Sacred Nudging: Behavioural and Social Change Through Moral Priming

Public health in India has long been plagued by the problem of open defecation and public urination, consequently creating barriers to maintain sanitation and hygiene in rapidly urbanizing environments (UNICEF, 2015). While open defecation remains a predominantly rural problem (only 12% of urban India faces this problem), public urination continues to harm the fabric of urban growth in India. In the context of the recently launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign), the need to remedy public urination in India's cities has re-emerged as a key challenge to achieving cleaner cities, and instilling a greater sense of civic duty in residents.

A number of studies in India (and abroad) have shown that open defecation can have deleterious effects on nutrition (Spears, Ghosh, & Cumming, 2013), cognitive development , and overall economic productivity (Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, 2015). Accordingly, government policies have adopted a mix of tools to address this problem: everything from cash incentives to constructing toilets (Kaiser, 2015), to celebrity social messages, to constructing the toilets themselves. While it may be too early to evaluate the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan for impacts, it is clear that open defecation presents a unique and persistent public health challenge for rural India.

Given that building toilets and granting access is not the core problem, academic studies (and eventually policy) turned their attention to social and behavioural norms that may be underlying open defecation. Gertler, Shah, Alzua, and Cameron (2015) studied the impact of community-led sanitation interventions in villages from two districts in rural Madhya Pradesh. They found a 10% reduction in open defecation rates as a result of the intervention, pointing towards the idea that ‘shaming’ (and thus social norms) significantly deter individual decisions to defecate in the open (Pattanayak et al., 2009). These effects are somewhat amplified when community leaders take efforts to curb unsanitary practices in the village (Lamba & Spears, 2013; Rommel & Janssen, 2015), suggesting that influential persons may be key complementarities to effective public policy (Banerjee, Chandrasekhar, Duflo, & Jackson, 2014). Indeed, among the more interesting findings related to open defecation alludes to traditional Hindu norms of ‘untouchability’ and ‘purity’, which deters them from using toilets even if good quality facilities are available in their homes (Coffey, Gupta, & Hathi, 2014). This qualitative study found that caste-based social rules influence decisions of use of pit-based latrines built in their homes.

If using a toilet at home violates norms of sacredness, then perhaps public urination is not a completely inexplicable act of public nuisance. Ironically, religious imagery is commonplace when it comes to preventing vandalism and public nuisance in India, but the effects of using such imagery are yet to be rigorously or empirically assessed. Given that ideas of the ‘sacred’ play an important role in sanitation decisions, it is worth exploring how they can be harnessed to address problems of public urination. Solutions to the problem of public urination and defacement include (but are not restricted to) painting of street art reflecting historical and cultural motifs; public shaming; use of water cannons to hose down offenders; and cash incentives to use public toilets. Each have experienced varied levels of success in their respective cities, but so far no one-size-fits-all approach has been used across cities and states. The use of imagery or text that is perceived to be sacred (in the religious context) fits broadly into the framework of choice architecture and nudging (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008), as a method to alter malpractices such as public urination without explicitly forbidding the practice itself.

While some of these nudges have come at an institutional level, others have operated at a smaller scale, usually for a particular building or community. This offers scope for scaling up the intervention using a combination of sacred imagery, social shaming by religious and cultural (sacred) institutions, and/or cash benefits. Ultimately, any case for social and behavioural change will have to be made in the context of the costs of status-quo for public health in India's cities, where improving sanitation is a key challenge. In invoking the sacred and priming citizens with morality, perhaps the threat posed by public urination can be communicated subtly, thereby aiding the improvement of public health and sanitation in cities. Being a deeply religious nation, religious imagery is an apt starting point to induce behaviour change, especially in the public realm. Using the sacred to instil a sense of civic duty may seem underhanded, but is nevertheless ingenious in this context.

Anirudh Tagat

Sexist Pockets

On a recent trip where I was travelling by myself, I had to be doubly careful about my connectivity (two phones) and my money. I wore my jeans to the airport and realized I needed to have some spare money on my person just in case. And then came the disturbing bit. My phones occupied the two tiny pockets, and I would surely misplace the notes in the rush to pick up and answer calls. And at 4.30 am standing in immigration I realized—my jeans had sexist pockets.

            Although not as dramatic as I’m making it out to be, the experience brought to mind the varying proportions of form and function across women and men’s apparel. Scant pockets (or even a lack thereof) are a gross disutility today. Women either buy apparel with “fake pockets” or incredibly small pockets, leaving nowhere to keep money or property on their person (see also Myers, 2014). Pockets featured in menswear long before, more diversely, and largely (in size) than in women’s attire. Pockets imply agency and autonomy; they denote dedicated sections in apparel that are meant to store personal belongings, money, keys, phones, cards, and whatnot. The absence or presence of pockets and their size have associations beyond design and convenience.

            Researchers in dress and gender studies have examined the history of pockets, and their socio-cultural and economic implications. For instance, Hannah Carlson’s PhD dissertation (2009) was about the cultural history of pockets and pocketed possessions, making references to the spatial distribution of pockets on male and female apparel, and pocket-specific gestures, among others. For instance, putting one’s hands in one’s pockets is a more male gesture, than female, deemed a sign of dominance and relaxation. Similarly, pockets may represent gender-specific behaviours and utilities much more than we notice on a daily basis. The form and aesthetic of women’s apparel continues to supersede basic functionalities, like pockets, restricting hands-free mobility.

