Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler

Mar 22, 2009 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: behavioural-economics, economics, psychology, social-theory

This one took me longer to read that is reasonable for a book of its length or the clear style it is written in. I mean, such a simply written text of 250 pages ought to have finished in no time. The problem was that I don’t live in the US and so many of the examples made the book a struggle for me. All the same, there are ideas in this book that are important no matter where you live.

Don’t you just love the internet? I wanted to start this paragraph with that quote by Göring, “when I hear the w ...more

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Oct 22, 2008 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008

This is a terrific book. The authors cover terrain which has been explored recently in a whole slew of books: loosely speaking, why we humans persistently engage in behavior patterns which do not benefit us in the long term. Their own research, at the University of Chicago, builds upon the work of Tversky and Kahneman in behavioral economics (very much in vogue this past few years).

In the book, they provide a funny, engaging, remarkably clear exposition of the various factors which lead us to m ...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Malcolm rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This comes with a whole bunch of big name endorsements – the physicist Brian Appleyard, Stephen Leavitt (of Freakanomics fame) and we’re told by the end of Introduction that it is making an impact with Obama and Cameron and so having a policy impact in both the UK and USA. What is more, it is now marketed as a ‘new international edition’. As I ploughed my way through this I kept thinking of a comment by the great photographer Eve Arnold to the effect (and with a few more expletives) that she was This comes with a whole bunch of big name endorsements – the physicist Brian Appleyard, Stephen Leavitt (of Freakanomics fame) and we’re told by the end of Introduction that it is making an impact with Obama and Cameron and so having a policy impact in both the UK and USA. What is more, it is now marketed as a ‘new international edition’. As I ploughed my way through this I kept thinking of a comment by the great photographer Eve Arnold to the effect (and with a few more expletives) that she was not the genius many proclaimed, it was just that everyone else was so mediocre: the praise singers do themselves no favour by shouting about the marvel that this book is.

It has one central idea, grounded in social psychology, that with careful thought and planning people can be encouraged to ‘freely chose’ things that are good for them, with the corollary that too much choice or unclear choices will lead to many/most people making bad choices. So far, so good – and the first part (about ⅓) of the book does a pretty good job of explaining some interesting (but not that complex) social psychology. Alas, then the ‘new international edition’ goes off track in that, aside from a brief postscript considering some issues about the circumstances of the 2008 financial crisis, the vast majority of the examples under discussion rely on a some pretty detailed explorations of US-based material – which is a perverse understanding of ‘international’ – made all the more frustrating by Thaler & Sunstein’s jokey, blokey little self-referential asides.

Leaving aside the difficulties of behavioural economics – the first major problem with the book, though, is what is not in it and as a consequence what it is able to be used for. There is little doubt that ‘nudging’ is a good thing – we know that we are more likely to continue with decisions when we feel like we have chosen freely (the psychologists call this compliance, and it is a big thing in theories of behaviour change). The big issue for me is not how to ‘nudge well’ – but the direction in which we nudge, and so far it looks to me that the policy applications of this idea have in many cases been little more than a cover for increased privatisation, for a removal of services and social support networks and to generally undermine the social world that many of us rely on to survive.

There is a further and key deficiency related to this bigger picture of what the ‘nudges’ are used for, and that is its failure to explore the broader socio-political question of who gets to nudge us – or in their jargon, who gets to be a ‘choice architect’. For a book that has as one of its areas of application politics they seem remarkably unaware of or, more likely, are extremely good at obfuscating a key dynamic of politics – power – while at the same time having constructed a text that is all about making sure that those of us who are subject to various forms of political power (be it about health care plans, buying gas, donating organs or managing our pension funds) do what the wielders of power want us to do. Their notion of ‘libertarian paternalism’ (in many ways an oxymoron but I’ll cut them some slack because they are, after all, economists applying psychology to broader social contexts so have to grapple with two discipline areas that claim to be ‘sciences’ in an effort to assert their credibility) seems to be a synonym for ‘soft power’, so beloved of contemporary liberal imperialists. They set up two ideal type figures – Econs and Humans – and then build a text around a series of methods that enhance the likelihood that (irrational) Humans will make better decisions, where better is defined by what the (rational) Econs would do. In short, hidden within all the popularising language, this is text that is designed to promote ways to make us more like the Rational Economic Man so beloved of neo-classical economics. It is not that they want us to become more powerful people or to gain a greater degree of autonomy and control over our own lives, it is that they want to make us more compliant by making the decisions others want us to make.

So, my problem is two-fold. First, this is a book that is dangerous because it focuses only on the means and not the ends, in that the ends that seem to be taken-for-granted are those that are defined by a model and theory of economics that lies at the heart of the current crisis. Second, even if I accept that model and its theories (which I don’t) it is not that this book is wrong, just that it is disappointing. Now I admit that this may be a characteristic of these popular ‘academic’ titles and if I read more of them I’d be less disappointed – but as I continued through this I felt more and more like Eve Arnold; wearied by the mediocrity of others. I get enough of that in my own writing. ...more

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Oct 18, 2009 Anya rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don't understand why this is a runaway bestseller--it's just not that enthralling. I've been reading lots of books lately about behavioral psychology and economics: why people make the decisions we do, economically and in other life areas. But Predictably Irrational and Made to Stick both explore these questions in a much more engaging way.

