Kingston Leads 'Charm' Offensive

In the UK, Kingston University is leading a £1.1m research project to find out if it is possible to nudge individual behaviour in a 'socially-desirable direction', simply by telling people what others are doing.

Alongside Swansea University and the University of the West of England (UWE), Kingston will be drawing on research in sociology, social psychology and behavioural economics that leverages people's innate desire to conform to what is perceived as 'normal' behaviour.

Known as 'Charm', the three-year project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the results could be used to change habits surrounding issues such as climate change and obesity.

The research will involve 800 people in three case-studies: one relating to electricity consumption, a second to obesity and active lifestyles and the third looking at green activity among online social groups. Each will use technology such as mobile phones and Facebook to collect and feed back information on what most people do, to see whether this changes individual behaviour.

The electricity consumption case study will involve a special sensor gadget attached to participants' electricity supply. As well as telling them about their own usage, the sensors will also tell people how much power their neighbours are using.

For the activity lifestyle case study, a specially-designed application will monitor the daily physical activity of groups of friends, sending feedback to them via their mobile phones.

The final case study will use Facebook to evaluate the effect of feedback on sustainable behaviours among a social network group.

Principal 'Charm Investigator' Dr Ruth Rettie explains that previous projects had shown that telling individuals what neighbours, colleagues, friends - or even people they just perceived as being like them - were doing, affected their own actions.

Web site: www.kingston.ac.uk , www.swan.ac.uk and www.uwe.ac.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.