Is Nudging becoming unreliable?
That reality, as the authors of the paper, have highlighted is that "Although a given choice architecture intervention (a ‘nudge’) can be highly effective in some conditions, it can be ineffective or counterproductive in others. Critically, researchers and practitioners cannot reliably predict which of these outcomes will happen on the basis of current knowledge. (Soloman, Michie and colleagues)
I have said it to the stakeholders I work with, and written it here, that when you work on behavior change, you cannot only rely on one set of tactics or Nudges as 100% accurate or as "laws" of behavior.
Sure they sound great to sell to a company, but our goal is to help drive change, not to pretend we can do magic with a one trick pony.
From my own experience in consulting projects at my agency, and from working with other practitioners, and stakeholders - doing work on change requires:
-Removing the focus on only the individual -A look at the system -An understanding of the models, theories and frameworks that can be helpful for your project -Enhancing the challenge or opportunity to include a behavioral focus -Understanding that context and culture are important factors to not ignore -Understanding the needs.... and behaviors -A diagnosis that get to the nuances, which are easily missed -Contextualizing techniques and strategies backed by evidence - but only useful if tested and validated -Knowing what you can and can't target for change -Mixing methods and borrowing from other disciplines to execute.... no amount of great insights will be useful if you can translate them into something actionable -Evaluation and planning for unintended consequences (where possible)
At the end, the thread that brings it all together is having a deep understanding of behavior, being open to experimentation and having an actionable focus to put things into practice.