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One of the criticisms of using insights from behavioural economics to influence behaviour is that it might lead in the long term to an infantilised society. People might get so used to being 'nudged' by the government into behaving in the right way, that they forget to think at all. If true, this would be completely at odds with the RSA's central theme of developing self-reliant "citizens of the future".

One of the criticisms of using insights from behavioural economics to influence behaviour is that it might lead in the long term to an infantilised society. People might get so used to being 'nudged' by the government into behaving in the right way, that they forget to think at all. If true, this would be completely at odds with the RSA's central theme of developing self-reliant "citizens of the future".

The RSA, as the website says, has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking since 1754, and the beginning of Kant's What is Enlightenment essay is appropriate to the question of infantilisation:

"Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another." [link]

The RSA’s design work is centred around the question of how design and designers can make people more resourceful. Instead of design as problem-solving for example, can design show you how the problem is to be solved without doing it for you?

So how can we use design to influence people's behaviour while encouraging resourcefulness at the same time? Does this mean, for example, that we should concentrate more on enabling behaviour rather than motivating or constraining behaviour (to use Dan Lockton's helpful terms)?

What do you think?

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