Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler, and Cass Sunstein. At the time of publication both Thaler and Sustain were faculty at the University of Chicago. Cass departed for a role in the Obama Administration then began teaching at Harvard. In addition, Richard won the Nobel prize in economics in 2017.
Nudge certainly brings out the small, subtle pushes that our modern-day world makes in swaying one’s opinion or real-world choices.
I was certainly finding myself laughing at passages between Thaler and Sunstein, really enjoying their work very much
Admittedly, stepping back from the often suggested, and overused technology ‘hammer-and-nail’ approach to computer problems, we unquestionably desire to simply change behaviors.
Within Part 1: Humans and Econs / Section 3: Following the Herd Thaler displays how priming may be worth your consideration.
Comparatively, the choices we on a daily basis are proving to be often poor. Nudge certainly helps us identify how we make these choices.
On the other hand, the surprise by Richard and Cass, our choices are really never presented in a neutral way. Nevertheless, this is how we become susceptible to biases, which may lead us to make poor decisions.
Priming
Certainly one of the strongest lessons is around priming and the impact of channel factors:
Thus far we have been focusing on people’s attention to the thoughts and behavior of other people. Closely related work shows the power of “priming.” Priming refers to the somewhat mysterious workings of the Automatic System of the brain. Research shows that subtle influences can increase the ease with which certain information comes to mind. Imagine playing a word-association game with Homer Simpson and you will get the idea. Sometimes the merest hint of an idea or concept will trigger an association that can stimulate action. These “primes” occur in social situations, and their effects can be surprisingly powerful.
The nudge provided by asking people what they intend to do can be accentuated by asking them when and how they plan to do it. This insight falls into the category of what the great psychologist Kurt Lewin called “channel factors,” a term he used for small influences that could either facilitate or inhibit certain behaviors. Think about the “channel” as similar to the path a river takes after the spring snow melt. The path can be determined by seemingly tiny changes in the landscape. For people, Lewin argued that similarly tiny factors can create surprisingly strong inhibitors to behavior that people “want” to take. Often we can do more to facilitate good behavior by removing some small obstacle than by trying to shove people in a certain direction.
Slightly broadening these findings, social scientists have found that they can “prime” people into certain forms of behavior by offering simple and apparently irrelevant cues. It turns out that if certain objects are made visible and salient, people’s behavior can be affected.
pgs. 68-72.
Really amazing insights to cleverly drive awareness. Particularly insightful regardless of what side of the pitch you are standing on.
Choice architecture
Nudge is also helping us understand how people think and that we have a “choice architecture” allowing us to nudge in the direction that is best for ourselves. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.
In addition, my learning of related choice architectures are from: The Elephant in the Brain, The Art of Gathering, Loonshots, and Mindset to name a few. This also includes:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2499658
In conclusion, Nudge is driving awareness of how we can be more aware of choices. Certainly an excellent book and worth your investment in learning.