Behaviour Change and Psychological Governance

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'Behaviour Change' has become a priority for policy makers, researchers and practitioners in the UK and elsewhere since at least 2004. Behaviour Change initiatives use subtle psychological, spatial or administrative prompts to encourage people to make better decisions concerning their health, happiness, wealth and the environment. Examples include default opt-in to pensions, proposals for presumed consent for organ donation, the use of smart energy meters in people's homes, and the arrangement of carefully designed spaces to facilitate sustainable travel. Drawing on insights from research disciplines such as behavioural economics, neuroscience and psychology, these policies have been subject to recent democratic scrutiny by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, as well as being the topic of much media commentary, exploring charges of the 'nanny state' and psychological manipulation.This seminar series aims to investigate as yet unanswered aspects of the debate over Behaviour Change and the use of psychology in techniques of governing. Specifically, we do not know enough about the effects of psychological forms of governance on national populations and specific social groups. Nor do we know what alternatives to Behaviour Change might look like if they were informed by participatory, observational or interpretive social science methods rather than economistic or behavioural science approaches. The seminars will develop a new approach for evaluating the Behaviour Change agenda in its wider context - in relation to how our cultural ideas about the brain, mind, behaviour and self are changing. International and UK based academic participants at a range of career stages from political science, social policy, critical psychology, critical neuroscience, philosophy and human geography will engage with non-academic policy makers and practitioners working on various Behaviour Change initiatives.They will identify the practical, political and research challenges posed by the current policy enthusiasm for particular branches of positive psychology, wellbeing, happiness, flourishing and 'mindfulness'. They will examine two original aspects: (a) the cumulative effect, or unintended consequences of the use of psychology in public policy, and (b) the underlying assumptions and principles on which they are based.7 seminars will be held over two years at Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Bristol, and Durham, and 1 will be hosted by Collaborative Change social enterprise, Lancashire. The seminars will explore:- how behavioural science and psychology have changed our ideas about the tools and techniques which are available to policy makers;- how the public and private spaces we design are influenced by neuroscientific knowledge;- how psychological approaches have urged us to rethink our conceptions of personhood and culture;- how such perspectives can be applied in the fields of public health and pro-environmental policies. One of the seminars will be a dedicated 'summer school' to allow postgraduate students to engage with the research themes in ways more directly related to their own research projects in a more informal setting, but drawing on the experience of Co-Is in this area. A key objective of the seminar series is to bring theoretical perspectives on the politics and ethics of Behaviour Change together with the more practical demands of actually changing behaviours in order to identify major future challenges facing research on and practice of Behaviour Change. Outputs from the seminars will be published in academic journals, an edited handbook, as policy briefings and in professional publications. Commentary and papers from the series will be made available through a website and thinkpieces will be provided publically on a blog open to comments. The website will also act as a means of maintaining contact between participants in between the seminars and will outlive the funding.