PDN Pro-Social: Design to Boost, not Nudge
A core concept of design is that it can "nudge" people's behavior and choices. Online platforms (most) often do so toward the goal of profitability. At Prosocial Design Network, we instead promote designs that foster healthy outcomes. But critics would say that "nudging" - regardless of aim - has an inherent problem in that it erodes individual agency.
Join us for a conversation with researchers Philipp Lorenz-Spreen and David Grüning to discuss an alternative to nudging: "boosting" is a design approach that preserves agency by instead building individual competencies, being more transparent in its goals and relying on individual buy-in. We'll talk about how boosting applies to prosocial design and, always important, whether it works.
About Philipp: Philipp is a computational social scientist at the Max Planck Institute's Center for Adaptive Rationality, where he researches self-organized online discourse and its impact on democracies, and also leads a research group at the Center Synergy of Systems at TU Dresden. He is a prolific researcher in the prosocial design space and Prosocial Design Network board member.
About David: David is a researcher at Heidelberg University and lead social scientist at One Sec. His research covers topics of psychology in politicized digital environments. In addition to likewise researching extensively on prosocial design, David is chair of Prosocial Design Network's Science Board.
About Pro-Socials: Pro-Socials are informal meet-ups, where technologists and researchers can learn from - and inspire - each other around understanding and integrating prosocial design. Each Pro-Social includes a motivating question, conversation with experts and break-out convos where you can meet like-minded technologists (designers, product managers, entrepreneurs and trust & safety professionals) and researchers to share insights and begin to co-create new knowledge together.
In partnership with the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion.