Evidence-based policy?

 As a scientist I am pro-evidence. More broadly I am pro-objective reality. I believe that, fundamentally reality is founded on three axioms; Existence, Identity and Consciousness.

Existence; because something exists. Identity because something exists as something. Consciousness because something exists perceiving those things.

These are the axioms which, explicitly or implicitly, guide all rational people.

I admit this isn’t exactly a comfortable lexicon to use for someone into behavioural science, unfortunately behavioural theory hasn’t quite extended itself yet properly to metaphysics and so there isn’t a clear way to describe these concepts.

Yet, nonetheless I believe them to be true. Existence, Identity and Consciousness; the triumvirate of science. From this point of view we know that reality is knowable. That is to say, it’s lawful (now we’re back in behaviourist territory), and so – understandable and predictable. Contra Immanuel Kant knowledge is contextual. Not subjective, but based on the context of the individual thinking it.

Epistemology aside, I want to focus on one particular application of this knowledge. If reality is knowable – and above all predictable – then so are humans, and so is human consciousness. Our awareness – call it a complex verbal repertoire a la Skinner, or an extended behavioural pattern through temporal dimensions a la Rachlin – is nonetheless knowable and predictable.

So where am I going with this extended diatribe? If human behaviour is knowable and predictable – that is to say a function of reality not some mystical higher quality alluded to by theologians and amateur Platonists of millennia past, then it stands to reason that we should do something with this knowledge to improve our condition here on Earth.

This, then, is where evidence based policy comes into being. Evidence-based policy ostensibly began with the Blair government and is – ostensibly – being continued by the Coalition. Both governments agreed – formally – to put aside ideology for the sake of ideology and instead agreed to obey the evidence – meaning obey reality.

Yet this is where it gets sticky. As I’ve already mentioned knowledge is contextual. We aren’t omniscient. So we have a problem. A fact is a fact. Yet it stands in the context of all the other knowledge. For example we may know that when two atoms collide – they release a heck of a lot of energy, but this doesn’t automatically tell us that the energy can be used to switch on the lights and blow a city into the ground. The application – and the subsequent effects of that application – are not knowable until those facts are discovered, it’s not a package deal.

Take for instance what we know about people’s behaviour. People are susceptible to superstitious behaviour, we use heuristics – rules of thumb – to get through the day, and we are fallible. Yes we are capable of rationality, yes we are capable of discovering facts but the flip side of having that kind of behavioural repertoire is that we can get it wrong. Know this is used to justify things like Nudges.

Now for a disclaimer, I support nudges. Support them all the way to the bank. If all governments adopted that kind of attitude the world would be happier place. Yet herein lays the problem I’ve been alluding to. It often comes up as a snarky criticism from opponents of Nudges; the claim is that if the Nudgers believe that people are fallible then isn’t there a chance that they are wrong about the Nudges? The biggest mistake people make in response to these criticisms is to pass them off as futile attempts from right wingers to criticise the uncriticisable.

Instead, let’s look at if they have a point. What is a nudge? The manipulation of environmental variables that create a condition under which a chosen behaviour is more likely to be emitted – whilst still preserving the freedom of choice. That means that if I want to smoke –I should be able to, but not smoking could potentially be promoted in one way or another.

Now policy analysts and writers have been practically frothing at the mouth trying to apply this idea to every single policy applicable; from taxes, to health promotion, to energy usage. It can literally be applied to all levels of government. Yet, a question still lingers, a question unanswered; should it?

Evidence-based policy has been most wholly accepted by the progressive end of the spectrum. Now not to paint with too broad a brush here but progressive thinkers in general promote a more activist form of government.

So a smart way to more efficiently run a government appeals to them – and so it should! But, as I mentioned at the start of this article, knowledge is contextual, and so we need to look at the actions of a government using Nudges in the broader context of government actions.

Nudging applies equally to our personal, private lives and private associations as much as it does to government actions. Nudges can help us; it can help private businesses (I wouldknow). It doesn’t have to come from a government. So we shouldn’t act like it should.

A full political breakdown is perhaps beyond the scope of this article. Yet I want to point to a general theme. Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should do something. The jury is still out on whether an evidence based approach to everything from a top-down approach is necessarily in our long-term best interests.

