Nudge Theory in the Face of Pandemic
By Zahra Ali Imran and Mete Bakircioglu, 4/27/2020
Singapore
The global economy heads towards its “darkest hour.” Cities remain in lockdown and hospitals are inundated with patients as the COVID-19 pandemic brings the world to a standstill, with more than 2.3 million cases and 160,000 deaths globally. Its rate of contagion and patterns of transmission threaten our sense of agency, while the safety measures being implemented across the globe to contain the spread of the virus require inhibition from doing what is inherently human: finding solace in the company of others.
“A nudge, as we will use the term, is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives,” says Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, father of “Nudge Theory.” The theory avoids the conventional methods of direct instruction or enforcement, and is believed to provide a more “sophisticated” approach to achieving the desirable behavior; it coaxes one into leaning towards making the optimal choice. It’s like playing a “room-tidying” game with a child rather than instructing them to clean their room.
The Nudge Theory is “de rigueur” among policymakers worldwide, and has been utilized by more than 150 governments. The execution of this theory created Singapore’s status of being an innovative and business-friendly financial centre of the world, despite the country’s journey through a maelstrom of socio-economic problems. Behavioral economics and insights lay at the heart of Singapore’s efforts to remain at the peak of efficiency. The city-state on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula has collaborated with the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team, nicknamed the “Nudge Unit,” which is charged with identifying traits that can be embedded into policy and governance initiatives. Similarly, Zee Yoong Kang, the chief executive of the Health Promotion Board (HPB) of Singapore, has stated that the HPB wants to “permeate” behavioural science techniques into everything it does. Smokers are separated from other bus users by the placement of rubbish bins away from bus stops and one’s energy consumption is compared with their neighbor’s with the use of utility bills. Through nudges and careful ‘choice architecture,’ this Little Red Dot has indeed ploughed its own path.
With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe, Singapore grapples with more than 6000 cases and 11 deaths. Initially, however, the city-state served as a role model to other countries, emerging as a litmus test for whether or not the virus could be contained. Despite being hit early with the “Wuhan flu,” Singapore’s infection rate was remarkably slow, with a mere 96 cases void of deaths announced by the end of February. The 2002-03 SARS outbreak had contributed to the building of its isolation wards, negative pressure rooms and a suitable legislation. Hence, by the time the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency at the end of January, Singapore possessed a concoction the rest of the world lacked. It was a blend of both first rate medical infrastructure that rivaled Switzerland and the United States, as well as the government’s draconian tracing and containment measures coupled with a cooperative population. Nucleic acid testing kits were rapidly developed and deployed to ports of entry, where within three hours, officials can confirm whether or not individuals are infected with the virus before allowing them to enter. “There seems to be more of a willingness to place the community and society needs over individual liberty and that helps in a public health crisis,” said Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious disease control specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
The global economy heads towards its “darkest hour.” Cities remain in lockdown and hospitals are inundated with patients as the COVID-19 pandemic brings the world to a standstill, with more than 2.3 million cases and 160,000 deaths globally. Its rate of contagion and patterns of transmission threaten our sense of agency, while the safety measures being implemented across the globe to contain the spread of the virus require inhibition from doing what is inherently human: finding solace in the company of others.
“A nudge, as we will use the term, is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives,” says Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, father of “Nudge Theory.” The theory avoids the conventional methods of direct instruction or enforcement, and is believed to provide a more “sophisticated” approach to achieving the desirable behavior; it coaxes one into leaning towards making the optimal choice. It’s like playing a “room-tidying” game with a child rather than instructing them to clean their room.
The Nudge Theory is “de rigueur” among policymakers worldwide, and has been utilized by more than 150 governments. The execution of this theory created Singapore’s status of being an innovative and business-friendly financial centre of the world, despite the country’s journey through a maelstrom of socio-economic problems. Behavioral economics and insights lay at the heart of Singapore’s efforts to remain at the peak of efficiency. The city-state on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula has collaborated with the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team, nicknamed the “Nudge Unit,” which is charged with identifying traits that can be embedded into policy and governance initiatives. Similarly, Zee Yoong Kang, the chief executive of the Health Promotion Board (HPB) of Singapore, has stated that the HPB wants to “permeate” behavioural science techniques into everything it does. Smokers are separated from other bus users by the placement of rubbish bins away from bus stops and one’s energy consumption is compared with their neighbor’s with the use of utility bills. Through nudges and careful ‘choice architecture,’ this Little Red Dot has indeed ploughed its own path.