"Nudge" is mostly concerned with how companies and governments can practice what the authors term "libertarian paternalism"--gently, noncoercively pushing p ...more

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Aug 18, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cognition, development

I second-guessed my purchase of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, almost the minute I received my Amazon e-mail receipt -- I had already read Malcom Gladwell's Blink, and heard about the literary disaster that is Sway, and yet there I was, reading Nudge's introduction about the arrangement of cafeteria food.

I'm glad I did. While Thaler and Sunstein are happy to revel in the small ways that their insights into "choice architecture" I second-guessed my purchase of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, almost the minute I received my Amazon e-mail receipt -- I had already read Malcom Gladwell's Blink, and heard about the literary disaster that is Sway, and yet there I was, reading Nudge's introduction about the arrangement of cafeteria food.

I'm glad I did. While Thaler and Sunstein are happy to revel in the small ways that their insights into "choice architecture" can lead to better or worse choices, they also lay out their political principles and detail their impact on current policy debates (e.g., Social Security, Medicare Part D, Education.) To top it all off, they begin the book with a treatment of our cognitive failings, distinguishing between our automatic and reflective processing systems (what's not to love!), leading right into their arguments for how to help the automatic majority overcome their cognitive frailty without infringing the reflective minority's ability to choose.

So what is choice architecture? Well, are you choosing out of ten choices, or 100? Are you automatically enrolled in one choice or another if you don't make an active decision? How is that default set? How is information presented to you to about the available choices? All of these questions speak to choice architecture -- in other words, the arrangement and organization of choices -- which has a nasty habit of leading individuals to choices that they themselves would not find optimal (see don't be bob bias, the mind and morality).

Furthermore, "choice architecture, both good and bad, is pervasive and unavoidable." This point is essential to Thaler and Sunstein's argument if you are a libertarian. Ignoring choice architecture won't make it go away, it will only make it more likely that the choices favored by choice architecture are more likely to be poor. For instance, you can make the default option for new employees enrolled at 5% in a 401(k) with an option to opt-out, or you can make the default option to not be enrolled (as is often the case). If you stick with the current default, many who would otherwise enjoy being enrolled will not do so because of the choice architecture. Thaler and Sunstein recommend acknowledging the importance of choice architecture and deliberately deciding on its design.

Thaler and Sunstein aren't interested in helping individuals pick out their dry cleaners; as the authors note, if a dry cleaner performs poorly, it is fairly easy for individuals to make a better decision the next team.

Rather, "people are most likely to need nudges for decision that are difficult, complex, and infrequent, and when they have poor feedback and few opportunities for learning."

Individuals are primed to make poor choices for Medicare Part D, Mortgages, and retirement investments. Thaler and Sunstein don't advocate for eliminating choices because of these problems. On the contrary, their final chapter points to the infamous "third way" -- separate from both the command-and-control left and the single-minded 'choice' monkeys of the libertarian right.

There needn't be a war between 'no choice' and 'unlimited choice.' Thaler and Sunstein spend around 250 pages explaining that this is indeed a false choice. Like myself, they side with the libertarians when it comes to the importance of choice, and side with the left when it comes to the failure of 'choice' to solve all problems. Choice is important. Coercion isn't necessary. Focus on the choice architecture.

Oh, and I have to add. As someone who has long supported responding to the gay marriage debate by taking government out of the marriage business (perhaps keeping a civil union or partnership business) and leaving it to independent churches, I was very happy to see Thaler and Sunstein put forth such an argument in Nudge.

Whether you are on the left or right, worth a read! (Taken from my post) ...more

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Jun 30, 2008 Nina rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really like a lot of the ideas presented in this book. I completely agree with their major points - that policies should pay close attention to the default option, and that one of the most effective ways of helping people make good decisions is complete and clearly presented disclosure. I know I complained that Ariely's book didn't take his theories far enough because he didn't talk about the implications of people's predictable irrationality, but now I'm going to complain that this book focus I really like a lot of the ideas presented in this book. I completely agree with their major points - that policies should pay close attention to the default option, and that one of the most effective ways of helping people make good decisions is complete and clearly presented disclosure. I know I complained that Ariely's book didn't take his theories far enough because he didn't talk about the implications of people's predictable irrationality, but now I'm going to complain that this book focused too much on the practical application of what behavioral economics has taught us without laying a solid theoretical or moral foundation. (Ok, so maybe I'm a little hard to please.)

In fact, I don't know if such a foundation is even necessary. This book would have worked best as a series of individual essays or empirical articles. The ideas alone are great - automatic enrollment is a clever way to get people to save for retirement by not giving them the option of succumbing to inertia, and I'm all for companies making public their carbon output. The problem with putting all these great ideas together in a book is that you have to develop an overarching theory that encompasses all your great ideas, coin it, and prove that you can generalize your theory to many other areas you may not know much about. And this is how we end up with "libertarian paternalism."

