the nudge-plus against that of the behavioural change tools that are currently available, namely classic nudges and boosts.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication...
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Author
Divisions:	Geography & Environment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	04 Feb 2020 11:15
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2023 23:49
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/103277

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