Click on the image, or the link below, for the excellent informative interview with Laura Dodsworth!
“Most of the public do not understand the behavioral psychology techniques that are used on them. … We certainly haven’t signed consent forms.” Laura Dodsworth
From the Daily Expose – ‘Here Are Some Names and Faces of The UK’s Nudge Unit’ :
(for the full article, go to: https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/03/21/some-names-and-faces-of-the-uks-nudge-unit/)
The Nudge Unit, officially called the Behavioural Insights Team (“BIT”), was established in the Cabinet Office in 2010 by David Cameron’s government to apply behavioural science to public policy. Now owned partly by the Cabinet Office, by Nesta and by employees, it has operations across the world.
During her interview Dodsworth explained that in May 2020 minutes of a SPI-B meeting were published which were truly an extraordinary insight into the decision making of the government. SPI-B is the Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours which provides psychological and behavioural science advice.
“In this document it said: people might not adhere to the lockdown rules because they understood the risk for their demographic and the sense of perceived threat needed to be raised. Essentially these psychologists and behavioural scientists suggested that people would need to be frightened to follow the lockdown rules. And that, really, sent me off on a journey to understand how fear was weaponised.”
“Nudge” is used as an umbrella term for all types of behavioural psychology from subtle cues to egregious forms such as: fear; shaming; and, encouraging people into collective behaviour, group think and behaving like “the herd,” Dodsworth explained.
“We’ve deviated from acceptable psychological best practice. There are psychologists who wrote to the British Psychologists Society, here in the UK, which very much brushed them off. And they’ve also written to parliament to ask for an enquiry into these behavioural scientists, I’ve done the same thing. Again, brushed off. But I do think ethical codes have been breached,” she said.