When the authors try to apply this theory to things like privatizing marriage and school choice, it comes across that they are using their nifty theory to solve complex problems, whose solutions in reality need to take into account much more than just practical considerations. Since they coined their theory with such a politically-charged term (not an oxymoron, they insist), I was expecting a more thoughtful discussion of government's responsibility to nudge people in the right direction or to let people make their own mistakes. Actually, this term kind of muddled what they were trying to say - they didn't seem to be arguing for smaller or no government (libertarians go much farther than just wanting the ability to opt out of a government's default decision, from what I gather), and paternalism just sounds scary, so they make a great effort to try to defend the parternalism part of their theory. And a lot of what they talk about actually has nothing to do with government or politics - the automatic enrollment plan has been adopted by private employers without any government mandate.

In a nutshell, this book has a lot of interesting and clever ideas that I really believe can work, but the grand theory of libertarian paternalism was not a good umbrella under which to throw all the random interesting and clever ideas the authors have. ...more

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Apr 04, 2013 lyell bark rated it 2 of 5 stars

I did not find this book very helpful in Improving Decisious About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Hardcover) at all. I would rank it only one star, but in the midst of all the typical Ivy League gabbldeegook i found this truely inspired passage:

contemplation and hard abstract study belong to Saturn who is also the planet of the melancholy temperament, and the star which is inimical to the vital forces of life and youth. Melancholy students who have used up their vital forces in their studies, an ...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Christen rated it 2 of 5 stars

I probably shouldn't rate and review a book I didn't make it all the way through, but I found myself getting more and more angry the further I went into this book. I liked the first part, where the authors discussed choice architecture generally. However, they then went on to discuss many choice architecture issues in a manner I found confusing. Two examples seem appropriate to consider. The authors seem to find fault with the way student loans are done. They seem to criticize schools for select ...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: policy wonks

Recommended to Terry by: I think it was Ars Technica

The book focuses on cases where simple changes in choice architecture (how people are exposed to options) can create significant changes in behavior. The authors immediately recognize this could be used "for evil" as it were or against the chooser such as arranging food in a cafeteria so kids buy more high margin foods but most of the cases revolve around "stove" examples. Stove cases are where slight changes in presentation create a good situation for the user like stove burner arrangements. No ...more

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Jan 09, 2011 Steven Peterson rated it 4 of 5 stars

An interesting work. . . . It speaks of how conditions can be changed and perhaps improved by "nudging" people. Rather than "beating up" on people, subtly nudge them. Fascinating reading and very provocative. Is nudging good? Or manipulative?

The authors, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, faculty at the University of Chicago, define a “nudge” as (Page 6): “. . .is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significant ...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, brain

The authors, both economists at University of Chicago, advocate what they call “paternal libertarianism” in order to improve an equal footing for all in the areas of health care, marriage, taxes, and so on, without impinging on freedom any more than absolutely necessary. They argue, reasonably, that everyone with a stake in an issue or a semblance of power is, whether they like it or not, a change architect – that even not interfering and allowing totally laissez-faire markets to evolve is still The authors, both economists at University of Chicago, advocate what they call “paternal libertarianism” in order to improve an equal footing for all in the areas of health care, marriage, taxes, and so on, without impinging on freedom any more than absolutely necessary. They argue, reasonably, that everyone with a stake in an issue or a semblance of power is, whether they like it or not, a change architect – that even not interfering and allowing totally laissez-faire markets to evolve is still doing something (“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice,” as Neil Peart says) – so governments and free markets should do their nudging in a positive and helpful way. For example, making a simple and high-returning investment the default option on a retirement package the default is a nudge that helps those who would be otherwise lost in a sea of legal and economic mumbo-jumbo if the default were “find your own damn retirement package.”

The authors write in a pleasing, non-preachy, conversational style, and make their points clearly, requiring no economic understanding to follow their ideas, many of which are more or less common sense (and thus will never be implemented by our government) while others are intriguing possibilities, such as Save More Tomorrow, which ties savings plan deposits to future raises. Although I enjoyed reading the book, for me it was basically preaching to the converted, without the necessary punch behind the ideas to ever convince any Republican big-government corporate-nanny-state lover. Actually I was expecting it to be more focused on personal, psychological nudges of the kind the authors discuss at the beginning, the way perceptions can deceive, the way self-control strategies can be used to hack one’s own mind, and the values that humans give to losses and gains. When the book hit its political and social manifesto stride, I was slightly disappointed, but the authors’ chummy style and practical ideas kept me interested. ...more

