Unit 6: Implementing SIDE

Science is agnostic; it can be used for good or ill.  You can make it less likely that people smoke or more likely.

Use it for good…or else.  Remember, I’m pretty good at this and I will come for you.

Science in itself is a debiasing process. By using the SIDE™ process, you make it less likely that you fall in love with your ideas and instead stay focused on your outcomes.

The best way to do behavioral science ethically is to do it visibly, with checks from a diverse set of stakeholders.

3 gates to check your ethics:

1. Your outcome behavior should be a direct (not indirect) result of the target audience’s stated motivation. If you prompt people with either of these, it should return the other and if it doesn’t, you need to stop and clarify.
2. The benefit of the outcome and the intervention cannot not be outweighed by the cost to an alternative motivation.  So if you get people to workout more but to do it, they quit their jobs – that’s a problem.
3. You have to be willing to publicly describe and take responsibility for the outcome and the intervention.  The key part here is the intervention: it is not acceptable to shout “I got people to workout more!” and then mumble “By chaining them to a treadmill.”

Most unethical work is done behind closed doors because the right people are not in the room.