Nudges: "Why wasn't I taught about this at school?"

This is a common question from my adult students' end of course feedback. I'd like to address it in this post about Nudge Units

Two subjects unfortunately not taught at school, and often only emerge as options at tertiary-level study (or in edutainment) are propaganda theory and it’s partner discipline, behavioural psychology. Let’s talk about Mad Men in academic Nudge Units:

Because it’s not in our curriculum, propaganda is often dismissed as historical; only relevant to Germany’s context of WW2. Behavioural psychology is viewed as perhaps applicable for those with ambitions in fitness training or counselling. (Please watch this 10 min overview to get a flavour of what you may have missed-out on):

The reality is, for generations, research has been undertaken into what motivates consumers in response to different approaches to advertising and salesmanship. Fictionalised in the popular US series Mad Men, the 1960’s heralded specialist investigations of public opinion, for instance via new ‘modern’ mediums of radio or TV that steered marketing in specific directions - to maximise profits. Advertising professionals like Don use propaganda to create an emotional attachment between the product and the customer. As the encyclopaedia describes:

“Almost every conceivable variable affecting consumers’ opinions, beliefs, suggestibilities, and behaviour has been investigated for every kind of group, subgroup, and culture in the major capitalist nations.”

And now, of course, propaganda and behavioural science takes on new meaning with the power of the internet to harvest, present and manipulate global data, invisibly and without our informed consent.

I’d argue basic knowledge of these two subject areas has become even more essential in our modern society, as we desperately need those skills in critical thinking to navigate current instabilities.

Q: Is this why a typical national curriculum dismisses propaganda theory and behavioural psychology as unnecessary, or even excludes them altogether?

It was Thaler and Sunstein’s 2009 book Nudge that brought a modern twist to the Mad Men tactics to a wider public. Nudge popularised the term ‘behavioural insights’ as a label for improving government policies in ways that can nudge people in directions that are viewed as ‘improvements.’

But Thaler and Sunstein’s book focused on potential economic benefits and largely avoided the ethical dilemma about who defines the ‘improvement’ they envisage and what happens when agendas interfere with those intentions.

Thaler, Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, was advisor to the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), and instrumental in expanding BITs international influence. Known widely as the ‘Nudge Unit’, BIT published a report for the UK Government entitled MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy (2010) and was welcomed in many international academics circles and think tanks. I’ve written about this before in the context of NZs Poison Industrial Complex:

BIT strategies within MINDSPACE used the mnemonic to present nine ways to influence and change public behaviour, based on outcomes from well-established psychological experiments. However, without informed consent, implementing these strategies (as the report’s authors themselves point out) is entirely unethical:

“The more powerful and subtle behavioural change approaches are, the more they may provoke public and political concern. Citizens may accept their application on other people, but may not be so happy about their use on themselves. Behavioural approaches embody a line of thinking that moves from the idea of an autonomous individuals making rational decisions to a ‘situated’ decision-maker, much of whose behaviour is automatic and influenced by their ‘choice environment’. […] Policy-makers wishing to use these tools summarised in MINDSPACE need the approval of public to do so.” (pg 73, my emphasis)

But no such public approval was sought or given. Seemingly dismissing ethics as beyond its remit, BIT expanded its reach and inevitably drew in commercial funding in PPPPs. The Nudge Unit established formal contracts with other Governments, including Australia in 2012, first with the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet and then with Victoria’s in 2015. (Yes,

ExcessDeathsAU

exactly when Dan Andrews was Premier). Using a “focused approach for undertaking behavioural trials for selected policy and regulatory measures” provided profitable marketing techniques for (impact) investors. The Australian government later established a national BIT unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) in 2016, called BETA ‘Behavioural Economics Team Australia’ co-funding project costs with other federal government partners. You can even download free guides to learn how to apply nudges to any public policy!

During 2014, an archived article here reveals how our own DPMC in NZ also established a policy project initiative using BIT. Hence ‘nudge’ techniques are being used in a variety of policies, for instance in improving school attendance, environmental management or energy use. In 2018 NZs BIT had its inaugural event where Lee McCauley presented - as he was based at the Wellington office of BIT’s London team. Interestingly, last year he left to become founder of Tick Consulting “the leading firm in applied behavioural insights in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Perhaps the Ministry of Justice is pleased to be excused from responding to OIAs revealing how much taxpayers’ money is spent on McCauley’s NWO nudging projects like this one?

Propaganda from the NZ Nudge Unit: let’s use a celebrity to encourage the public to buy EVs. Yeah, nah.

With no independent oversight or regulation, history repeatedly illustrates how commercial interests can quickly override individual best interests, human rights and freedoms. As BIT offices expanded around the globe, their strategies took on a life of their own: here was a quick way, sales executives celebrated, to bypass the usual inconvenient, time-consuming and costly advertising codes of practice and publishing protocols, by making the public (and the authorities) believe they had made a ‘correct’ choice.

In fact, the citizen’s decision had been carefully manipulated through refined psychological tactics without them even being aware of how and when these tactics were applied. It was a sleight of hand, like a wave of a magician’s wand.

Bulgarian magician Orfi: Nikolaeva84. CC Share Alike 3.0.

