In early July the passage of the Human Transplantation (Wales) Bill through the National Assembly made Wales the first nation in the UK to adopt a presumed (or deemed) consent system for organ donation. On September 1 First Minister Carwyn Jones performed the official sealing of the Bill, which will now come into effect on […]
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Introducing the Psychological State
Mark Whitehead, Rhys Jones and Jessica Pykett. In this post we introduce the idea of the Psychological State and explore some of the implications of modern governments’ engagements with the insights of behavioural economics and psychology. This post provides some political, philosophical and historical context for our forthcoming posts on contemporary manifestations of the Psychological […]
The Psychospatial at the Royal Geographical Society
Jessica Pykett and Mark Whitehead recently presented at a special panel that was convened at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Success – New ESRC Seminar Series on behaviour Change and Psychological Government
We have received an award from the ESRC’s Seminar Series fund to support a six part seminar series entitled ‘Behaviour Change and Psychological Governance.’ This seminar series is being organised in collaboration between Aberystwyth, Durham, Birmingham and Bristol universities. It will bring together scholars from around the world to explore themes relating to behaviour change, […]
Load Profiles
Recently I attended a fascinating workshop on household energy practises at Durham University (hosted and organised by Harriet Bulkeley and her research team). The workshop was for an Social Science Advisory Group, which has been established to advise on Northern Powergrid and British Gas’s Customer Led Network Revolution. This scheme centres around the largest smart-grid project in […]
The making of nudge theory
How did the word ‘nudge’ get to be its own theory? Is it not simply a suggestion, a physical gesture, something which comes before a wink? Of course these questions have been posed by numerous commentators since the publication of Nudge in 2008, and all the jokes have been made. But the important question remains: would […]
New Book on Neuroliberalism
Changing Behaviours On the Rise of the Psychological State Rhys Jones, Jessica Pykett and Mark Whitehead (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham) Copies available here. Description ‘This groundbreaking book provides a meticulously-researched history of the rise of a new state that aims to govern people by changing their behaviour through influencing (or at least claiming to influence) their […]
Changing Behaviours - An ESRC Project 