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Behavioural insight & policy

David HalpernNo10 / Cabinet Office

19th March 2011

Behavioural insight is one of several new emphases in government thinking

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Big Society & decentralisatio

n

Well-being

Cost efficiency

Transparency & payment by

results

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Behavioural insights

Coalition agreement

“There has been the assumption that central government can only change people’s behaviour through rules and regulations. Our government will be a much smarter one, shunning the bureaucratic levers of the past and finding intelligent ways to encourage support and enable people to make better choices for themselves.”

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The Behavioural Insight Team

BITDavid Halpern (Director)Owain Service (DD) + 6OGDs

OCS / ERG

Well-being agenda

Advisory PanelGus O’Donnell (tbc)Richard Thaler (Chicago)Peter Tufano (Oxford)Theresa Marteau (Cambridge)Julian Le Grand (LSE)Peter John (UCL)Nick Chater (Warwick)Dan Goldstein (LBS)

Steering BoardJeremy Heywood (No10)

Steve Hilton / Rohan Silva (PM)Polly Mackenzie / Julian A (DPM)

Robert Devereux (Head of Policy Profession)

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0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

I ron deficiency

Unsafe sex

I llicit drugs

Physicalinactivity

Low fruit andvegetable intake

Overweight

Cholesterol

Alcohol

High bloodpressure

Tobacco 12.2%

10.9%

9.2%

7.6%

7.4%

3.9%

3.3%

1.8%

0.8%

0.7%

WHO, 2000UNCLASSIFIED

Health: behavioural factors explain the majority of years of healthy life lost

Information is generally not the problem

Fisher & Fisher, 1992; Psychological Bulletin

77%

70%

61%

59%

59%

58%

49%

44%

35%

Eating more fruit and vegetables

What do you think ‘eating a healthy diet’ involves?

Germany

UK

Italy

Neth

EU 25

Spain

Sweden

France

Ireland

Eurobarometer 64.3 2005. Base c1,000 interviews in each country

-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100

Italy France **DenmarkSweden

NetherlandsBelgiumAustria

Lithuania**Estonia **

LuxembourSlovenia*

GreeceSpain

IrelandHungary

LatviaSlovakiaMalta **FinlandCzech

CyprusEngland

Germany

Women Men

% Overweight % Obese% Obese

UK

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MINDSPACE

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Social norms to encourage tax payment

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Taking out ‘friction costs’ to drive insulation

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Personalised texts for fines

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Reducing NHS Bedford

‘Did not attends’

Active commitment = filling out your own appointment card and repeating back the time and date

(Also included norms, displaying the number of people who turned upon time)

Commitment devices used to reduce ‘did not attends’

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Sorting out unlicensed cars

Big policy issues – not just marginal

Economic growth

Reduced regulation

Social mobility

Crime

Health

‘Big Society’

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Well-being and harnessing the ‘hidden wealth of nations’

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...economic growth is a means to an end. If your goal in politics is to help make a better life for people – which mine is – and if you know, both in your gut and from a huge body of evidence that prosperity alone can’t deliver a better life, then you’ve got to take practical steps to make sure government is properly focused on our quality of life as well as economic growth, and that is what we are trying to do.

25th November 2010

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Measuring subjective wellbeing

ONS is sampling 200,000 Britons to ask:

- How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?

- How happy did you feel yesterday?

- How anxious did you feel yesterday?

- To what extent do you feel the things you do in your life

are worthwhile?

Plus dashboard complement to GDP; Green Book changes; and ‘social value’ test

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Rich nations are happier...

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A key puzzle is why our life satisfaction is not increasing

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The Easterlin paradox

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Across UK: satisfied in Sevenoaks.

Top 10

% 'Very Satisfied' with Life

Sevenoaks 37Chester 28South Cambridge 28Teignbridge 27Rutland 27Tonbridge & Malling 25Bristol 25Aberdeen 25Warwick 24Cardiff 24

Bottom 10

% 'Very Satisfied' with Life

Huntingdonshire 9South Derbyshire 10Havering 10Luton 11Kingston upon Hull 11 Salford 11East Ayrshire 11Sheffield 12Waltham Forest 12Life Carlisle 12

From Whitely et al, 2004 http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/news/september04-2.asp

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A wide variety of factors are associated with SWB – though the causality is sometimes complex

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The formal economy is only a part of our lives

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200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1961 1983 2001

Sleep

Med, education

Out leisure, shops

Home leisure

Shelter, nutrition

Services (upper)

Services (other)

Manual

Sleep

Medical, education

Sport, shopping, travel

Home leisure

Shelter, nutrition

Professional servicesOther servicesManual

We spend on 23% of our waking time in paid work

down 1hr 15min from 1960’s – with clear

evidence of convergence across class

The ‘economy of regard’ is at least big as the ’real

economy’

Source: Data from Geshunny, UK time budget studies; Halpern, 2010UNCLASSIFIED

Across the world, most dramatic transformations of public services harness ‘hidden wealth’

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Sweden Patient Hotels

Singapore Yellow Ribbon program

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London 10% vs 79% recidivism

Conclusions

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Media - wary early on

“David Cameron’s Vanity Project”

Media has become supportive

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Conclusions

Behavioural insights offer practical, low cost policy tools

Well-being data will raise the profile of ‘social’ drivers

Use experimental approach

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Annex

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Defaults are the most famous of a growing range of applications

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Salience, social norms and ego to reduce energy consumption

UNCLASSIFIEDSigned at beginning of form

Signed at end of form

A study in the US found that moving signature

boxes to the beginning of application forms primed

customers to increase self-reported miles driven

by 10%.

Priming of honesty and consistency to increase declarations

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Experiments in giving (restaurant)

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Messenger We are heavily influenced by who communicates information

IncentivesOur responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts such as strongly avoiding losses

Norms We are strongly influenced by what others do

Defaults We ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options

Salience Our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant to us

Priming Our acts are often influenced by sub-conscious cues

Affect Our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions

Commitment We seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts

Ego We act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves

MINDSPACE is being widely applied...

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Life satisfaction

1981-2007

Ingelhart et al 2008

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Percent ‘Very happy’

1981-2007

Ingelhart et al 2008

Social trust (national trends)

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20

40

60

80

0 20 40 60 80

1981-3

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97

-20

01

Sweden

Mexico

Argentina S.Africa

France

USA

UK

Spain

Japan

IrelandW.Ger

Belgium

Italy

DenmarkNorway

N.IreAustralia

Iceland

S.Kor

Netherlands

Finland

Decreasing

Increasing

Lowtrust

Hightrust

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