It is perhaps wise then, to heed the criticisms of the nudge approach. Let us be wary of our potential bias in this matter. We should be ready to say that a nudge could be better served from a private point of view, in a contractual sense. Certainly there are areas where a government should act and act decisively. This is not in dispute. But let’s apply evidence to the evidence based approach and look at whether we are doing more harm than good. Science requires no less. 

Shale Gas, Innovation and Behaviour Change

I'm all about innovation. 

Innovation is the fuel that's drives the engine of civilization. I've spoken about this before so I won't go into excruciating detail. Needless to say innovation is what keeps us going. In the abstract innovation is a highly complex thing. It involves essentially rearranging already existing knowledge - or inducing new knowledge - and then applying it in a way that affects lasting change, either on the individual level or the group level. 

Mobile phones (and now smart phones), the internal combustion engine, fuel cells, airplanes, the water-wheel; all of these are innovations. Facts of reality are first discovered, then applies to a problem - if they solve the problem effectively they become innovations. 

On the flip side of this we have human behaviour. Innovation drives behaviour change but - and this is important - it also requires it. 

Let me explain; using the example of mobile phones. The advent of the mobile phone opened a new range of behaviours to people. Things that were quite unreinforcing (and quite pointlessly punishing) like talking into a piece of glass and plastic whilst walking down the street suddenly became quite plausible - and indeed highly reinforcing. Mobile phone behaviour was quite unprovoked - people discovered it by themselves, but interestingly out of it came a number of norms. People started... agreeing... about what was appropriate behaviour. Voluntary mobile phone bans cropped up in places it was inappropriate. A quite decentralised etiquette arose. Apart from anything it provides a wonderful example of Adam Smith's (much derided) invisible hand. Yet this isn't an exposition on economics. It's a discussion of behaviour change.

So what does it tell us? It tells us that innovation creates new behaviours, which in turn solves problems no one really knew we had. Some argue that we are more alienated because of mobile phones - I argue we are closer together. I can, at any time, ring any number of people, from any location, and get through to them. I can even see them with 3G/4G video. When once I had to be at a hardline to talk to someone now, five minutes from a meeting, stuck in traffic, I can call them to tell them I'm late thus saving myself the necessity of an unhappy bunch of staff, and an awkward conversation on my arrival. 

This, however, is only half the story. Sadly it's the only side of the story we discuss. Yet as a behaviourist I have another interest, a side of the story we don't often here told. What leads up to the innovation? 

 Now don't get me wrong. The western world is abuzz with how to "encourage" or "nudge" innovation. It's all the rage; the latest fad. Yet we think of it in terms of systems. We think in terms of political machinations and big, shiny ad campaigns that do little to actually drive innovation, but certainly look good on the score card. The token effort. The "seen to be doing something" tick box. 

So let's get serious. One of things you learn as a behaviourist is that there is no "group mind". There is no collective will, no "greater than the sum of it's parts" entity. All there is, is people. Individuals. Each with their own learning history. Each with their own set of unique contingencies. No two people act the same, even to identical stimuli. This is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because it means there is nothing specific we can do. We can't teach "innovation" in schools and expect it to appear. A blessing, because we can teach people to create contingencies to give rise to innovation on an individual level.

Let me enumerate; innovation never looks the same. It's a different process each time. Yet there are similarities. First; a person must have the ability to learn and synthesize a vast amount of knowledge. Second; a person must be able to apply said knowledge to physical problems (and must in turn recognise that problems can indeed be solved with facts, not wishful thinking), thirdly; they must be free to apply that knowledge. 

First; education. Our education is good - but it's not great. Skinner said it himself: 

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

 We make great pains to teach our children a wealth of knowledge, and yet we do little to instill a love of learning itself. Behaviour Analysis has gone to great pains to show a child can be taught, systematically, to love the process of learning. Yet it is not applied because we believe (and this is just my speculation but i have reason to think so) that we value the factual knowledge itself, over the process involved. Facts are divorced from reality. We learn history - but never teach the reason for learning history. We teach science - but never teach the reason for learning science... we teach a child how to deconstruct the themes of a novel - but never teach them why it matters, or what the themes mean in any kind of context. 

