Okay, hands up: whose family doesn’t have rows over loo seats, the state of the jacks and the men and boys in the family not being able to aim properly? Girls, tell me you haven’t been driven demented by your man and his inability to hit the target? And mothers of young sons: don’t tell me the ponds of pee around the base of the loo are not an almost daily chore! We have all been there.
Now can you imagine the hassle of running a gents public loo, let’s say in a football ground, large pub or an airport? With this in mind, one of the most innovative ideas I have ever seen was presented to me in a bar in Belgium many years ago when I was a student there. In the urinals, about halfway up the porcelain was a fly. At first, I thought it was a real fly, but it didn’t move. However, the static fly in the urinal did something weird to my behaviour.
At the sight of the fly in a urinal, something very odd happens in the behaviour of the average man. Instead of unfocused peeing, the static fly brings out the hunter in us.
The act of urinating suddenly becomes a duel, where all our concentration is centred on drenching the fly. For an instant we turn into a sharpshooting Shane Long in front of goal, deadly, precise, calm. One-nil to the boy, curtains for the fly.
Then, with the inner satisfaction of a job well done, we zip up, head out and the loo is infinitely cleaner, the cleaners’ job infinitely less unpleasant and the upkeep of the jacks generally better served. More importantly, the behaviour of men has changed in such as way as to make the man himself the instigator of this cleaner environment.
Years later, I read a fascinating book called ‘Nudge’, which explores the relatively new area of behavioural economics. The fly is cited in the first chapter and apparently it was an innovation first unveiled in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the 1980s. It was such a success in Holland, where cleaning bills fell, that the idea quickly spread to neighbouring Belgium and beyond.
This experiment tells us that we can change people’s behaviour for the greater good, even when that behaviour seems ingrained. This is hugely significant because if people’s behaviour can be changed, if we can be ‘nudged’ in certain directions by incentives, consider how many positive ramifications of changing our behaviour today might yield?
Sometimes it is easy to think of economics as being only about banks, interest rates and defaults, but economics can also be deployed in a variety of ways that may help us all by helping us help ourselves.
In the case of the fly in the urinal, the ultimate saving was in the cleaning bill and general state of public loos, but now consider the case of public health. Imagine the huge savings in the future if we changed people’s behaviour now, which could reduce dramatically the incidences of behaviour-related disease?
Let’s consider prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer rates in Ireland are the highest in Europe and amongst the highest in the world. One in eight men in Ireland will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime; this is comparable to a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, which is 1 in 9. In sorry contrast to breast cancer, where awareness has been heightened by brilliantly successful campaigns over recent years, prostate cancer is still rarely discussed in public.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that prostate cancer is over 90% curable – if detected and treated in its earliest stages.
Latest figures show that in 2010, 3,125 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in Ireland, a small increase on 3,079 in 2009. Tragically, over 500 men die of prostate cancer in Ireland every year.
We know that men living in Western countries are more likely to get prostate cancer than men in south and east Asian countries. This may be because of our Western diet, which contains less fruit and vegetables than in other parts of the world and much more dairy, red meat, sugar and processed foods.
Doctors agree that eating a healthy, balanced diet with a wide variety of foods, including plenty of fruit and vegetables, may help to prevent prostate cancer. Like many cancers, those in the highest-risk categories are men whose fathers, brothers or uncles got prostate cancer. However, if weight, diet or booze increase the risk of getting prostate cancer, imagine if we could change behaviour today, to prevent diseases tomorrow? But we know from a variety of areas such as smoking or saving for a retirement decades ahead that we humans don’t care too much about the future because today it seems so far away. So we take risks.
If someone says to you, eat more fruit and veg, drink fewer pints and go for a decent walk everyday and you could reduce your risk of prostate cancer in the future, how many of us men would change our behaviour tomorrow?
But now imagine that we were incentivised to change our behaviour by something like a tax break for being healthy at 40, 50 and 60? This might sound radical but it’s no more radical than a tax increase at a certain random income figure so that earning a euro less than that figure saves you from the tax and earning a euro over that figure penalises you with the tax.
It is important to allow people to change their own behaviour, so you give people plenty of choice.
