My favorite part of the book Nudge was the section on how to nudge ourselves towards the actions that we know we should be taking anyway.
Because, of course, policymakers and recalcitrant should-be voters aren’t the only people who need a little nudging.
There is evidence, for example, that getting people to commit to increasing their charitable contributions by a predetermined amount at a preset time is an effective way to get them to the desired level of financial commitment.
Because, while I may not be willing to give more right now, I’m also fairly likely to just go along with it once it kicks in.
Inertia, and all that.
And, so, what I’m wondering is, if regularly-scheduled increases in charitable contributions work, then what about regularly-scheduled commitments to take on advocacy?
If we know that imagining, in detail, how we’ll take action, increases the likelihood that we will, then shouldn’t actually committing that it will happen have all-the-greater effect?
We do this some, already, in our campaigns. We ask people to sign up to come to a meeting, we ask them to commit to calling their legislators, we ask them to sign a pledge to boycott a certain company.
But I think, too often, we tell ourselves that the reason that we’re asking for this commitment is so that we have an excuse to call them (repeatedly, sometimes) to remind them of their promise, as though it’s our nagging, and not their own ‘commitment trigger’ that makes the difference.
I think the psychology on that is wrong, and I think that confusing internal priming and external haranguing also leads us to overlook some opportunities to make this whole ‘advocate more tomorrow’ approach work even better for us.
What if, for example, we used social media, or even our websites, to publish people’s commitments? Not in a ‘shame-on-you’ way, but a ‘look who’s going to be there–awesome, hunh?’ way.
Or what if we had people sign a commitment to contact their legislator, with great detail (“I’ll call Senator XYZ about the Earned Income Tax Credit cuts the second week in February”) and then we sent them the reminder in their own handwriting (maybe scanned and emailed), so that they could see where they had already put this into motion?
What if we asked people to tell us exactly when they would be ready to come to a rally, or write a letter, and then we made that date our timeline for their engagement in the campaign, instead of trying to get them to slot into our calendar?
With my kids, they know that they can choose whether they’re going to stop playing to eat dinner, or brush their teeth, or pick up their room.
They can choose to do it now, or in 5 minutes.
And choose they do, programming themselves to do what I wanted them to do.




Is social work an anachronistic profession?
In this final post taken from the ideas of The Spirit Level, I’ve been thinking about the evidence from past societies about greater equality, and about how social work values are often in tension, if not outright conflict, with societal ones, and, I guess, about what that says about our profession, and where we fit.
See, if societies grow progressively (no pun intended) less egalitarian as they develop, and if social work’s collective beliefs about the distribution of resources more closely mirror those of the past than today, then what’s the future for our profession? And, of course, for society too?
Evidence suggests that hunter/gatherer societies were more cooperative and less hierarchical because of a clearer sense of interdependence; as natural resources are depleted, will we regain an understanding of just how much we need each other? Will social work values, then, that are obviously more well-suited to ‘flatter’ societal power structures, come back in style?
Or are social workers destined to cope within a dominant value structure that doesn’t reflect our understanding about the way that wealth should be distributed or, perhaps more importantly, about the negative consequences of tremendous inequality?
If that’s the case, then how will we, as social workers, respond? Will we cave to societal norms that devalue redistribution? Will we seek status in order to thrive within that power dynamic, rather than resisting it? Will we spend increasing professional energy dealing with the symptoms of inequality?
Or will we rise to the challenge of turning the tide?
Does it matter, I guess, if we’re ‘out of touch’, if we are true to our value code? Do we, in fact, gain some maneuvering room if we’re operating a bit outside the system? Is there some advantage in being seen, in fact, as distinct, because it helps us to attract social workers who are not only clear about the mandates of the profession with which they are affiliating, but also obviously comfortable with the idea of standing apart?
Will history come around to us, again?
Will we concede?
Or are we content to be anachronistic, since we believe it to be right?
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Posted in Analysis and Commentary
Tagged history, inequality, social work