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May 23, 2010 Angie rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was recommended as an introduction to libertarian paternalism in a lecture on behavioral economics by Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman. Per wikipedia, libertarian paternalism is "a
political philosophy that believes the state can help you make the choices you would make for yourself—if only you had the strength of will and the sharpness of mind. But unlike 'hard' paternalists, who ban some things and mandate others, the softer kind aims only to skew your decisions, without infringing
This book was recommended as an introduction to libertarian paternalism in a lecture on behavioral economics by Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman. Per wikipedia, libertarian paternalism is "a
political philosophy that believes the state can help you make the choices you would make for yourself—if only you had the strength of will and the sharpness of mind. But unlike 'hard' paternalists, who ban some things and mandate others, the softer kind aims only to skew your decisions, without infringing greatly on your freedom of choice". It was a new concept to me, and I wanted to learn more. Based on Kahneman's recommendation and a column by George Will in Newsweek, I had expected something a bit more sophisticated---more political philosophy and less practical psychology. Although the authors mention libertarian paternalism frequently and devote the last third of the book to ways to affect social choices, there is little discussion of the basis for libertarian paternalism. . This is not a criticism, but readers should be alerted that this is not a book about libertarian paternalism. Disappointingly, the practical applications of libertarian paternalism discussed were pretty obvious once the concept is defined, although the authors seemed to dwell on them much too long, as if they needed extensive explanation.

Nudge is really more about improving decisions of all types, as the subtitle says. Judged on this basis, if you are new to the subject of how to make or influence decisions, you may enjoy it. It covers just about all the most famous experiments and the work on biases in decision-making of people like Tversky and Kahneman. It is a fascinating subject, but the discussions are so protracted that even if the material is new, I would suspect you might get as impatient as I did. The type of person who is likely to be attracted to this book is also likely to be intelligent enough not to need the implications of each idea spelled out in the detail provided here.

Readers with a long-standing interest in intelligent layman-level books on how we make decisions, such as Predictably Irrational or The Invisible Gorilla, are not likely to find much that is new in Nudge. I think there was one study in the book that was new to me. The applications to government "nudges" were not clever enough to sustain interest.

A real disappointment was the writers' inattention to precision in their writing, which grew to the point where I became reluctant to accept their facts. As an example, in the discussion of the Medicare Part D plan, the authors cited the low participation rate when the plan was introduced and said it would have been even worse except that federal retirees and many retirees of large corporations were "easily or automatically" enrolled. On the contrary, federal retirees and many retirees from large corporations already have prescription drug coverage and therefore Part D would not even be appropriate for them. I do not know if the authors did not know this or were simply imprecise on their writing, but the reader will come to the wrong conclusion in any case.

George Will's Newsweek column is a good summary of the book that can help you decide if you want to try it. However, I cannot recommend the audio version to anyone. The reader has a pleasant, clear voice, but too often he annoys with a Valley Girl-style intonation, ending factual statements with a rising questioning inflection. He also mispronounces words such as "mischievous", "laissez-faire", and "err". Both of these failings I consider inexcusable in a commercial recording. ...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Loy Machedo rated it 1 of 5 stars

Loy Machedo’s Book Review – Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

I love reading book.
Books on Thought-Provoking, Critical-Thinking, Cognitive Science, Business, Biographies, Self-Improvement and so on. But the most important characteristic I admire and love about a book, is its ability to make something simple and understandable.

Nudge is one book that fails to qualify the last criteria.

I presumed that this book was in relation to how we think, how the mind works and connect that to ...more

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Apr 30, 2011 Suz rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, non-fiction, kindle, gentext

This book is not what I thought it would be.

I somehow thought it would be about how to improve decision *making* for, say, yourself (which would impact things like Health, Wealth, and Happiness), but it was about choice architecture and how to frame choices to make people choose what you think they should choose.

Which might have been interesting if that's what the book covered. There was a little bit about "choice architecture" in the beginning, but nothing that extended further than common sens ...more

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May 06, 2012 T. Edmund rated it 5 of 5 stars

It would be unfair to label Nudge as 'one of those pop-psychology books' as a. I frown on pop psychology and rate Nudge higher, and b. I'm trying not to generalise.

What I'm trying to say is Nudge fits into the same category as other insightful books such as Gladwell's Blink, or the recent Redirect

[[ASIN:0316010669 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking]]

[[ASIN:0316051888 Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change]]

Beginning with a non-partisan disclaimer Nudge explores t ...more

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Aug 07, 2009 Orton Family Foundation rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you’re like most Americans, chances are you made a New Year’s resolution to hit the gym, lay off the smokes or eat more green vegetables. And again, if you’re anything like most Americans, chances are you and your resolution parted ways sometime around Valentine’s Day. Take heart: you’re not alone, and it’s not that you actually want to spend more hours watching sitcom reruns—you just need a nudge.

Most humans are remarkably bad at making choices in their own best interest. We make predictable ...more

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Mar 12, 2010 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

The full title here is Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, and between them the two authors, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, can claim a substantial amount of expertise in psychology, economics, law, and public policy. The stated goal of the book is to take lessons from these four areas and squish them into a concept that the authors dub "libertarian paternalism." The idea is that as libertarians the two believe in free information and free choice in all things publ The full title here is Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, and between them the two authors, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, can claim a substantial amount of expertise in psychology, economics, law, and public policy. The stated goal of the book is to take lessons from these four areas and squish them into a concept that the authors dub "libertarian paternalism." The idea is that as libertarians the two believe in free information and free choice in all things public and private, but as students of behavioral economics and psychology they know that most people, most of the time, simply make bad decisions on account of our human nature. This is a book about how to fix that. Or at least improve things relative to the status quo.

