Applied Behavioural Psychology

1/5 - Introduction; the UK Government’s Use of Applied Behavioural Psychology; the Dubious Ethics of Applied Behavioural Psychology; M=Messenger

Abstract

Governments around the world attacked their own people in 2020/21 using the techniques of applied behavioural psychology. The roots of this lie in US Army psy-ops, but Britain has led the way in deploying applied behavioural psychology as an instrument of public policy. Most significantly, the MINDSPACE document of 2010, produced by the Cabinet Office and the Institute for Government, sets out nine key principles for using applied behavioural psychology to achieve desired outcomes: Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Defaults, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitment, and Ego. All nine were starkly in evidence during the “Covid-19” operation. Controversially, however, they were deployed against the public without adequate ethical consultation and without the public’s informed consent. As such, they did not constitute legitimate instruments of public policy and served, rather, as weapons in the Omniwar. Worse still, because they typically rely on influencing the “Automatic Brain” that operates outside of conscious thought processes, the public had no idea that any of this was happening. Instead, it was unconsciously manipulated into complying with government demands and taking dangerous experimental injections.

Introduction

Behavioural psychology, or behaviourism, dates back to the early twentieth century and the writings of John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, and others. However, as a tool of public policy, applied behavioural psychology is much more recent. It is typically associated with the Nudge agenda pioneered by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2008). Broadly, this is the idea that citizens can be induced to make “better” choices through a range of psychological techniques that work to manipulate behaviour in subtle (often unconscious) ways.

Although Nudge is framed as an instrument of public policy intended to serve the public good, it is worth noting that, in 2006, Psychological Operations was established as a “basic branch” of the US Army, and that, in 2007, the US Army claimed that “Behavioral change is at the root of the psyop mission” (Headquarters Department of the Army, 2007a, 2007b). Thus, as with so much else, it would appear that the military is behind the rise of applied behavioural psychology, which has become fundamental to psychological operations waged against the public.

Sunstein, a Harvard professor, is also known for his role in co-authoring an infamous paper proposing that

government agents (and their allies) [...] enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic, or implications for action, political or otherwise. (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009, p. 224)

Sunstein here was evidently acting on behalf of the US national security state, by legitimising the use of state power to sow disruption among groups of citizens who have legitimate doubts about certain official narratives. In the case of “9/11,” that tactic proved to be highly successful (Hughes, 2020, p. 72). Sunstein’s involvement in pushing the Nudge Agenda is, therefore, a red flag, as his role has evidently been to find ways of manipulating public opinion into aligning with state power.

The UK Government’s Use of Applied Behavioural Psychology

Although the key theoretical foundations of applied behavioural psychology were laid down by two US authors (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008), as a political project it was pioneered in the UK. According to the UK Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team (2010, p. 4), applied behavioural psychology challenges the traditional assumption that “government can only change people’s behaviour through rules and regulations”; psychological techniques can be used as well. The early impact of applied behavioural psychology on UK public policy is well documented (Jones et al., 2013).

In 2010, a seminal document, titled MINDSPACE, was published jointly by the UK Cabinet Office and the Institute for Government think tank (Dolan et al., 2010). MINDSPACE is a mnemonic for nine psychological techniques for changing public behaviour, namely: Messenger, Incentives, Norms, Defaults, Salience, Priming, Affect, Commitments, and Ego. Each of these will be discussed over the course of this chapter.

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) was tasked with using behaviour modification techniques on the public in order to achieve compliance with policy. BIT became a limited company in 2014, when a shorter mnemonic was proposed: EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely) (BIT, 2024). BIT is owned by the British charity Nesta. Though headquartered in London, it is a transnational operation with offices in the US, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Canada. According to its Update Report 2013-2015, “behavioural insight approaches are spreading around the world – often looking to the UK for inspiration”: Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland are also cited, as are international organisations such as the European Commission, the OECD, and the UNDP (BIT, 2015, p. 6).

In the “Covid-19” context, three members of BIT (David Halpern, Hugo Harper, and Mark Egan) sat alongside Government representatives and four unnamed persons on SPI-B, a body comprised mostly of academics, mandated with “helping people adhere to interventions that are recommended by medical or epidemiological experts” (SPI-B, 2020b, p. 1).

