Directing choice and managing behaviour

I found an interesting article about how authorities go about changing or managing social behaviour. It identifies two main strategies which I think have resonance for liturgical occasions -which, after all,- are about communities managing their behaviour together in pursuit of God together.  The terms being used are ‘nuduge’ and ‘think’, and there is a third that is introduced to move beyond the dichotomy the binary system produces.

Existing approaches to behaviour change include ‘Nudge’, a form of libertarian paternalism…. paternalistic in that it assumes to know what is good for you (e.g. to save for a pension, or avoid being knocked down) but it is liberal in the sense that it merely nudges you towards these objectives (e.g. by making the pension a default you can opt out of, or by painting ‘look left’ at crossings) while leaving the choice in your hands.

In liturgy terms this would be having a set of instructions in the form of a written liturgy or having sidespeople helping people up to communion in an orderly fashion or even through a set of unwritten expectations which are conveyed through body language and reactions and simple mimesis.

The ‘Think’ approach, … contends that if we deliberate collectively as rational agents responsive to argument, we will find a suitable course of action and collectively follow it through. ‘Think’ therefore seeks to change our behaviour through the conscious, controlled aspects of our nature, and places faith in reason and reflection.

This would be liturgy where people are given choices in, for example, liquid worship or where a community of worshippers are involved in communally deciding on what they will do together -as some ‘alternative worship’ communities do.

It’s worth noting that this dichotomy does not correspond to the ‘liturgical vs free’ usual division that many Christians debate. In this scheme both are ‘nudge’ forms: they just adopt different methods to do it. Of course, we should note that both normally involve a tacit consent on the part of the worshipper to go along with whatever is normally done. The worship leader does need to be aware that transgressing that normal social compact may imperil that good will consent.

There is a third way suggested by this article: ‘steer’.

‘Nudge’ and ‘Think’ rest on an unhelpful dichotomy between controlled and automatic processes, ‘Steer’ tries to align strategies for behaviour change with human nature as it operates holistically across contexts.

In a way this is a powerful idea if we apply it to corporate worship. It means that we should help our worshippers to understand basic things about the way humans are wired in social and neurological terms. In this I would contend that we can help Christians not to be simply carried away by the dynamics of a crowd operating through our mimetic instincts. As leaders we can be aware of crowd dynamics and be responsible in using them. ‘Steer’ implies that we educate our congregations about such things and invite them into making decisions about how we order our time together.

See Changing Behaviour Change at Left Foot Forward.

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