Specifically, Thaler and Sunstein propose a series of "nudges" that spring from the way that choices are presented, framed, and informed. Early on they give the example of Carolyn, a fictional director of food services for a public school. Carlyn wants the students at her school to eat healthy, but she has limited control over menus so she can't just ban unhealthy food --nor does she necessarily think she should. But what she can do is nudge children into making healthier choices by changing how food is presented and what information kids are given about their choices. Putting carrots at eye level while chips are relegated to the bottom shelf, for example, would translate to more carrots being eaten. Or including milk with the value meal by default, even if kids can request to substitute soda for free. It's not a matter of forcing (read: legislating) students to eat their damn carrots, but rather creating what the authors call a helpful choice architecture that encourages the students to make better decisions on their own by side stepping (or even capitalizing on) well known foibles in human decision-making.

After a few introductory chapters to explore these foibles (think anchoring, framing, availability heuristic, loss aversion, status quo bias, etc.), Thaler and Sunstein run with the idea by showing how to create choice architectures that favor their libertarian paternalism approach to public policy and personal choices in everyday life. Specifically, they show how to nudge people into saving more money for retirement, investing money better, choosing a better prescription drug plan, increasing organ donation, protecting the environment, choosing the right school for their kids, and more. I have to admit that I enjoyed the early chapters on psychology and behavioral economics more than the later chapters, which became more nakedly political, but there are a lot of really solid ideas in here, even if they are of varying levels of practicality.

The authors also have a great style. They keep things friendly, funny, and engaging, with the occasional vignette, figure, or photograph to illustrate their points as needed. I was rarely bored, even when talk turned to traditionally tiresome subjects like 401(k) savings, prescription drug plans, and fuel economy. And the book is full of thoughtful insights on how human psychology plays into everyday decisions and, more importantly, how to avoid those kinks in the human brain that often lead to poor decisions about things that really matter. ...more

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Jul 09, 2010 Harkinna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Who couldn’t use a little help accomplishing a pesky goal every now and again? I know I need help sometimes to get going on a story or making it to the gym. Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (of the University of Chicago) wrote the book as a manifesto to “improve decisions about health, wealth, and happiness.” Seeking to foster what they call a new movement of “libertarian paternalism,” the idea of the book melds individual freedom with the promotion by government of socially optimal de Who couldn’t use a little help accomplishing a pesky goal every now and again? I know I need help sometimes to get going on a story or making it to the gym. Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (of the University of Chicago) wrote the book as a manifesto to “improve decisions about health, wealth, and happiness.” Seeking to foster what they call a new movement of “libertarian paternalism,” the idea of the book melds individual freedom with the promotion by government of socially optimal decisions, so that the citizen and the society both benefit.

If this sounds a bit different from the University of Chicago’s reputation as a libertarian, free-market school, the authors have no trouble admitting their lone-wolf status in the Economics department. According to them, because the people are only “nudged” into making better choices, their personal liberty (a paramount concern for economists) is preserved. The authors apply the Nudge model to a host of complex and seemingly intractable issues like Social Security, prescription drug coverage, and preserving the environment. For each issue, an alternative solution is explored and the reader is giving a glimpse of what life would be like if only we could be nudged into doing the right thing.

For example, how to get American workers to save more for retirement? Forget the intricate discussions on how people understand their disposable income or how America’s retirement system allocates costs to take care of the elderly; Nudge world simply makes retirement savings automatic, and forces people to opt out of the plans. Presumably, those too lazy to save (note the assumption) now would be too lazy to opt-out under the Nudge system.

The authors also show how people can use the Nudge model in their own lives. My personal favorite is their advocacy of the website stickk.com. It allows people to effectively nudge themselves. Say you want to lose 10 pounds and you think it will take a month to do so. Well, you go to stickk, sign-up for free, and set up your nudge. To motivate yourself, you offer to pay a friend of yours $10 week every week that you don’t hit your weight loss goal. After setting up a profile and putting $40 in your Stickk account, you weigh in once a week. If you make your goal, you get $10. If not, your friend gets a nice gift. Naturally, there are many permutations of this nudge. The key is making the nudge hurt enough so you feel beholden to it.

A quick read, the book offers some new and innovative ways at looking at public policy problems. Take this as your nudge to check it out from your library. ...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Jeremy Kauffman rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is not a well-written book. The writing is prosaic. The pacing is meh. You will almost certainly have no trouble putting it down. It is, however, a book almost everyone should read - especially politicians, technocrats, and others in positions of public policy.