            This may seem like a feminist rant on inequalities appearing in the strangest of places (like in your pockets). However, this derives from a need for women’s apparel to become more utilitarian, without losing its femininity; presumably the latter is guarded more closely by the fashion industry, paying little attention to the former, leading to discontent among women. For instance, this article states that women should not buy the iPhone 6 Plus because it will not fit into their pockets! To reiterate, pockets enable the carrying of property, which women now have; ergo, pockets have become a common feature in their apparel. Yet, women’s attire does not have “big enough” pockets to carry larger property. Thus, limitations inherent in women’s jeans, skirts, and so on may directly affect purchase decisions; the opposite may also happen, however it may be less likely that the iPhone is re-designed to accommodate it into women’s pockets.

            Minimal functional designs for women’s attire have several consequences. In the absence of pockets, women may choose to carry handbags and purses—another booming market in fashion. Women may often not have their belongings on their person with immediate access, inconveniencing them, not to mention making it unsafe in the case of theft. A lack of adapted designs for daily use is disadvantageous for both genders, because an overemphasis on form in everyday apparel is likely to be met with disdain, sooner than later.

            Fashion serves the dual purposes of aesthetic appeal and utility. While men’s apparel has seemed to find a good balance between the two, women’s apparel is grossly lopsided on the appearance-and-fit end. Baggy, large, and several pockets may not be the immediate solution; however, sensitizing designers to the current requirements of women may be a good place to start. In India, this may be even more difficult, given that the saree is less amenable to being fitted with pockets. Yet, creative designers have found a way to make this traditional attire more utilitarian, without being less fashionable.

            Most kurtas and kameezes have stitched-in pockets, possibly recognizing their importance for men and women alike. Skirts, too, come with pockets now. However, these are the exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself. It may take a while for practical and functional attire to become the norm for women, but until then I’d suggest doing what my mother did 25 years ago: go to a tailor and get them stitched on.

Hansika Kapoor

Everybody’s got a dark side

There has been a lot of research on dark personality traits over almost a decade and many of these studies have focused on how they affect the workplace. The dark personality is the median between normal and clinical personalities allowing individuals to function without interference in their daily lives. Research in organizations by Jonason (2011) and others about the dark personality has focussed predominantly on three traits, i.e. Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy collectively known as the Dark Triad (DT) as seen in Paulus and Williams (2002).

In organizations, these subclinical traits are often measured with the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) which assesses 11 of these traits. When high, these subclinical traits might adversely affect an individual’s personal or work lives when they are stressed. Machiavellianism seems to align with Skeptical which is characterised by cynicism and distrust, narcissism with Bold which corresponds to excessive self-confidence and psychopathy with Mischievous on the HDS because they take risks and seek excitement (Spain, Harms, & Lebreton, 2013).

Leadership development and performance have been found to be related to the dark personality traits. Harms, Spain, and Hannah (2011) explored this, and found a negative relationship between DT and the development of leaders over extended periods of time. It highlights the link between personality and the growth of leaders, and the circumstances in which both positive and negative personality traits affect leadership development. Measurement of leadership effectiveness is usually done through bright personality traits like confidence, initiative, responsibility, curiosity, and achievement orientation. By understanding a leader’s dark personality traits, we may pre-empt what could derail employees and affect leadership and performance.

Douglas, Bore, and Manroe (2012) found that individuals who scored higher on the Dark Triad, scored lower on empathy, which is needed in managerial roles in the workplace. The same individuals scored higher on aggression, a trait which might help leaders to rise but could also be the cause of their downfall. Individuals high on the Dark Triad are also impulsive and antagonistic, which can be detrimental to the success of teams or the organization.

Research by O'Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, and McDaniel (2012) concluded that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were related to lower job performance while all three traits were associated with counterproductive work behaviour. In another study, Mathieu, Neumann, Hare, and Babiak (2014) found a relationship between corporate psychopathy and psychological distress at the workplace. Managers high on psychopathy also had subordinates who were more dissatisfied with their work.

If these dark personality traits have such disastrous consequences, then why do such individuals get hired into leadership roles in organizations at influential positions? One reason could be due to their confidence, charisma, and breadth of influence. Jonason, Slomski, and Partyka, (2012) studied influencing tactics and found that individuals high on psychopathy used hard tactics in negotiations like assertiveness, manipulation, or threats. On the other hand, individuals high on narcissism preferred to use soft tactics like compromise, favour, and ingratiation while negotiating.  Interestingly, individuals high on Machiavellianism tended to be more flexible using both hard and soft tactics to influence people, but seemed most inclined to use manipulation.

These toxic employees might pose problems for any organization, managers or peers but they get the job done. When dark personality traits exist in leaders, they seem to bring about some bright aspects of the traits like assertiveness, creativity, making a good first impression and testing the limits which in moderation are associated with business success and can help people rise in the ranks. According to Hogan & Hogan (1997), it is only when present in excess that these subclinical traits could be potential causes for leadership derailment.

While research on the dark personality has been limited to few areas within the organization, it seems to be helpful in explaining an array of behaviours at the workplace. Future research on understanding the Dark Triad in team dynamics might shed light on how successful leaders play a role in the effectiveness of team, departments and in effect organizations. The study of dark in addition to the bright personality traits gives a more rounded picture of how employees function within organizations which adds value to a holistic assessment during selection, development, and promotions into leadership roles. 

Nikita D'souza