Can Social Change Theory Create Real Change?

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

- Peter Drucker

A simple experiment to test a social change theory.

Three hundred households in a California town were divided into two groups. Half were sent normal power bills and the other half had a smiley face on their bills if their consumption was below average, and a frowning face if their usage was higher than average.

The results could not have been more conclusive: within the group with faces on their bills, high users reduced their electricity consumption, and low users consumed even less than before.

Simple enough? The difference was a little yellow circle on a piece of paper, but was it a significant impact?

Nudge Theory rose to global prominence in 2008 with the release of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Professor Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein. The volume brought the discourse on Nudge theory to the wider public of government, as well as the private sector involved with public health and related fields.

Professors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein cite the smiley experiment as a simple example of their theory that people can be gently encouraged to behave in…