Sunstein and Thaler argue that dramatic changes in human behavior can be effected through sensible changes in "choice architecture". Choice architecture is the orchestration of options. It can range from how choices are presented (mak ...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Sindy Li rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, psychology

This is a great book! It's one of those books that applies the idea of System 1 (automative/intuitive) and System 2 (reflective/"reasoning") from psychology, and in this particular case it's applied to "choice architecture"--the design of frameworks/structures that affect people's choices over pretty much anything (another good example of this type of book is Jonathan Heidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis" which applies the System 1 and System 2 idea to help us understand and promote individual flou This is a great book! It's one of those books that applies the idea of System 1 (automative/intuitive) and System 2 (reflective/"reasoning") from psychology, and in this particular case it's applied to "choice architecture"--the design of frameworks/structures that affect people's choices over pretty much anything (another good example of this type of book is Jonathan Heidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis" which applies the System 1 and System 2 idea to help us understand and promote individual flourishing--a great book as well). The description of System 1 and System 2 is not the nicest possible ("Thinking Fast and Slow" is the most beautiful I've seen), but the jewel lies in the application part. Sunstein and Thaler show us how much choice architecture matters in our life, how our "irrational"/intuitive System 1 leads us to make bad choices, and how well-designed choice environments can help us avoid bad choices and improve our lives. There seems to be a lot of inefficiencies lying around the world to be corrected by simply good choice architecture!--but of course there will be a lot of obstacles for making such changes, and many people aren't even aware of the problems. (in particular, pressing issues like Social Security and healthcare in the US, and environmental protection anywhere in the world) The authors also supplied good responses to potential criticisms. I think a really meaningful thing would be to make people--experts, politicians as well as the public--more informed of the importance of choice architecture, so it will be part of our language in the discussion of policies, and there will be pressure towards better choice designs as well as more monitoring over the governments' choice architecture. This book should be highly recommended to any "choice architect", especially all current and future politicians!

(However, I don't quite agree with the authors on their approach to marriage. I think it is beneficial for the state to offer contracts to help people implement self-control, if they voluntarily enter into such contracts. Perhaps a better way than the current regime is to offer different contracts with a good default option.)

Thank you Sunstein and Thaler for this engaging, informative and thought-provoking book!

(by the way, read this book and the many instances of human "irrationality" will make anyone give up libertarianism!) ...more

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Nov 06, 2014 Jean-marie Kauth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nudge
September 5, 2014 8:18 pm

I am currently reading Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2009). Its main idea is so important, for health issues as well as for many other issues surrounding societal structuring: the idea that you can nudge people towards the best choices without violating their liberty, a principle already well known to advertisers, after all.

This ethical approach is called libertarian paternalism: while allowing people free choice, governments and others can promote the ...more

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Feb 07, 2014 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, non-fiction, psychology

From the beginning I wasn't a huge fan. The tone is patronizing, and the first few chapters are a rehash of every other pop-econ book I've ever read. I kept going because of the Economist's "Best Book" label, and because of the complimentary blurb from one of the authors of Freakonomics.

I felt all along that the book had a heavy corporate bias, but kept reading because the initial explanation of choice architecture had been so interesting. I started getting irritated when cap-and-trade measures From the beginning I wasn't a huge fan. The tone is patronizing, and the first few chapters are a rehash of every other pop-econ book I've ever read. I kept going because of the Economist's "Best Book" label, and because of the complimentary blurb from one of the authors of Freakonomics.

I felt all along that the book had a heavy corporate bias, but kept reading because the initial explanation of choice architecture had been so interesting. I started getting irritated when cap-and-trade measures were heavily endorsed without any mention of reducing the caps. I became more skeptical when the authors praised the Energy Star program as a success without giving any specific numbers. If the program had such clear environmental benefits, surely a pair of professional economists would include the supporting data!

When I hit chapter 14, I gave up in disgust. This chapter was supposedly about using choice architecture to reduce the cost of US health care. In the second paragraph, the authors give exactly one explanation for why our health care system is so expensive: "It is expensive in part because Americans want access to all the best services: doctors, hospitals, prescription drugs, medical devices, and nursing homes, to name a few."

No mention is made of the artificial price inflation of prescription drugs, or of the exorbitant cost of medical school, or of the fact that American patients do not necessarily receive better health care than people in other countries. The only reason implied for the cost of US health care, in fact- beyond the aforementioned demand for "the best"- is that buyers of health insurance are required to "'purchase' the right to sue" (209). After that, the entire chapter focuses on "increasing freedom of contract in the domain of medical malpractice.(216)"

I'm typing on my phone, and don't have a lot more to say, but I felt that this book read as dishonest in a lot of important ways. I feel like Thaler and Sunstein are very much on the side of big business. They may well want to improve freedom of choice for the common people, but I don't think they're necessarily focused on creating a better world for humanity as a whole. ...more

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Dec 01, 2014 Hanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

With Thaler and Sunstein being the Gods of libertarian paternalism a humble economics student like me had a hard time trying to write an unbiased (hah, econometric joke!) review but I tried my best.