Indeed, there could be various gradients of incentives, allowing you to change behaviour gradually or rapidly or not at all.
In the years ahead, access to data and computer power to process this data will allow the Government to play with ideas like this, which could measure changed behaviour but would allow people to choose themselves if they want to avail of the incentives or not, without prejudice.
The emergence of behavioural economics will make all these ideas more and more normal in the years ahead and the emergence of big data will make these things more and more possible. Equally, the fly in the urinal shows that people can be ‘nudged’ to do the right thing for the benefit of themselves and others.
Behaviour can change and some changes could dramatically affect our health and the health budget. It may sound fantastical now, but it’s all out there. Welcome to a brave new world.
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Did the fly have a name ?
Austerity works for health. People who lived through the great depression, food rationing during and after the world wars all showed demographics of improved longevity and better health. Oddly enough, the quality of the food was not the issue as as long as you had sufficient basics.
So solution is very simple. Ration food and make people healthy. Tax the living daylights out of sugar booze and pretty well everything :)
Ah, but doesn’t behavioural science also say that incentives have to be instant and obviously linked to the behaviour to work? So rather than a direct tax break, if you got a specific (tax-break-funded) amount of money presented to you by the checkout clerk when you bought a load of fruit and vegetables, *that* would be incentivising. So would stalls with fruit treats beside your seaside walks (which for me end up with an ice cream from Teddy’s in Dun Laoghaire). So would having fruit at the checkouts instead of sweets in the supermarkets, and having the vegetable stalls near… Read more »
It is wishful thinking to propose a tax break that is determined by the choice of lifestyle a taxpayer chooses because it is not practical and Revenue knows this would be abused very easily . I am reminded how the government calculate the number of tourist that arrive into the country by including returning emigrants .Thus in reality The Gathering will certainly corrupt the effectiveness of the true meaning of the purpose of the data .In my mindset this reporting confirms that all emigrants are in reality foreigners with an Irish Passport living outside the country and they cannot wait… Read more »
David,
I think a health incentive in the form of a tax break would be complicated for an idiot Government to implement and also easy for the “average” man to ignore.
The easiest way to deal with this issue is tax on unhealthy foods and drugs, thus making them too expensive for people to over indulge in. e.g. fat tax, sugar tax, tax on cigarettes & alcohol, etc. I always find that the simplest solution is always the one that works.
Slow News Day???
Hi,
The best way to achieve the goal of eating more fruit and veg would be to design an interactive plate with a picture of claudia schifferr in lingerie for men and Bressie in similar for women. The more fruit and veg consumed the more clothes come off pun intended.
Hilarious article.
I missed that one…big data to modify behaviour. Hmmmm… Why are there alarm bells ringing. Who polices the police or monitors the monitors. I suppose it coming like it or not. Actually it is an old idea born from the first time people stated to collect stats to inform to improve. What is so powerful now is the minute level we can instantly cross correlate and profile anyone with very scant initial information. With the state of our democracy today I think we need to tread very carefully. Public awareness of what this stuff can do is abysmally low. Health… Read more »
Cleverclogs nudging around the edges is just that. The danger in introducing more nudges (we have plenty already) is the increase in the ‘sense of entitlement’ mentality factor which is why the country will stay ruined for most of society. I was nudged by the bank to borrow stupidly. I was nudged by my precious medical card not to take on extra work. I was nudged by the sight of Denis O’Brien not to pay any tax. Bless me father for I have been sinned against A blank canvas is needed for this society to form proper ground rules for… Read more »
Well from flies to Peeballs – directly related to the prostate cancer risk : http://www.peeball.com/home/default.asp The idea being if the flow is constricted, there may be a problem. In general men are worse with regards to going to the doctor than women, as you say how can you change that. I wonder what all this debt stress on families is causing in terms of future well being. If the Government really wants to improve the future health of citizens, then some sort of debt relief is necessary. But we’re stuck in a short term (5 year government) policy system. Secondly,… Read more »
Hilarious but interesting. There was a program on BBC1 last highlighting food poverty in Britain and three chefs were given the challenge to produce a healthy meal for £1 per head. They struggled to stay on budget. They did manage to prove that you can eat healthy food on a budget and I have always known that but many people don’t have a clue about basic home economics never mind on how to prepare and cook food In first year at our secondary boys had to take home economics. The cookery classes were interesting but when they made us do… Read more »
David.
