Lessons in Sustainability: Language and Dan Ariley’s Experiments
How does the language we speak and engage in, affect how we feel about things and the ecosystem around us?
When liberalization took roots in India around the 90s, the narrative changed: from collective, community first decision making to making consumer the king; the center became the individual.
“This is my duty" to “this is my right.”
What do we call the nature around us? Natural resources. Resource as in संसाधन. Something that is to be consumed, used. And what are these naturally occuring things or nature called in Hindi? प्राकृतिक संपदा which means natural wealth and wealth is supposed to be nourished and nurtured. There’s a difference between thinking of nature as resources vis a vis as wealth.
The same goes for thinking of humans as resources. In 2004, Walmart was sued for its practice to make itself the beneficiary of the insurance policy taken on behalf of its employees. So, when the employees died, it was Walmart who was compensated. Walmart defended the case stating that since it invested in training the employees and a sudden 'loss' of any of them would mean loss of manpower, the policy would help insure its training efforts. Employees were treated as resources, to be used, not for the sake for giving them livelihood and improve their quality of life, but for extracting maximum potential out of them.
Businesses are supposed to be amoral, अभय meaning 'no sense of morality’. This is different from immoral, अनैतिक, which means knowing the difference between good and bad and yet doing wrong.
The consequences of that thinking has been detailed in the blog: Business of Business is Business.
Dan Ariley Experiments and improving the averages
Experiment 1: A test is administered to a group and the average score out of 10 is 5.5
Experiment 2: This time, an answer key is attached with instructions to not look at it while attempting. Average increases to 6.9. Ofcourse some people cheated. Not all though.
Experiment 3: This time, before giving out the test alongwith the answer key, 10 commandments are read out with the same instructions to not cheat. The average reduces to 6.1, closer to the fair value of 5.5.
And that’s nudge!
Focus on improving the averages, one day at a time. As humans, we have to be sensitised all the time. Maybe that’s why we have places of worship, as a reminder or nudge, to be good.
The blog is the part of series ‘Lessons in Sustainability’ and comprises of class discussions and key insights from readings, at IIML. The next blog in this series is going to be about accessibility to resources and socially constructed realities.
Sources and Credits:
- BSEM Elective class discussions led by Prof Sushil
- Google Translate :)
