It's On You

Two prominent academics explain why they have changed their mind about how we solve society's problems - and why telling individual people that these problems are their fault gets big corporations and governments off the hook in solving them. Nick Chater and George Loewenstein first met when they were invited to join David Cameron's 'Nudge' advisory board back in 2013. Even then, they shared misgivings about the premise behind that unit - that persuading individuals to take responsibility for change was the answer to systemic problems. Since then, their research has led to the opposite conclusion- that the status-quo interests of corporate and government bodies and sectors are not only well served by this strategy, but that they actively promote and manipulate it. Rigged reveals just how ubiquitous this policy is. High-profile but insidious campaigns and lobbying set out to blame obesity not on the glut of ultra-processed and fast food, but on the failure of individuals to diet and exercise. Road deaths are not caused by badly designed roads and huge cars, or weak law enforcement, but by reckless drivers and wayward pedestrians. Plastic waste is caused not by ever-expanding plastic production, but by litterbugs (and never mind the false promise of plastic recycling). Drawing on their own huge expertise in behavioural psychology, the authors expose a wide range of eye-opening examples of manipulation - and why it works - and give us a clear understanding of where responsibility for necessary change really lies.