 This leads on to our second problem; application. If you're like me you probably heard, time and time again in school that you should "apply yourself more". Yet, again if you're like me, then you probably went away a little nonplussed. What did "apply yourself" mean, anyway? was it some application of will? Some special process you didn't understand? What? 

 Herein lies the problem, as I alluded to earlier there is a bizarre trend in education that essentially teaches the divorce between fact and value. This is an old philosophical problem that essentially draws a line in the sand between a fact (some referent of reality) and a value (some moral proclamation). we teach for the sake of teaching. History, as I mentioned earlier, is taught with no reference to the value behind it. So we learn about WWII and the rise of Hitler - we learn WHAT happened, but we don't learn WHY it happened. The why is seen as either self-evident or worse; irrelevant. This, in part, goes back to the progressive education movement of the early 20th century where John Dewey redefined the purpose of education to a socialising end. The educational philosophy of Dewey was conceptualised by John Dumphy as follows; 

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being...The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved." — excerpt from an article by John Dunphy titled "A Religion for a New Age," appearing in the January/February 1983 issue of The Humanist Magazine.

Now few educators in Britain would consider this an appropriate explanation of what they do. Indeed philosophical proselytizing is more common across the ocean, but the influence has nonetheless seeped in. For the purposes of innovation we need to stop teaching facts divorced from reality, and instead we need to teach facts as they are in reality. This means, in the context. Something every behaviour analyst understands quite intimately. Context is what gives us meaning. Without context we cannot understand why a behaviour occurred or whether it will occur again. 

Now for our third, and final, problem; are the appropriate contingencies available to allow innovation in the first place? Let's assume that we all have a self-interested desire to see innovation happen on a large scale. No one wants some genius locked up and unable to communicate or practice his new ideas. 

Yet this can be quite a controversial point. I want to use the recent interest in Shale Oil (controversial in its own right) to help me make my point. Shale Oil is in and of itself, innovative. It offers a way to expand our energy supply and can potentially act as a bridge to a cleaner, cheaper form of energy such as advanced nuclear reactors and so on. How does this innovation come to light? freedom. Freedom to experiment. Freedom to apply. There is a reason North Korea doesn't have a booming energy (or any) industry. 

So there are my three pre-conditions to innovation; knowledge (and the ability acquire it), an ability to apply the knowledge to real world problems, and finally the freedom to apply those problems. 

 There are no easy answers, and I can only offer my opinion (and I am always open to counter argument). The problems we face in society are not insurmountable, but they will need tackling eventually. If we want to succeed as a culture we need to start thinking more seriously about what we are doing - stop planning society based on ideology and start basing it on reason. I believe we can create a society where people are naturally innovative - as a norm, not an exception. Where the question of whether something should be allowed to be tried is never even asked. Where people take personal responsibility for improving their lives (and the lives of everyone else along with it). 

 Shale gas may prove to be dangerous, or useless, or simply too expensive. But imagine a world where we could never even try and find out? 

Conceptual Discussion; Determinism

Behaviour Analysis is grounded in the philosophy of radical behaviourism. Although a knowledge of radical behaviourism is unnecessary for practicing behaviour analysts it can help when trying to understand the “big picture” to have a basic grounding in some of the assumptions that underlay the science.

In this blog I’d like to discuss one of the most controversial aspects of radical behaviourism – determinism. The chances are that you’ve heard of determinism and know something about it but I’d like to proffer a definition anyway for our purposes here;

Determinism (in science) is the belief that any effect must invariably have a cause. Nothing happens through some conspicuous free-agent but is instead a product of the natural environment.  - Me.                                                                                                                                                            

Delprato and Midgely¹ describe the role of determinism in radical behaviourism as:

In Skinner's approach, this determinism assumption is fundamental for (a) making human behavior amenable to scientific understanding and (b) what Skinner viewed as the primary goals of science: prediction and control. This assumption, however, does not imply any sort of mechanistic determinism in which stimuli and responses are contiguous and the former impel the latter.

Note that important qualifier at the end. Determinism does not necessarily imply mechanistic stimulus-response relationships.

