A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic, Laura Dodsworth [the two towers ebook .txt] 📗

NORMS

We are strongly influenced by what others do. The power of norms comes from the social penalties for non-compliance, or the social benefit that comes from conforming. Being ‘deviant’ can feel highly uncomfortable. Would you rather be a Covid hero or a ‘covidiot’? The government has repeatedly used normative pressure throughout the coronavirus crisis to gain the public’s compliance with their escalating restrictions.

DEFAULTS

We ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options – we stand on the dot in the supermarket.

SALIENCE

Our attention is drawn to what is novel and what seems relevant to us, from flashing roadside signs reminding us not to travel (too late!) to relatable data and statistics, such as risk of deaths.

PRIMING

Our acts are often influenced by sub-conscious cues such as sights (for example, face coverings), words (‘Hands, Face, Space’) and sensations (again, wearing face coverings), causing us to be behave differently. This is one of the least understood of the MINDSPACE effects, and ‘has led to considerable controversy, not least to the slightly sinister idea that advertisers – or even governments – might be able to manipulate us into buying or do things that we didn’t really want to buy or do.’8 That indictment is from the behavioural scientists themselves!

AFFECT

Our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions. Our emotional state significantly influences our mental processes and behaviour. This ‘mood congruence effect’ will result in a person selectively noticing and remembering information that is consistent with an existing mood. When happy, you are more likely to remember past successes, to notice the positives and develop optimistic beliefs about the future. When sad, you are more likely to remember failure and loss, notice the negatives and subsequently harbour pessimistic beliefs about yourself and the world. When fearful, your memory will be skewed in favour of past scary events, your attention will selectively focus on potential dangers in your current environment, and your mind will be swamped with thoughts about future threats and potential disasters. This recalibration of our minds towards the fear mode has been exploited by the government and the behavioural psychologists to ensure mass compliance with the emergency laws and rules.

COMMITMENTS

We seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts, agreeing to commit to a goal or commitment if someone else does.

EGO

We act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves. We all strive to maintain a positive view of ourselves and, in so doing, exhibit cognitive biases in the way we make sense of the world. For example, to preserve a virtuous self-image, each of us routinely displays what psychologists refer to as a ‘fundamental attribution error’, whereby we take the credit for good outcomes while blaming others for bad ones. This inherent drive to protect our ego, to act and think in ways that make us feel better about ourselves, has been comprehensively exploited to make us conform with coronavirus restrictions.

These effects can be seen in many of the campaigns and strategies employed by the UK government this year. I interviewed psychologist Gary Sidley, who has also authored an excellent article about MINDSPACE9, and behavioural scientists Patrick Fagan and Richard Shotton, and Dr Ashley Frawley, senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at Swansea University in Wales, to discuss the government messaging.

A central tenet of this book is that the use of fear to create compliance is ethically dubious and, at the very least, warrants public debate. In a short window of time, behavioural psychology has become core to how the UK government does business and these days it’s the business of fear. The psychologists ‘are operating in ethically murky waters in implementing their nudges, without our consent, to promote mass acceptance of infringements on our basic human freedoms,’ said Gary Sidley. The ethics of nudging deserve their own consultation but are even more worthy of scrutiny ‘when one considers the ongoing carnage associated with the elevated fear levels’. (See Chapter 16, ‘Terrifying impacts’, for more on the ‘carnage’.) Frawley told me that she believes the deliberate manipulation of our emotions ‘affects our deepest existential questions. The ability to manage our emotional lives is not entrusted to us.’

Behavioural scientist Richard Shotton, author of The Choice Factory, was more sanguine about nudging. I asked him to talk me through some of the highs and lows of the behavioural science approach during the Covid epidemic. Overall, he argued that behavioural insights are an effective tool to shape communications; as you have to choose how to communicate, you may as well do it in a way that will engineer the desired results.

Shotton offered the example of ‘social proof’ which is the ‘norms’ effect. He told me that people can be seen as ‘slightly silly’ for following these biases, but if they were misleading or useless we wouldn’t follow them. In essence, ‘social proof is a remarkably useful tactic’, and has helped humans stay alive in our evolutionary past. These days, for example, you can’t weigh up every single purchase in the supermarket. It would take a phenomenal amount of time and be an illogical approach. Social proof, simply doing what most other people do, is a faster way of making choices. As Edward Bernays put it, ‘It would be ideal if all of us could make up our minds independently by evaluating all pertinent facts objectively. That, however, is not possible.’10

Likewise, Patrick Fagan, author of Hooked and former lead psychologist at Cambridge Analytica, told me, ‘Most people can’t deal with the facts. We have limited brain power, we can only think about so much. So rational appeals to the general public are less effective than nudging. Talking in concrete emotional terms is more effective.’ Hmm – so, did he think the government’s nudging had been ethical? ‘I’m talking about my own profession here, but behavioural science has become egregious. At the moment it is about fundamentally changing how people live and taking away their freedoms. The nudge unit have appointed themselves as