The authors coined a theory that went viral among politicians in Anglo-American countries. It's quite simple: While people don't like being told what to do, they are glad to get help deciding when it comes to more difficult things like loans and how to best invest their money (some people, me include With Thaler and Sunstein being the Gods of libertarian paternalism a humble economics student like me had a hard time trying to write an unbiased (hah, econometric joke!) review but I tried my best.

The authors coined a theory that went viral among politicians in Anglo-American countries. It's quite simple: While people don't like being told what to do, they are glad to get help deciding when it comes to more difficult things like loans and how to best invest their money (some people, me included, would sometimes also like to be nudged to eat vegetables instead of chocolate). That's where choice architecture enters the picture. If we want it or not, we're influenced by a lot of little things like where supermarkets put different kinds of food or even what our neighbour did concerning a certain matter. It's strongly linked to human fallacies and biases (if you want to know more about that I can only recommend The Art of Thinking Clearly). So, how to help? Thaler and Sunstein propose using what we know about human errors to help people do what they would like but fail to do while leaving the possibility to choose another option untouched.
It's a concept that's applicable in a lot of areas - from money to health to marriage to getting more people to cycle to work and to pay their taxes... you name it.

Sounds pretty amazing, right?

And there's even more: scientific papers can be pretty boring and I feared the worst when I saw that "Nudge" was published by the Yale University Press (yeah, sorry for that). But no, Thaler and Sunstein keep including funny anecdotes from their own life (or Homer Simpson's, for that matter) and try to make even the theoretic parts enjoyable.

--
So now for the downsides: I have to say it took me quite a while to finish "Nudge". The chapters on credit cards and the like weren't really my cup of tea (also, you kind of get the principle after a while and towards the end it gets repetitive).

The authors somehow seemed to think that the world ends at the borders of the USA (not always, to be honest - they even mentioned Austria once! [I know I shouldn't get all excited about that but come on, Austria's tiny...]). When they asked the reader if they knew the laws concerning alimony in their State, I was a bit offended. Also the credit card system seems to be somewhat different in the States, I had a hard time understanding how you could achieve late payments if they are deducted from your account automatically.

My critique concerning the chapter about suing your doctor is related to that: if Americans would stop suing each other on every occasion possible and get ridiculously high sums for burned tongues, that might not be much of an issue AND being poor might coerce you into giving up your right to sue your doctor (just sayin').

"Nudge" could also use a clearer structure, I kind of got lost.

--
Overall: the theory is amazing, the execution witty but not very European-friendly and I didn't agree on everything (it would have been boring if I did!).
...more

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Jan 03, 2014 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

As you struggle with New Year's resolutions, you might want to consider consulting this book for guidance.

At the time this book was published, both authors were professors at the University of Chicago. Both Thaler and Sunstein are firm believers in the efficacy of market forces, but they recognize that human beings often make choices that are bad for themselves (for a variety of reasons) in the long run. Both authors would like to limit government coercion in peoples’ lives, but they recognize t As you struggle with New Year's resolutions, you might want to consider consulting this book for guidance.

At the time this book was published, both authors were professors at the University of Chicago. Both Thaler and Sunstein are firm believers in the efficacy of market forces, but they recognize that human beings often make choices that are bad for themselves (for a variety of reasons) in the long run. Both authors would like to limit government coercion in peoples’ lives, but they recognize that by providing good incentives, it can channel behavior in directions that will increase overall happiness and economic efficiency.

In the book, they articulate a philosophy they characterize as libertarian paternalism. It is libertarian in that it preserves individual free choice to the maximum extent advisable: as they say, “people should be free to do what they like-and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so.” On the other hand, it is paternal in that it directs (but does not coerce) behavior in situations where many people have been known to make choices that do not make their lives “longer, healthier, and better.” Hence the term and the title, Nudge (as opposed to coerce or compel).

The authors develop concepts that were originally articulated over the years by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and others concerning ways in which humans make poor choices. A more thorough analysis of these same concepts can be found in Kahneman’s 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Thaler and Sunstein show that wise, non-coercive policies can be devised taking these human failings into consideration.

The result is a fascinating, lively account of how governments could help make life longer, healthier, and better through “choice architecture,” their term for a method of influencing decisions by how choices are presented. A simple example of choice architecture through a “nudge” is placing healthy foods in a school cafeteria at eye level, while putting less healthy junk food in harder to reach places. Individuals are not prevented from eating whatever they want, but arranging food choices in that way tends to decrease consumption of junk food and increase consumption of healthier foods. (More mundanely, they cite the technique of "hiding the cashew nuts.") Yet another example they adduce is that of “Clocky,” an alarm clock that runs away and hides if you don’t get out of bed on time.