Indeed Determinism is the belief that for every effect there must be a cause, but a causal event does not lead irrevocably to a set response.

Why is this idea controversial?

Within the natural sciences this position is not hotly contested. Long gone are the days of Aristotelian “jubilant motion” or the theocratic notion of “godly will”. We understand know that rock falls to earth because of the force of gravity, and that a tree grows in reaction to photosynthesis, nutrient absorption and so on. There is nothing mystical about it, there is no “will to fall” or “will to grow” that causes these events.

The controversy comes when we try and apply this idea to human psychology. Here’s the deal; we in the west have a strong tradition of believing in free will.  We believe we have complete control over our actions. We believe in every situation we have a choice – a free choice, nonetheless, and that in the end our behaviour is a product of…well consciousness. Of course this is slightly circular, observe; I ask you; “Why do you behave?” you say “because I will it”, I retort “How do you know you willed it?” and you answer… “Because I behaved”. It’s a somewhat useless argument that fails to offer anything valid to the debate.

The controversy is borne out of behaviour analysts insisting that human behaviour is actually a product of our environment – it is determined – and is ultimately lawful (and thus predictable).

Alas, I may have given you the wrong impression. I’ve implied in the preceding paragraphs that behaviour analysts don’t believe we have choice, or control, or anything; that we are literally puppets on a metaphysical string. Yet everyone knows that, when faced with the agonising decision of Chinese or Indian for tea… we definitely do make our own choices, but do we?

There is nothing controversial in suggesting that we make choices like what to have to eat. So let’s analyse the decision of what to eat and see if we can show how a seemingly “free” choice is actually entirely determined by past events and environmental contingencies.

Let’s say I ask you what you’d like to eat. You reply that you aren’t sure, either Indian or Chinese will do. What is the process you go through when making this decision?

There are obviously a number of factors and this is a very simplified version of the decision making process, but what is really going on? Well first which do you prefer? Have you had a bad experience with one type of food? Did you have a dodgy curry one fateful evening? Or did you have a sweet and sour pork with suspiciously un-pork-like meat populating it? In the behaviour analytic world we call this your reinforcement (or learning) history.

-      

•         Which do you prefer? Do you like curry more than chow mein?
•         Which is closer? And is time until you eat important?
•         Have you heard any particularly good or bad reviews about either place?

Second, how hungry are you? If you are starving does a 45 minute drive to the nearest curry house strike fear and depression into your heart? Does the quick and convenient walk to the Chinese inspire you with thoughts of tucking into a crispy duck starter in 20 minutes flat? We call your level of hunger a Motivating Operation (MO), and the relative availability of the food a stimulus discriminant (Sd).

Finally have you heard anything about either place? Did a friend tell you (in too much detail) about their fateful morning-after digestive problems after a House Special? Did you hear about the particularly excellent Kheema Naan? Depending on how you look at it we could call this rule-governed behaviour (although I am sure that is up for debate!).

So we see that a supposedly innocuous exercise of “free will” is actually a meticulously controlled and determined choice that can be predicted (and with some accuracy) once you know the relevant factors. The interesting thing, however, is that you never feel controlled.

Determinism then is not the scary concept it is so often portrayed as. It merely recognises that behaviour does not occur in a vacuum. Now that is an incredibly important point so let me reiterate it; behaviour does not occur in a vacuum, it is always contextual.

This is a very important aspect of behaviourism and something often overlooked when trying to understand behaviour. Context is the sum total of the relevant environmental factors (including learning history) that affect behaviour. For example the ringing of a bell means many different things to different people and will elicit a number of different responses; but it doesn’t change the fact that the behaviour that occurs is still determined by the ringing of the bell.

So let’s wrap this up;

-       

•          Determinism is a key foundation of radical behaviourism
•          It delineates how human behaviour is actually a product of environmental contingencies and not      some hypothetical inner cause
•          It is a controversial principle to apply to human behaviour
•          It provides the foundation on which human behaviour can be predicted and controlled

¹Delprato, D. J., & Midgley, B. D. (1984). Some Fundamentals of B  F Skinner’s Behaviorism.

