My recently published research into the UK Government’s deployment of behavioural science strategies – ‘nudges’ – leads to a startling conclusion: in every sphere of daily life, our thoughts and actions are being psychologically manipulated so as to align them with what the state’s technocrats have deemed to be in our best interests.
It seems that open, transparent debate is no longer considered necessary.
How did my nation, a purported beacon of freedom and democracy, descend to such a position? While there have been multiple participants in this journey into behavioural science-fueled authoritarianism, a historical review of the key players indicates that American scholars have contributed in crucial ways to this trajectory.
The Ubiquity of UK Behavioural Science
The research to which I refer sought to reveal the actors responsible for strategically frightening and shaming the British people during the Covid event. Focusing on the controversial ‘Look them in the eyes’ messaging campaign – involving a series of close-up images of patients on the cusp of death and a voice-over saying, ‘Look them in the eyes and tell them you are doing all you can to stop the spread of coronavirus’ – my critical analysis uncovered a series of disturbing findings in regard to the UK government’s deployment of often-covert behavioural science strategies during times of ‘crisis.’ These revelations included:
- State-sponsored nudging is ubiquitous in the UK, seeping into almost every aspect of day-to-day life. Whether responding to a health challenge, using public transport, watching a TV drama, or interacting with the tax office, our minds are being psychologically manipulated by state-funded technocrats.
- The rapid expansion of UK behavioural science has not occurred by chance; it has been a strategic goal. For example, a 2018 document by Public Health England (the forerunner to the UK Health Security Agency) announced that ‘The behavioural and social sciences are the future of public health,’ and one of their priority goals was to make the skills of these disciplines ‘mainstream in all our organisations.’
- Throughout the Covid event, UK government communications – as guided by their behavioural science advisors – routinely resorted to fear inflation, shaming, and scapegoating (‘affect,’ ‘ego,’ and ‘normative pressure’ nudges) to lever compliance with restrictions and the subsequent vaccine rollout.
- The UK government’s bar for legitimising the terrorising of its own people has been set incredibly low. For instance, one official justification for inflicting further fear inflation onto an already scared population was that, in January 2021, the populace was not as frightened as at the start of the Covid event in March 2020: ‘Fearful but much less panic this time around.’
As things currently stand, the UK Government can draw on several providers of behavioural science expertise to sharpen their official communications with the British public. In addition to the multiple nudgers embedded in transient pandemic advisory groups, since 2010 our policymakers have been guided by ‘The world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural science to policy:’ the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT) – informally referred to as the ‘Nudge Unit.’
Conceived in the Cabinet Office of the then Prime Minister David Cameron, and led by the prominent behavioural scientist Professor David Halpern, the BIT functioned as a blueprint for other nations, rapidly expanding into a ‘social purpose company’ operating in many countries around the world (including the US). Further behavioural science input to the UK government is routinely provided by in-house departmental personnel – for instance, 24 nudgers in the UK Health Security Agency, 54 in the Tax Office, and 6 in the Department of Transport – and via the Government Communication Service, that comprises ‘over 7,000 professional communicators’ and incorporates its own ‘Behavioural Science Team’ located in the Cabinet Office.
Hellbound and Down 