Is transparency an ethical pre-requisite?
Author: Nina Gavin and Stuart Jackson - ICE Creates. linkedin.com/in/nina-gavin and linkedin.com/in/stuart-jackson-93735715
With great power comes great responsibility.
Often, the role of marketing is to activate behaviour change (buy more, switch brand, don't delay, wear a mask) and as marketers, we have a powerful armoury of techniques at our disposal. Influencing, informing, persuading, differentiating, framing, reminding and of course nudging.
But some critics accuse nudges of manipulation. Modern day Trojan Horses.
As the story goes, for 10 years ancient Greek warriors had been unable to conquer the city of Troy in a battle against the trojan warriors. A high wall built around the city provided great defence for the people of Troy against the Greeks. Sound familiar? As marketers it’s that cry of where to spend my budget for biggest impact, to break through the noise, the wall...
Things looked hopeless until Odysseus, a famous ancient Greek general, thought of an idea. It was the custom back then to leave a peace offering behind to admit defeat. Odysseus suggested the Greeks build a huge, heavy, beautiful wooden horse, and leave it outside the gates of Troy. The Greek warriors hauled the heavy horse to the gates and pretended to leave. But it was a trick. The horse would be hollow. Thirty men would be hiding inside.
When the horse arrived outside the city gates, the people of Troy rushed outside, cheering their victory and dragged the heavy horse inside. That night, the men hiding inside the wooden horse climbed out and opened the gates. The waiting Greek army entered and conquered Troy.
The moral of the story?
Some may argue that the gift of the Trojan Horse influenced the people of Troy by changing how they chose to behave, and thus was an effective use of a nudge, but of course it was immoral, intentionally deceptive and not in the interests of the people themselves.
Coined by Thaler and Sustain in 2008, a nudge is a way to influence behaviour without restricting freedom of choice. While the founders intended it to “serve the interests of citizens”, the widespread use of nudge to influence - in a cheap and effective way - our everyday choices and behaviours, has not always been given deliberate thought and ethical consideration by the people in charge of implementing them.
This poses an ethical dilemma for those people responsible for shaping the environments in which citizens and customers make decisions. These responsible people are ‘Choice Architects’ and have a moral duty to “nudge for good” and promote ends that are in the interest of society themselves.
Given an average person makes 35,000 decisions a day, there are many ‘Choice Architects’ out there, whether they realise it or not. Doctors presenting alternative treatments for their patients, canteen managers arranging food and marketers presenting information and choices to members of the public are all influencing the context in which people make decisions.
Recognising oneself as a Choice Architect could cause ethical dilemmas: accepting responsibility for certain decision-making contexts that you know will influence citizens’ choices and behaviours versus the acceptability of applying nudges particularly because of the risk of being accused of manipulation.
Ethical vs manipulative uses of nudge
Hansen and Jespersen (2013) developed a 4-quadrant matrix to guide and set parameters to distinguish manipulative use of nudges from other, ethical and responsible uses. We use this as a moral compass to help our partners.
The Y axis - Type 1 and Type 2 nudges that are based on the distinction between two kinds of thinking: System 1, which is intuitive and automatic and System 2 which is reflective and rationale. This distinction was coined by psychologist Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. (2008).
Importantly, both types of nudges aim to influence automatic System 1 modes of thinking. The difference is this:
Type 1 nudges aim to influence the behaviours that are governed by automatic thinking, without reflective thinking (i.e. without a conscious choice being made). For instance, decreasing the size of plates in a canteen reduces customers’ calorie intake without them making a conscious choice regarding how much to eat. Instead the customer engages in mindless eating habits of first filling their plate, finishing it and without thinking about it.
Type 2 nudges aim to influence the choices people make by reflective thinking (i.e. System 2 where conscious choices are made) through the automatic system. For instance, placing a ‘fly-sticker-in-the-urinal’ prompts people to visually scan for the fly – a cognitive process performed by automatic System 1 thinking. When this happens, the nudge works by attracting the attention of reflective thinking and results in a choice being made. A person will choose to aim for the fly or not, but either way it increases the likelihood of the person concentrating on the current act of urinating.
The X axis - Transparent and Non-transparent nudges:
Transparent nudges are cases when the citizen being nudged can reasonably be expected to easily reconstruct the intention behind the nudge. For instance, alongside the ‘fly-in-the-urinal’ example, footprints leading to the stairs can be easily understood as intending to encourage citizens to take the stairs.
Non-transparent nudges, on the other hand, are cases where the citizen cannot reconstruct the intention. For instance, subliminal advertising (which caused a moral outrage and was subsequently banned in 1958) used flashing images to convey hidden messages to “drink Coca-Cola”. It subconsciously anchored people to information that coercively informed their future choices without them even realising it.
Putting the matrix to good use
The next step in applying the matrix is to consider the 4 types of nudges in each quadrant and the ethical considerations that must be acknowledged by Choice Architects to use nudges in a responsible way.
Transparent type 2 nudges prompt decision-making in a way that is transparent to the citizen, which empowers them to make an informed choice in a complex environment. Think about the footprints to the stairs, which draws attention to the desired behaviour and allows people to make an informed (albeit simple) choice whether to take the stairs or not.
In using transparent type 1 nudges, choice architects are fully responsible for the effect of the nudge because citizens cannot choose to avoid the effects, rather the behaviour happens to them automatically. For instance, if a plane plays relaxing music, a person may subconsciously start to relax. It is only after the fact that the nudge may become transparent, when they realise the intent behind the music.
On the contrary, non-transparent type 1 nudges do not prompt reflective thinking at all, rather citizens behaviour is changed without them being aware it. Think about a person habitual eating their lunch in a canteen from a plate that they are unaware is smaller than average. In these cases, Choice Architects must ensure interventions are rooted in moral principles, aligned to what is in the citizens interest.
Finally, non-transparent type 2 nudges are the most controversial and often deemed to be ethically wrong. In these cases, citizens are prompted make a conscious choice, yet the reasons why choice options have been presented in a certain way is unclear or deceptive. This is manipulation of choice, usually to fulfil an end goal (e.g. profits, sales) that deviate from the interests of citizens themselves. In principle citizens are free to choose, yet the lack of transparency makes this unlikely in practice.
To return to our story, the people of Troy had a choice whether to open the gates and claim their prize or not. The final choice was based on a complete lack of transparency about the intent of the Trojan Horse, which led to a decision that did not serve their interests.
As social designers and marketers we have to be clear on intent and motives as the great David Ogilvy once said:
Nina Gavin and Stuart Jackson ICE Creates.
ICE Creates is a UK leader in human factor design and regularly uses the power of behavioural marketing that includes nudges and sophisticated choice architecture, all crafted to impact to ‘nudge for good’. We are proud to play our part in building a well, confident, and resilient society. We will not settle for second best; we inspire and build ways of work that bring fresh energy, creativity and growth for people and our planet. Simply put, we make better happen