Calibrating and nudging citizens

The abuse of behavioural science during covid: Psychologist Dr Gary Sidley interviewed by Richard House

- RICHARD HOUSE

Richard House [RH]: Gary, tell us how you, a professional psychologist, came to initiate a major research project into the state abuse of behavioural science.

Gary Sidley [GS]: At the start of the covid event in early 2020, my attention was drawn to the daily fear-porn – comprising scary images and non-contextualised death counts – on our TV screens. My initial suspicion, that I was witnessing an overreaction to a ‘novel coronavirus’, grew in conviction, so I did my own research. I soon found like-minded people, and joined campaign groups actively challenging the dominant covid narrative, developing a specific interest in the state’s deployment of behavioural-science strategies – or ‘nudges’ – and the ethically dubious way these psychological methods of persuasion were being used to influence people.

Having trained as an NHS clinical psychologist, I’ve long been familiar with the ‘behaviourism’ paradigm and its associated therapies, so I was able to quickly get up-to-speed with the way behavioural science was being infused into public-health messaging, and I didn’t like what I found – namely, a government strategically inflicting fear and shame to lever compliance with contentious, nonevidenced goals. I was keen to dig deeper, and identify the personnel responsible for these harrowing advertisements; when the Panda organisation offered to support me, the research project began.