Permission to wax philosophic and a change for the better

I don’t often have bouts of philosophical meandering. I’m not a florid person. Nor am I extravagant in the way I speak. I’m an introvert, through and through. Get me going on a topic and I’ll talk like the wind but try and get me to talk about myself and I’ll go quiet, get awkward and simply give up the ghost and end the conversation – hopefully politely. I think that now, however, is the time for some philosophical self-indulgence.

Ideas matter. Without them we are like helpless infants, groping for an understanding that never comes, seeing only a frightening, disconnected morass of concrete perceptions that never unify into any sort of understanding. Thankfully no one really operates on this level. But ideas are only helpful if they are true. I don’t want to get into a difficult debate about the nature of truth, suffice it to say I believe that there can be objective truth – that is to say there are facts that can be discovered that pertain to reality that exist independent of our wishes and beliefs. To put into standard philosophical terms; A = A.

I don’t think it’s presumptuous to say that few us every check the premises by which we live. Even those of us that do, do so on such narrow terms that we see reality clearly in only one field (we call these people academics, or scientists) and more often than not hold false beliefs in other areas of our lives (seemingly without contradiction). I by no means exclude myself from this group. My speciality is human behaviour, and I have a lot to learn, but I am least part-way rational about it; but let me ask you, how much of your understanding of human behaviour is based on superstition? Folklore? Old wives tales?

If you shirk off this accusation, consider this; you see a teenager dressed in a full tracksuit, cap down low, swaggering along the street. You immediately tense; will he attack me? Abuse me? Do something uncomfortable and then accuse me of something? What is this based on? Past experience? Partly, but most of us only rarely see these things, instead it’s an image, carefully crafted and reinforced by social mores, media, news, discussions with likeminded individuals and so on. What if he helps an old woman carry her bags? Or inquires about your day in a friendly manner? Will you change your opinion of people who broadly fall into this category? Unlikely. Instead you’ll write it off. The carefully constructed image is too psychologically comfortable to just cast away.

Another good example is with politicians. Have you ever noticed how quickly you are able to explain away a mistake made by someone “on your side”, whereas you can quick and harsh when you notice a mistake by someone on the other side of the fence?

The truth is most people don’t understand human behaviour. Those of us that do profess to understand it will be the first to acknowledge what we do know is only preliminary. The science is young. What we do know, however, is powerful; very powerful.

The world is awash in problems, big ones, small ones, ones that affect the whole of humanity and some that affect just you. The time isn’t right yet to make changes on a global scale. I’ll discuss global change another time. What we can change, however, is the little problems. The ones that affect you.

And now to the crux of my point. You see now why I soliloquised on waxing philosophic at the start of this blog post, I guess I am in a reflective mood, and I’m a stickler for developing (hopefully) coherent arguments. So here goes; I am overweight.

It’s not exactly a secret, and those who know me, know that I am quite open and honest. I’m not avoiding the issue, I’m not ashamed really. It’s just how I am. How I’ve always been. Unfortunately this makes the root of my behaviour incredibly difficult to pinpoint. Why did I start over-eating when I was so young? I have my theories but they are private. The problem is that I over-eat. Or, more precisely, over-eat the bad things.

All the standard explanations fail me. I am not from a lower socio-economic status, I do not live in a food “desert”, I don’t lack adequate cooking skills, and whilst I am hardly well-off I can easily afford healthy food – and when I can’t, I can usually create something passably healthy from very cheap fare. So what am I to do? Should I just admit I have terrible will power? Consign myself to the status of terminal (and I mean that in the full implication of the word) obesity? Pass off the responsibility to my genes?

No. I know too much about human behaviour to give in to those sorts of explanatory fictions. Essentially they pass the buck.

So I’ve decided to apply the skills I know best to solve this problem once and for all. You may or may not have heard of the 5:2 diet, I won’t go into an explanation in this blog but you can get the ebook cheaply, and find out loads of info on the web. Basically it involves healthy eating interspersed with light fasting. I’ve heard good things from colleagues and I intend to trial it for at least two months to see if it has any effect. I’ll be weighing myself (and providing waist measurements) daily and graphing them to try and ascertain any affect. Part of the behaviour intervention will be posting it online. Public commitment is a powerful motivator. Not to mention it’s a wonderful learning opportunity for me.