Economists should be solving the debt crisis in Europe, not talking about urinating on flies on walls (altho i like your story!).
Please examine the process of by which money creation.
There are millions of people’s health affected by this debt based system (stress, suicide, broken relationships, poverty, hunger, injustice,
David, what do you make of the Gneezy Rustichini Aldo (2000) ‘A fine is a price’ study (referenced in David Orrell Economyths p234). The study looks at moving from social norms, to market norms, then back again. Parents had to pick kids up from Creche. Social Norms dictated that they felt guilty about picking them up late so very few late pickups [most of us with kids have had the phone call :-)] A fine was brought in. Parents felt less guilty and late pickups increased as parents thought ‘well I’m paying for this’. Parents seemed quite happy with Market… Read more »
David, Economists should be solving the debt crisis in Europe, not talking about urinating on flies on walls (although I like your story!). Please examine the process by which commercial bank money is created and destroyed. There are millions of people’s health affected by this debt based system of money creation through stress, suicide, broken relationships, poverty, hunger, forced competition between countries, injustice, inequality, inflated house prices and land monopolies, perpetual growth on a finite planet to remain stable, environmental destruction. http://www.positivemoney.org/ As the Gatekeepers of the design of this economic system, economists are failing to address the real issues… Read more »
Ok,intresting idea.But I dont really fancy living in a 4th Reich/EUSSR strength thru joy society where we are all our every morning at the crack of dawn chucking medicne balls at each other for the benefit of our health and tax breaks.I prefer to kip until 10AM and then work through untill 2 or 3AM in the morning.Thats just the way my body clock and persona is. Anyways,my take on this would be,instead of nannying us to death,how about a !”Take responsibility for your own goddam life choices and not expect the state and society to wipe your mouth nose… Read more »
Seeing the sunburnt obese clutching cans of Coke in the heat is a sight that brings out those sentiments in me also PI.
Rich-poor, Healthy-sick, Intelligent-stupid, Beautiful-ugly, Happy-sad, Interesting – boring, Agreeable -grumpy, Independent – dependent, Famous- unrecognized, etc…enough to make one mentally ill. Where is that Prozac!! Good job we have Fluoride in the water :) There is a huge body of evidence and measurement around adherence to medication, avoiding unhealthy habits. Fact: Addiction is a real problem. Genetic predisposition is a big problem. Add in anxiety (for whatever reason) and a whole host of other pressures. And while we might get people to stop pissing on the floor, and engage in increasingly anally retentive exercises for the more odorless among us… Read more »
Douglas Rushkoff Makes the Digital Economy Work for You
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00212?pg=all
Breaking News: Detroit Files For Federal Bankruptcy
Hi, An interesting observation though I wonder how easily applied in a real life scenario…. especially by the shower of cretins at the tiller at the mo. How about expanding it out to ‘nudge’ the proportion of filthy individuals who aren’t too keen on washing their mitts to do so. People who are a bit laissez faire in this regard, it can reasonably assumed may be a bit lax in other areas of their general health &well being monitoring also, with the associated cost and longjevity implications. Perhaps a scowly image of Mr. Miyagi by the basin or drier. .… Read more »
Walking is great for the head. I was out at 6AM this morning and here is what I saw
http://theramblingwest.blogspot.ie/2013/07/the-golden-hour-on-carrowkeel.html
Well, well, DMcW majored in economics with a minor in scatological studies. Must be that recent visit to London? Or reading too much of the Wall Street Urinal?
Cass Sunstein, author of “Nudge”, is promoted over at
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2013/07/12/behavioural-economics-and-public-policy/
His (Irish?) wife Samanatha Power is trying to “nudge” us all into a war in Syria :
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/profile-samantha-powers-interventionist-policies-face-stiff-test-in-syria-29430421.html
But What Is Their Secret?.
A right behavioral rat’s nest!
The Chinese are not wasting time pissing into the wind.
They accumulate real money at a furious rate.
http://sprottgroup.com/thoughts/articles/the-shanghai-gold-surprise/