Importantly, it was during the rapid expansion of BIT, in 2018, Alphabet’s Google News Initiative (GNI) was created. This network, which included all the major ‘trusted’ platforms like the BBC (eg TNI), became the world’s largest financial supporters of journalism, including NZME. Corporate behemoths like Meta, Microsoft and Pfizers were already deeply embedded with Google, so it was logical for GNI to heavily promote content that is profitable for their stakeholders (and censor that which was not).

Coincidentally, and perhaps conveniently, NZ already had a competitive advantage: pharmaceutical marketing was not restricted (as it is in almost every other country). GNI leveraged this loose legislation and regulatory capture. Also, with the help of their academic institutional partnerships, such as Stamford University’s Internet Observatory (now renamed the Cyber Policy Centre), fake ‘fact checker’ articles could be created to mislead audiences worldwide. Complex AI and other digital tools and algorithms can instantly de-platform, stifle or shadow-ban social media and mainstream media commentators who try to counter the misleading claims from unethical corporate entities. Shills and (virtual) trolls can be deployed within seconds.

When any debate is muted and dissenters are silenced, this presents the illusion of consensus.

Over time, this intense propaganda and censorship understandably skews many people’s views of reality – especially those heavily reliant upon BigTech platforms like Google and Meta for news and edutainment. Little do some realise - even today - that many of the major platforms of comms and media are owned by the same BigTech giants, and all of them share the same shareholders.

Here is a summary of the MINDSPACE strategies employed by Five Eyes Government’s public policies during the covid era:

• M is for Messenger: It matters who gives you an instruction. We instinctively trust someone in authority, whether it’s a white coat, a dog-collar or a hi-vis vest. A myriad of psychology experiments support this theory, for instance, the famous Millgram experiment where people willingly complied to an ‘expert’s’ command to electrocute someone (thankfully, the equipment was fake), if an incorrect response to a question was given.

• I is for Incentives: provide a freebie, voucher or even a chocolate fish (counter-intuitively, the lower the value, the more effective it is) and the motive to make a decision and thereby obtain the incentive will increase.

• N is for Norms: The normalisation of any behaviour increases engagement. Make the activity (like having a vaccination, or bullying someone who is not) seem like a normal behaviour, and others will follow along without necessarily questioning their values or decision to join in.

• D is for Defaults: Closely connected to normalization, when the default option requires no decision, then an individual is less likely to make a decision that opts out. That’s why regular subscriptions are so effective!

• S is for Salience: “where there’s choice there’s torment” said Churchill (apparently) too many choices presents an increased likelihood of an individual making no decision at all. Keep the options simple and ideally directed at one that clearly offers the ‘best option’ to what is actually an exaggerated (or invented) problem.

• P is for Priming: This strategy is used often in the run-up to a required decision. For instance, a propaganda piece in the media at the beginning of the week may claim that fuel prices are likely to increase, encouraging customers to fill up their vehicles at the end of the week in messaging that claims a ‘special price’.

• A is for Affect: The emotions have a strong place in our decision-making processes. A constant theme in Mad Men is how our heart always wins. Affect is also used to silence dissent: the vilified ‘anti-vaxxers’ are labelled as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and anti-nationalistic to the wellbeing of our ‘Team of Five Million’. There is also an element of Victim Identifiable Effect (VIE), where it is almost impossible for a typical member of the public to engage with the debate, because the victims are often seen as ‘far away’ from their everyday lives; irrelevant.

• C is for Commitment: Volunteerism is a great example of this aspect of a nudge: people are given uniforms and/or badges to virtue-signal their commitment to the cause - in covid, the face-mask or other PPE. Choosing to take on this kind of role provides others with a convincing reason to associate with them and go along with change too.

• E is for Ego: Finally, it all comes down to our sense of self. In NZ generally speaking, professional identity is often weak, as occupation is seen as less important than family life. So like the climate change activists, the people’s commitment to a cause is seen as ‘for the greater good’. The actions of volunteers are closely matched to people’s identities, as they see themselves as undertaking important work for the nation.

There is some significant overlap between these MINDSPACE strategies and those outlined by Bernays, in his seminal book Propaganda. To manipulate the public, he suggested:

• Use fear – Traumatise (fear prevents us from making good decisions)

• Tell a big lie (a big lie is more likely to be believed than a small one)

• Tell it first, repeat it often (repetition works)

• Exploit trust in authority (see the M for Messenger above)

Now a test for you all: think of an example - either from covid or another public policy - where one or more of the MINDSPACE strategies has been deployed. Here’s one to get you started: remember this?

By familiarizing ourselves with these powerful psychological strategies, we can identify when they are being used and more importantly, why. We don’t need to become victims to the warped minds of these Mad Men (again). The situation during the covid era was extreme on multiple levels, and I don’t have space or time to explore all these factors. But this is important. Time is running out. What I have outlined here are the basics of influences and tools used by NZ (and other) Governments and within mass media messaging during and after the covid era. Others have written about this in astounding detail, for instance, I highly recommend

David A. Hughes

eBook, which you can download for free here: ‘Covid19’ Psychological Operations and the War for Technocracy.

The intense manipulation of news and views had numerous catastrophic consequences all over the world. Not least the widespread priming, promotion, normalization and therefore wide acceptance of, the ‘vaccine’ mandates that I’ve written about extensively. These nudging policies forced many families and friends apart, people out of their vocations, jobs and homes, and left so many severely harmed and/or traumatized. Get educated. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself.

Thank you SO MUCH to those who have kindly bought me coffees in recent days. Every donation allows me time and space to help others with research and writing like this article.