There is, however, a truth beneath the truth (a world below the world) that I want to highlight. You can’t save the world with grandiose actions and sweeping changes. Not the American Revolution, not the Communist Revolution, not the internet, not globalisation, or the EU, or Mini-skirts of Mary Quant (god bless her!) can have the long term effects they are meant to. They can lay the foundation, create the architecture, provide the environment, but ultimately individuals must decide to make the changes. It gives new meaning to that tired old phrase “Be the change you want to see in the world”. But far from the boring platitudes of aging hippies and new-age wannabes, this simple phrase hides a simple truth; behaviour is something the individual does. Society doesn’t “behave”, governments don’t “behave”, and even businesses don’t “behave”. We do. And we make a choice in every situation how we are going to behave. Good or bad, rational or irrational (and is there a difference between good and rational?), the outcome is for us to decide. So I want to be an example, a small, simple, example of what we can do to make the world a better place.

I won’t post the graph until more info has been collected, it looks a little sad now and wholly unhelpful.

The Softer Side of Behaviour Change

Behaviour Change is my job and it’s very easy to see it as just that, a job; just a process. The human side of it can become lost in the theories and equations and so on. But at its core behaviour change is about people.

Behaviour change is often criticised for being too mechanistic and harsh; more interested in the results and not the process. This is, in part, a holdover from the halcyon days of lab-rat testing and pidgeon-boxes of yore. Yet it is also down to the seemingly heartless way businesses re-organise to maximise efficiency – oh and get rid of some ballast along the way – and the way governments blithely ban or restrict activities they see as inappropriate (or worse, politically useful) and so behaviour change has become synonymous for some with things like the horrendous Soviet social experiments, and the austere white-coats of scientists in lab prodding and poking and shocking and starving animals all in the name of science.

But this is a myth.

Yes, once upon a time in days gone by behaviour was seen as something mechanical, to be reduced to equations and symbols (you can thank Watson and the Logical Positivists for that) but nowadays behaviour change is anything but mechanistic and reductionist!

A brilliant paper by Delprato and Midgely explores some of the aspects of Behaviour Analysis and put those (and other) myths to rest. But nonetheless the myths persist.

We are seen as manipulative and controlling; for example Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler was hailed as revolutionary in it’s simple portrayal of complex ideas that appealed to a broad audience, it showed how we can nudge behaviour to be better and more effective without restricting the freedom of the individual. 

Despite this the reaction from some was vehement – to say the least. People were shocked that governments could be inspired by such a supposedly totalitarian idea. This article here explains in the typically hyperbolic terms of sensationalist media how inevitably the nudge will become a shove, citing Mayor Bloomberg of New York’s efforts to control NY citizens behaviour, presumably alluding to the soda ban that hit the headlines recently, but completely ignoring the fact that outright bans are simply NOT allowed in Nudge theory.

So what can be done? Well better effort on our part to down-play the talk of controlling and manipulating and instead highlight the inherent freedom a behaviour change allows. The assumption of a lot of critics is this; we are behaving rationally but not in the way we are “supposed to” as defined by some shadowy agency. So along comes behaviour change techniques to force us round pegs into some government-approved square holes. This is simply not true; yes we can act rationally but we don’t. It’s learned. And it’s damn hard to actually learn.

Second we have to re-assess our own goals within the science. I am relatively new to academia and far be it from me to start demanding sweeping changes in the way we think and act. Yet, it seems to me, with the fresh eyes I bring, that a bit of positive PR would do us no end of good. Not to mention a focus on inter-disciplinary efforts to make our work more aesthetically pleasing to the man on the street, and in turn, more acceptable.

I don’t want to rattle on about this because it can become dry quickly but it’s worth remembering that what is perceived as behaviour change by the man on the Clapham omnibus and the scientists working on it can sometimes be at odds. This is our fault for not portraying it in proper terms. We aren’t against freedom, we aren’t against rationality, we aren’t against a good life. We don’t want big brother, we don’t want intrusive regulations where unnecessary, and we don’t want to control people like puppets.

I don’t have the answers, but maybe if we start asking the right questions the answers will come.