Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

By Chris Arney. 2015

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Subfields: Cognitive Science & Psychology, Economics & Operations Research

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Citations in the corpus

Guiding the Release of Safer E2E Conversational AI through Value Sensitive Design (2022, background): “Clever defaults and nudges can help resolve this kind of tension, making it easier for people to choose what may ultimately be better for them (Thaler and Sunstein, 2009).”
Social Data: Biases, Methodological Pitfalls, and Ethical Boundaries (2019, background): “Platform aﬀordances and features are sometimes purposefully introduced to “nudge” users toward certain behaviors (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008).”
The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia (2014, background): “We are not trying to use insights about particular cognitive biases to nudge people into specific behaviours (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008).”
‘Nudging’ as an architect of more responsible consumer choice in food service provision: The role of restaurant menu design (2017, background): “Furthermore, menus represent the main medium of customer choice which underlines the critical role they play in the choice architecture (Dayan and BarHillel 2011; Thaler and Sunstein 2008).”
The effect of mandatory CSR disclosure on firm profitability and social externalities: Evidence from China (2017, unknown): “That is, once firms disclose their CSR activities, the government and interest groups may find it easier to “shame” polluting firms into reducing their pollutant emissions ( Thaler and Sunstein, 2008 ).”
Framing behavioural approaches to understanding and governing sustainable tourism consumption: beyond neoliberalism, “nudging” and “green growth”? (2013, background): “It has also become an underlying dimension of the recent interest of behavioural economics in “nudging” (Cialdini, 2007; Amir & Lobel, 2008; Thaler & Sunstein, 2008).”
A better carbon footprint label (2016, methodology): “…improvement of a well known carbon footprint label based on insights from behavioral economics (Ölander and Thøgersen, 2014; Reisch and Sunstein, 2015; Thaler and Sunstein, 2008) and research on heuristics and biases in consumer decisionmaking and on how the human brain functions (Kahneman, 2011).”
Tales from the Dark Side: Privacy Dark Strategies and Privacy Dark Patterns (2016, background): “First, we focus on nudging, a concept for influencing decision making based on positive reinforcement and non-forced compliance [45].”
Nudge Effect of Fact-Check Alerts: Source Influence and Media Skepticism on Sharing of News Misinformation in Social Media (2020, background): “First, based on the assumption that that nudges operate via heuristics (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) and that humans engage in heuristic-based message processing when their personal involvement with the issue is low (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), and data from participants who reported being somewhat…”
Nudges, Social Norms, and Permanence in Agri-environmental Schemes (2015, background): “Of course, this can raise ethical issues, extensively discussed by Thaler and Sunstein (2008), since there is a risk for public authorities to “manipulate” citizens’ choices in a “paternalistic” manner that does not coincide with what their choices under free will would be.”
Unresolved questions in nudging research: Putting the psychology back in nudging (2017, background): “(Thaler & Sunstein, 2008, p. 6).”
Nudge: Concept, Effectiveness, and Ethics (2017, methodology): “One interpretation is that System 1 is invoked automatically and is the sole driver of the error (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002, 2005), which is the favored interpretation of Thaler and Sunstein (2008).”
Using descriptive norm appeals effectively to promote green behavior (2018, background): “A nudge aims to place individuals in a context that encourages them to adopt a specific behavior without coercion (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008).”