To their credit, the Nudge Unit has had some noteworthy successes, like developing interventions that have increased rates of tax payment and organ donation. But they’ve also been accused of overreaching; there is some evidence for behavioral fatigue, for example, but probably not enough for it to form the foundation of a country’s response to a deadly pandemic. As Anne-Lise Sibony, a researcher who studies the relationship between law and behavioral science, wrote in the European Journal of Risk Regulation, “[I]t is not clear why behavioral fatigue was singled out given that other, better-documented behavioral phenomena might—with equally unknown probability and distribution—be at work and either fuel or counteract it.” [...]
The flipside to this, of course, is when bad psychology comes from scientists. “If we’re overconfident in studies that don’t replicate,” psychologist Hans IJzerman told Nautilus in an email, “then we’re also establishing our own psychology.” Using evidence before it’s ready for primetime may not be better than nothing—it could be a waste of resources, or even actively harmful to those it’s intended to help. Concerns about behavioral fatigue, for example, were meant to protect the UK public, but they ended up indirectly facilitating the virus’ spread by delaying social distancing measures. [...]
Psychology and other fields are making progress in addressing their flaws, but it remains true that in the interplay between behavioral science and policy, puffs of smoke abound. For example, in the wake of worldwide protests against racist policing, there’s renewed interest in using science to change the behavior of police officers. For years, implicit bias training—classes and workshops designed to help participants recognize and counteract their own discriminatory thoughts and feelings—has been touted as the answer, not just for police departments but for white-collar office spaces and many other kinds of professional environments. The problem, though, is that it doesn’t seem to work, at least in its current form. A 2019 meta-analysis found that, while certain interventions can reduce measures of implicit bias, they don’t do much to change people’s behavior. “The reality is this multimillion, maybe billion, dollar industry has gotten way far ahead of the evidence,” said Patricia Devine, who runs a lab studying prejudice, on Marketplace Morning Report.
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