Nudge theory
[13] It also drew on methodological influences from clinical psychotherapy tracing back to Gregory Bateson, including contributions from Milton Erickson, Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch, and Bill O'Hanlon.
[17][18] Thaler and Sunstein defined their concept as the following:[19]: 6 A nudge, as we will use the term, is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.
Banning junk food does not.In this form, drawing on behavioral economics, the nudge is more generally applied in order to influence behaviour.
One of the most frequently cited examples of a nudge is the etching of the image of a housefly into the men's room urinals at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, which is intended to "improve the aim.
[16] As an example, when hungry, people who diet often underestimate their ability to lose weight, and their intentions to eat healthy can be temporarily weakened until they are satiated.
In fact, Thaler and Sunstein[19] trace maladaptive behaviour to situations in which System 1 processing overrides an individual's explicit values and goals.
In other words, a nudge alters the environment so that when heuristic, or System 1, decision-making is used, the resulting choice will be the most positive or desired outcome.
[27][28] Several different techniques exist for nudging, including defaults, social-proof heuristics, and increasing the salience of the desired option.
[29] Similarly, the default options given to mobile apps developers in advertising networks can significantly impact consumers' privacy.
During their terms, both U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama may have sought to employ nudge theory to advance domestic policy goals in their respective countries.
[37] In 2008, the United States appointed Cass Sunstein, who helped develop the theory, as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
"[42] In 2020, the British government of Boris Johnson decided to rely on nudge theory to fight the coronavirus pandemic, with Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance seeking to encourage “herd immunity” with this strategy.
For instance, nudge is applied to health, safety, and environment (HSE) with the primary goals of achieving a "zero accident culture.
[45] Lately, nudge theory has also been used in different ways to help healthcare professionals make more deliberate decisions in numerous areas.
For example, nudging has been used as a way to improve hand hygiene among healthcare workers to decrease the number of healthcare-associated infections.
[47] Mandatory display of inspector reports of eatery hygiene as a public 'nudge', have received mixed responses in different countries.
[53] By allowing donors to become visible to the public and increasing their identifiability, other individuals will be more inclined to give as they conform to the social norms around them.
Two articles appeared in Minds & Machines in 2018 addressed the relation between nudges and Artificial Intelligence, explaining how persuasion and psychometrics can be used by personalised targeting algorithms to influence individual and collective behaviour, sometimes also in unintended ways.
The author stresses "Companies are increasingly using algorithms to manage and control individuals not by force, but rather by nudging them into desirable behavior — in other words, learning from their personalized data and altering their choices in some subtle way.
"[60] While the concept builds on the work by University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, "due to recent advances in AI and machine learning, algorithmic nudging is much more powerful than its non-algorithmic counterpart.
"[60] One concern researchers in enjoyment-focused contexts, such as tourism, raised is a gap between attitude, intention and behaviour[61][62] because tourists seek pleasure.
[63] Several empirical pieces of evidence in the tourism suggest the nudge theory's high effectiveness in reducing the burden of tourists' activities on the environment.
Some promising examples include sending text reminders to parents to increase home literary activities and providing information about famous scientists' struggles to improve student grades.
[81] Public opinion on the ethicality of nudges has also been shown to be susceptible to “partisan nudge bias.”[82] Research from David Tannenbaum, Craig R. Fox, and Todd Rogers (2017) found that adults and policymakers in the United States believed behavioral policies to be more ethical when they aligned with their own political leanings.
[86] This research suggests that in situations where consumers lack knowledge regarding their choices and are therefore more prone to choosing the wrong one, the implementation of 'good nudges' can be ethically justified.
[88][89] Behavioral economists such as Bob Sugden have pointed out that the underlying normative benchmark of nudging is still homo economicus, despite the proponents' claim to the contrary.
