Skip to main content

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing.

Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems.

The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual and an 's-frame' where we concentrate on the system. As the authors put it, the first is about helping people to get better at playing the game, while the second involves changing the rules.

As Chater and Loewenstein point out, particularly since around 1980 in the US, but also to a lesser degree in the UK, the focus has been particularly on the i-frame, arguing that government rules, often at the heart of the s-frame, get in the way of business and progress. This i-frame focus has been bolstered by nudges and other social psychology measures which have failed to make much difference. Meanwhile a lack of s-frame activity is driven by intense lobbying from corporate and special interest groups.

The book covers a wide range of issues where this is the case: our response to climate change, obesity, pension planning, US health care, inequality, plastic waste, privacy, addiction to prescription drugs, gun violence and road deaths. Time after time, we see successful attempts to deflect the public from the need for system change by suggesting it's down to individuals to sort things out, where in reality individuals can either only scratch the surface or are totally unequipped to do so, leaving vested interests reaping the benefits and the problems only getting worse.

In a sense, Chater and Loewenstein get a top rating from me despite themselves as the book is not brilliantly written. It's highly repetitive and the structure isn't great: each of the first five issues gets an over-long chapter of its own, while the remainder are handled just as well in a single chapter. But the point the authors make is so important that it totally overwhelms any issue with the presentation.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Compelling Scientific Evidence for UFOs - Erol A. Faruk **

  You can see immediately from the cover that this is no ordinary popular science book. There are some issues with The Compelling Scientific Evidence for UFOs , but if you have an interest in the field, particularly if, like me, you are an open-minded sceptic on the subject, I would consider reading it. This is because it is one of the few attempts to use proper scientific methods on UFO evidence, and though I don't agree with Erol Faruk's conclusions, it is refreshing not to see simplistic acceptance or knee-jerk denial of what is, for many people, a genuinely interesting topic. This isn't a general discussion of the UFO phenomenon - for that I'd recommend How UFOs Conquered the World by David Clarke, but instead gives us the author's take on a specific incident at Delphos, Kansas, where an alleged UFO landing left behind some very interesting material. The book has as an appendix made up of Faruk's scientific paper describing an analysis of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more