Nudging alone won’t boost giving says House of Lords report

By: 

Cheryl Chapman

Managing Editor, Philanthropy UK

People will not be 'nudged' into giving to charity or volunteering without other incentives, according to the second report by the House of Lords inquiry into behaviour change. Its findings run contrary to an earlier government commissioned report on the power of nudge.

Behaviour Change, a year-long investigation by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee into how the nation can be convinced to change bad habits or adopt good ones, found that regulatory measures would be needed to change behaviour enough to make a difference to society.

An earlier three year study by academics at Manchester and Southampton universities, commissioned by the Communities and Local Government department under the Labour Government, shows that people are more likely to do good works if encouraged by door-to-door canvassing, for example, or the public display of donors’ names. In one controlled experiment, donations went up 22% when people were asked to give books and a list of donors was displayed at drop-off points.

Richard Thaler co-author of the book Nudge, from which the concept is taken, is working with the Behavioural Insights Team based at the Cabinet Office.

Baroness Neuberger, chair of the Lords sub-committee that carried out the review, said: "There are all manner of things that the government wants us to do, but how can it get us to do them? It won’t be easy and this inquiry has shown that it certainly won’t be achieved through using nudges, or any other sort of intervention, in isolation.

"The government needs to be braver about mixing and matching policy measures, using both incentives and disincentives to bring about change. They must also get much better at evaluating the measures they put in place."