As astute observers noted at the time (Hart, 2020), and as I discussed in Volume 1 (Hughes, 2024a, p. 123), the lack of transparency concerning who sat on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and SPI-B was deeply problematic, given that those unelected committees were making decisions that impacted everyone’s lives. Names of committee members, their declared interests, policy papers, etc. were only released in December 2020, following months of criticism regarding the secrecy surrounding those bodies (Coombes, 2020; SAGE, 2022). Even then, certain names on the minutes were redacted and six members chose not to declare their interests. There is good reason to suspect the involvement of British intelligence.

According to SPI-B’s Susan Michie, “There is evidence that greatest behaviour change impact is achieved by interventions that operate at many levels simultaneously and consistently” (SPI-B, 2020a, p. 1). Just like with the shock doctrine strategy of “everything all at once” (Hughes, 2024a, p. 49), applied behavioural psychology apparently works best when all its techniques are implemented together. As we will see, this is precisely what happened.

On July 30,2020, the WHO announced its new Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health (TAG), chaired by none other than Cass Sunstein. Sunstein claimed that TAG’s purpose was to leverage behavioural science to improve health outcomes (Milano, 2020). In July 2022, Michie took over in the role.

To give one simple example of how applied behavioural psychology was deployed during the “Covid-19” operation, consider the following NHS text message: “You have reached the top of the queue and are a priority for getting a free NHS COVID-19 vaccine. Please book yours now at [url] or by calling 119.” Fagan (2022, 33:00) breaks down the constituent parts of this short message. “You have reached” is about Commitment – making people feel invested in “vaccination.” “Top of the queue” appeals to Ego and the need for social status, as well as to Norms, i.e. making the behaviour seem popular so that people assume it is desirable. “Priority” conjures a sense of scarcity, instilling a sense of urgency to act. The “free” injection is about reciprocity – making people feel obligated to perform the desired action. The NHS is invoked as the trusted Messenger that makes people more likely to accept the message.

The Dubious Ethics of Applied Behavioural Psychology

One of the most disturbing features of MINDSPACE is its discussion of the “‘automatic’ brain system: uncontrolled, effortless, emotional, fast, unconscious” (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 14). That system bypasses conscious thought processes, which, therefore, “may not provide an effective means for addressing automatic behaviour – not least because people often shape their views around their behaviour” (2010, p. 77). So, given that “citizens may not fully realise that their behaviour is being changed,” and with it their opinions, the government becomes open to charges of manipulation (2010, p. 66).

The ethical implications of this are extremely problematic, because “effects can be produced that are both unconscious and in opposition to conscious will” (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 72, my emphasis). Let us not forget that a primary objective of the CIA’s 1952 ARTICHOKE project (which bled into MKULTRA the following year) was to “get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation” (cited in McCoy, 2012, p. 64). Here is further evidence that experiments conducted on individuals in the mid 20th century have since morphed into techniques used on entire societies (cf. Hughes, 2024a, Chap 2).

“Can people resist things if they are not aware of them?,” MINDSPACE asks (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 72). If not, then manipulating the unconscious mind can be used to undermine public resistance to government agendas. The unspoken assumption in MINDSPACE is that democratic governments serve the people and would never fundamentally abuse the potential for control afforded by applied behavioural psychology. For example, according to MINDSPACE, “Policymakers wishing to use these tools [...] need the approval of the public to do so” (2010, p. 74).

During “Covid,” however, the opposite was true. No attempt was made to obtain the informed consent of the British public. Ethicists were not consulted before applied behavioural psychology was deployed (in the military sense) against the public. Rather, applied behavioural psychology formed part of the psychological warfare waged against the public, and was legitimised through the false pretext that the techniques used were necessary in the interests of public health.

In what follows, the nine MINDSPACE principles are applied to the psychological (warfare) techniques deployed by the Behavioural Insights Team, SPI-B, and UK Government communications strategists in 2020/21. The fact that all nine were clearly in evidence makes it undeniable that applied behavioural psychology was an essential part of the psychological assault on the population.

Messenger

“Trust the Experts!”

According to MINDSPACE, the importance we attach to information depends to a large extent on who communicates that information. In particular, “We are affected by the perceived authority of the messenger (whether formal or informal). For example, there is evidence that people are more likely to act on information if experts deliver it” (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 19).

The clarion call of the “Covid-19” operation was “Trust the Experts!” In fact, propagandists were on hand from the very beginning to promote this idea, viz. Neil DeGrasse Tyson telling the Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2020), which went out as early as March 7, 2020:

The experiment is: will people listen to scientists? In this case, referring to medical professionals, say Anthony Fauci, for example [...] It seems to me, if we all listened and all paid attention to what scientists say, maybe the coronavirus will just blow on by [...].”

