Rethinking the Origin of the Behavioural Policy Cube With Nudge Plus

Abstract

This chapter goes beyond classic nudges in introducing public policy practitioners and researchers worldwide to a wide range of behavioural change interventions like boosts, thinks, and nudge pluses. These policy tools, much like their classic nudge counterpart, are libertarian, internality targeting and behaviourally informed policies that lie at the origin of the behavioural policy cube as originally conceived by Oliver. This chapter undertakes a review of these instruments, in systematically and holistically comparing them. Nudge pluses are truly hybrid nudge-think strategies, in that they combine the best features of the reflexive nudges and the more deliberative boosts (or, think) strategies. Going forward, the chapter prescribes the consideration of a wider policy toolkit in directing interventions to tackle societal problems and hopes to break the false synonymity of behavioural based policies with nudge-type interventions only.

Behavioural public policies for the social brain

“…While the NATO tools are conceptualised based on rational theory of human behaviour, the behavioural tools represent a significant departure from thisfor example, Oliver (2017) proposes a behavioural policy cube that maps these different tools using three different dimensions, one being the degree of rationality presumed in the design of these tools. Behaviourally designed tools, nonetheless, were taken to refer to nudges mostly at the beginning of the last decade (Banerjee, 2021), but increasing applications of behavioural science have added more and more toolkits to this set. For example, Peter John and colleagues have proposed using citizen-led deliberations (called 'think') to drive individual behaviour change.…”

“…Boosts are inspired by the need to maintain human agencyability to form intentions and act freely on them. Here, recently, they have been joined by a new category of tools called the nudge+, which proposes to encourage people to reflect alongside nudge to improve the uptake of the nudge (Banerjee, 2021;Banerjee & John, 2021). While many of these behavioural policies are seemingly libertarian in nature, it is also possible to develop more paternalistic behavioural public policies, such as shoves and budges, as proposed by Oliver (2017).…”

Nudges as a suitable and effective intervention to improve hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers in patient care settings: a narrative review

“…Nudges attempt to address this gap by making simple alterations to the environment that act as catalysts for positive behaviour change (19). Nudge interventions are also designed to be non-coercive, steering people towards making better decisions, without restricting available choices and alternatives (13,14,20).…”

“…As an overarching method, nudges are an attractive intervention as they can be applied to a wide array of problems arising from behaviour and are often easy to deliver and low cost (14,20,21). In general, they have a greater impact than traditional tools, such as financial incentives and education, and can be cost-effective for healthcare objectives, such as influenza vaccine uptake (21).…”

What Works Best in Promoting Climate Citizenship? A Randomised, Systematic Evaluation of Nudge, Think, Boost and Nudge+

“…Yet it upgrades the nudge by making it transparent or adding a reflective prompt to it. Contrarily, boosts and thinks rely on a purely deliberative cognitive channel of behaviour change (Banerjee, 2021) as they school people to build a better repertoire of skills. Nonetheless, boosts, thinks and nudge+ share a common feature, that they all work towards empowering citizens so that they can make better decisions for themselves.…”