With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe, Singapore grapples with more than 6000 cases and 11 deaths. Initially, however, the city-state served as a role model to other countries, emerging as a litmus test for whether or not the virus could be contained. Despite being hit early with the “Wuhan flu,” Singapore’s infection rate was remarkably slow, with a mere 96 cases void of deaths announced by the end of February. The 2002-03 SARS outbreak had contributed to the building of its isolation wards, negative pressure rooms and a suitable legislation. Hence, by the time the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency at the end of January, Singapore possessed a concoction the rest of the world lacked. It was a blend of both first rate medical infrastructure that rivaled Switzerland and the United States, as well as the government’s draconian tracing and containment measures coupled with a cooperative population. Nucleic acid testing kits were rapidly developed and deployed to ports of entry, where within three hours, officials can confirm whether or not individuals are infected with the virus before allowing them to enter. “There seems to be more of a willingness to place the community and society needs over individual liberty and that helps in a public health crisis,” said Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious disease control specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
COVID-19 Cases in Singapore from January 2020 to April 2020
The nation was one that thrived by simply nudging its population over the years, yet the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic brought an aggressive take to the government’s handling of the infected and suspected patients. The effects of nudges are known to be limited, and relying on its effects in epidemiology at the scale of the coronavirus is a massive risk governments are not willing to take. Rather than following the UK’s response of behavioral nudges to the virus, Singapore has welcomed strict quarantine regimens and abides by its “very strong epidemiological surveillance and contact-tracing capacity.” It resorted to partial lockdown and a strict “circuit breaker” upon witnessing a worrying spike of confirmed coronavirus cases. Public and private social gatherings of any size were banned, with a penalty of six months of jail time or a fine of up to $7,000. The city-state witnessed school closures for at least a month, with a shift to “full home-based learning.” Singapore “will not hesitate to take strong action” against rule breakers, says Law Minister K. Shanmugam. He continues, “the deliberate breaking of the rules, in the current situation, calls for swift and decisive response.” Although Singapore’s confirmed cases have risen dramatically, the island nation still appears to be handling the coronavirus better than many other developed countries and cities, and has received international praise as a result of it resorting to a firm response rather than the power of suggestion.
The United Kingdom
Governments have several means of controlling the behavior of their population, the most explicit form of which is through law. Governments lay out rules to indicate what a person can and cannot do, thus controlling behavior. But while the legal route to exhibiting control is explicit, there are more subtle, implicit ways to “nudge” a population into a certain pattern of behavior. This “nudge” theory is often in opposition to more direct control measures. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom has taken a unique approach using behavioral science to allow the spread of the virus, in an effort to build “herd immunity” throughout the country.
The official World Health Organization recommendations for international governments are to “test intensively, trace contacts, quarantine and maintain social distancing.” The UK’s early approach has contradicted these measures as the government reasoned that since the spread of the virus is inevitable. It is expected that 60% of the population (40 million people) will contract the disease through this approach, in the hopes of preventing an even deadlier second wave come next winter. The UK was hesitant on initiating a lockdown like most of its European neighbors, because it believed that the country would benefit most in the long-run from a laissez-faire stance. Prime Minister Boris Johnson feared that enforcing strict control over the UK would cause people to develop “behavioral fatigue,” making them less likely to comply with the government when the virus became even worse.
Since March 13, when the UK announced that it expected 40 million cases, the response from the science community has been massively negative. There is little literature on nudge theory working in epidemics, so Johnson’s libretarian practice is effectively a hail mary. William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard, wrote for The Guardian: “When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire.” He likens the methodology to a situation where a house is burning and the fire spreads throughout the neighborhood, but the government enables the spread in hopes that it will die on its own.
This seems wildly counter-intuitive, and so far, it has been. Pubs and schools closed a week after it became known that the virus was spreading rampantly in communities, and it took four more days for a more comprehensive lockdown to be enacted. On March 27, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Johnson both stated that they tested positive. As of April 24, the UK has 143,000 confirmed cases and 19,500 deaths, which is the third-highest death count in Europe. But there is a silver lining for the country: the rise in cases is slowing and the demand for ventilators has not yet exceeded capacity, indicating that Johnson’s unusual plan might just work in the long-run.
Governments have several means of controlling the behavior of their population, the most explicit form of which is through law. Governments lay out rules to indicate what a person can and cannot do, thus controlling behavior. But while the legal route to exhibiting control is explicit, there are more subtle, implicit ways to “nudge” a population into a certain pattern of behavior. This “nudge” theory is often in opposition to more direct control measures. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom has taken a unique approach using behavioral science to allow the spread of the virus, in an effort to build “herd immunity” throughout the country.
The official World Health Organization recommendations for international governments are to “test intensively, trace contacts, quarantine and maintain social distancing.” The UK’s early approach has contradicted these measures as the government reasoned that since the spread of the virus is inevitable. It is expected that 60% of the population (40 million people) will contract the disease through this approach, in the hopes of preventing an even deadlier second wave come next winter. The UK was hesitant on initiating a lockdown like most of its European neighbors, because it believed that the country would benefit most in the long-run from a laissez-faire stance. Prime Minister Boris Johnson feared that enforcing strict control over the UK would cause people to develop “behavioral fatigue,” making them less likely to comply with the government when the virus became even worse.
Since March 13, when the UK announced that it expected 40 million cases, the response from the science community has been massively negative. There is little literature on nudge theory working in epidemics, so Johnson’s libretarian practice is effectively a hail mary. William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard, wrote for The Guardian: “When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire.” He likens the methodology to a situation where a house is burning and the fire spreads throughout the neighborhood, but the government enables the spread in hopes that it will die on its own.
This seems wildly counter-intuitive, and so far, it has been. Pubs and schools closed a week after it became known that the virus was spreading rampantly in communities, and it took four more days for a more comprehensive lockdown to be enacted. On March 27, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Johnson both stated that they tested positive. As of April 24, the UK has 143,000 confirmed cases and 19,500 deaths, which is the third-highest death count in Europe. But there is a silver lining for the country: the rise in cases is slowing and the demand for ventilators has not yet exceeded capacity, indicating that Johnson’s unusual plan might just work in the long-run.