This primed the public to trust The Science™ and so-called “experts” when the “pandemic” was declared four days later.

The charade continued with state and corporate media routinely using phrases such as “scientists say,” “according to experts,” etc. But, as Gosselin (2022) recognizes, “despite wearing a scientific veil these are not scientific statements, they are appeals to group think; the statements are designed to leverage our perception of authority and cause our mind to take a mental ‘shortcut.’” “The Science”™ is in fact anti-science masquerading as science for propaganda purposes.

“Experts” may indeed be more likely to succeed in their messaging than the government, given that some members of the public instinctively distrust government interventions; here, “the most effective strategy for changing behaviour may be to use third parties or downplay government involvement in a campaign or intervention” (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 19).

In the “Covid-19” context, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, “scientists and MDs are the most trusted [spokespeople], along with WHO and CDC officials”; no less than 85% of people “want to hear more from scientists and less from politicians” (Edelman, 2020). This claim was again designed to encourage public compliance with The Science™, in particular the instructions of public health officials.

Not only are people more likely to act on information if experts deliver it, but this is particularly true in the context of health interventions (Dolan et al., 2010, pp. 19, 66). Health is an issue of primary importance to people, yet few people possess medical expertise in specific areas affecting their health, which is why they turn to “trusted experts” such as GPs. “Health educators” are more effective than trained facilitators, teachers, and research assistants when it comes to changing people’s behaviour.

So, when SAGE scientists (the acronym conveying wisdom and hence trustworthiness) prefaced government announcements with their slide shows at Downing Street press conferences, authoritatively calling for the “next slide please,” even though it would have been simpler to click through their own slides, the entire performance was designed to create an aura of epistemic authority in order to win public trust and compliance with government measures.

Tailoring the Message

MINDSPACE points to the importance of using “messengers from diverse demographic and behavioural backgrounds,” since demographic and behavioural similarities between the messenger and the recipient can make the intervention more effective (Dolan et al., 2010, p. 19).

This is exactly what we saw in “Covid-19” strategic communications. For example, a UK Government/NHS advertisement from September 2020 featured a diverse range of people, speaking in a range of local accents, all reciting the mantra of protecting others (James, 2021). On November 3, 2020, the CDC (2020) released a video titled, “I wear a mask because.” In it, a range of characters meeting the necessary diversity requirements each delivers a line beginning with “I wear a mask because […].”

SPI-B recommended that government messages be “communicated through channels that provide personalised advice and account for individual circumstances including SMS messaging and an interactive website” (SPI-B, 2020a, p. 1).

Accordingly, letters and text messages were sent out to the entire UK population by the government in March 2020; and in April 2020 letters were sent to selected households inviting them to participate in a trial testing (surveillance) programme. Government press conferences soon came to involve pre-recorded questions from members of the public so as to create the illusion of meaningful consultation. Government/NHS advertisements were demographically targeted at different groups, e.g. elderly people at the start of the “vaccine” rollout, the BAME community when there was low take-up from that group, and young people when the rollout, for no good reason, reached them (Hughes, 2022).

Don’t Trust the “Experts”

Particularly in light of the Milgram experiments, it is disappointing that the Psychology profession had virtually nothing to say about supposed authority figures, some of them literally wearing white coats, being used to tell the public what to do. In fact, the British Psychological Society refused to recognise anything problematic about the Government’s use of Nudge to manipulate the public (often at the unconscious level) into changing its behaviour without informed consent (Sidley, 2022).

The terms “expert” and “independent expert” are deeply misleading. For as Guy Debord recognized long ago,

All experts serve the state and the media and only in that way do they achieve their status. Every expert follows his master [...] The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie. With their different motives, those who need experts are falsifiers and fools. Whenever individuals lose the capacity to see things for themselves, the expert is there to offer an absolute reassurance. (Debord. 1998, p. 16)

As the “Covid-19” debacle made clear, anyone who is presented to the public on a mainstream platform as an “expert” is not to be trusted, at least not without conducting background checks into funding, political allegiances, networks, etc. The lesson is that the public needs to get much better at thinking for itself.

In Part 2, the next two elements of MINDSPACE will be explored vis-à-vis “Covid-19,” namely, Incentives and Norms.

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Image Credit: Dolan et al. (2010)