Evaluation: "The Economist" rated Nudge the “Best Book of the Year.” Not all the critics have been so kind. I found that I raced through the first half, often laughing out loud, but the last half (consisting of numerous policy recommendations) sometimes became a bit heavy going. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book, especially for legislators and other policy makers.
...more

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Jun 06, 2010 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Our last camping trip gave me a chance to finish up Nudge, a social economics book by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. The first part of the book lays out the subject of choice architecture and ways that influence can, or even has to be asserted by system designers and policy makers. The authors promote "libertarian paternalism," which seeks desirable results using nudges that largely maintain freedom of choice for participants. The remainder of the work presents numerous examples and ide ...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Chad Warner rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Chad by: .net Magazine

Shelves: non-fiction, psychology

This book opened my eyes to how humans make decisions, and how easily they can be influenced by their peers and by the way choices are presented to them. Through engaging research and entertaining anecdotes, it shows how to “architect” choices to nudge people towards certain decisions. The authors call this “libertarian paternalism”, because it uses incentives to motivate desired behavior rather than using command and control measures like laws and bans. I highly recommend this book for its prac ...more

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Dec 21, 2010 Lorna added it

Shelves: reading-group-jo-jody-and-hannah

Very easy to read, conversational in places between the two authors. On reflection there is much in it which seems to spell out in length things that we know to be true. I like the practical examples, especially those around the environment, saving money and so on. Discussing the book with book group friends raised lots of interesting issues. For example the danger of individualising social issues and making individuals responsible for social problems. There are other influences which the author ...more

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Dec 31, 2010 Vince Wu rated it 4 of 5 stars

The central idea of the book is simple: People should be free to choose, but it's also desirable to influence people's choices for the better. In fact, the authors pretty much explain the concept soup to nuts in the introduction. The rest of the book felt a bit tedious as such... I would summarize the rest as a refresher on human fallibility and extensive examples of how choice architecture could be applied to wide ranging aspects of life.

This quote summarizes the central idea of the book:

[...]

The central idea of the book is simple: People should be free to choose, but it's also desirable to influence people's choices for the better. In fact, the authors pretty much explain the concept soup to nuts in the introduction. The rest of the book felt a bit tedious as such... I would summarize the rest as a refresher on human fallibility and extensive examples of how choice architecture could be applied to wide ranging aspects of life.

This quote summarizes the central idea of the book:

[...] in general, people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of of undesirable arrangements if they want to. [...] we argue for self-conscious efforts, by institutions in the private sector and also by government, to steer people's choices in directions that will improve their lives.

A few examples were quite good:
- illustrating the power of social norms: Add a frown/smiley face to electricity bills based on average usage. The big energy users used less. Remarkably, the energy efficient users didn't use more (vs. another experiment that showed how much less they were using).
- illustrating the power of priming: simply asking "Do you plan to vote?" increased the voter turnout by 25%.
- illustrating "loss aversion": Split a group of people in half. Give one half something (e.g. a mug). Ask first half to mark how much they are willing to sell to the second half. Ask the second half how much they'd be willing to buy from the first half.
- "Save more tomorrow": an automatic saving rule (e.g. auto save a portion of future raises) that ends up helping people save more without removing any choices.
- Make donating organs the default. People can opt out.
- School cafeteria: load up the first section with fruits and vegetables. The "unhealthy" food is still around, but not as easily discoverable.

There were a few examples that I thought were quite odd. For example, there was a chapter on privatizing marriage which I thought was simply shifting the problem around. The authors suggested that the government could get out of the legalizing marriages business altogether, and provide the expected marriage benefits (e.g. tax savings) and enforce responsibilities (e.g. child support) via other means. Churches and other private institutions would give people the "marriage" label according to whatever rules they see fit. While this does remove the government from the debates (e.g. is gay marriage legal?), it doesn't remove any of the debates. The goal isn't clear to me.

...more

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Aug 22, 2014 Graham Herrli rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013, psychology, design-related

Whenever you present choices to people, your presentation will affect their decisions. This book is about how choices can be presented to help those who are choosing to make the choices that are best for them.

The authors call this principle libertarian paternalism: libertarian because it is never compulsory, and paternalism because it guides people to make good choices. An example is the ordering of food in a cafeteria line, where placing healthier food first or at eye level may help the studen Whenever you present choices to people, your presentation will affect their decisions. This book is about how choices can be presented to help those who are choosing to make the choices that are best for them.

The authors call this principle libertarian paternalism: libertarian because it is never compulsory, and paternalism because it guides people to make good choices. An example is the ordering of food in a cafeteria line, where placing healthier food first or at eye level may help the students who use the cafeteria to make healthier decisions.

The authors advocate for what they call "RECAP" (Record, Evaluate, Compare Alternative Prices) as an alternative to various situations in which the traditional mantra has been to Just Maximize Choices. RECAP essentially means that whenever people are required to make a complex financial decision (such as a selection of a retirement fund, college loan, or Medicare plan), they should be provided with a brief overview of the differences between the available options.

The first few chapters of this book mention many of the same studies mentioned in other books I've read recently. I like that it often puts them in lists, dedicating only a sentence or two to each. This format has the benefits of (1) not making me re-read lengthy descriptions of studies I've already encountered, and (2) helping to gather and synthesize ideas.

(view spoiler)[
* Framing something in terms of losses prevented is more effective than framing it in terms of gains (37).
* Much as people who have difficulty saving money can earmark various amounts for categories such as rent and holiday shopping (using the planning part of their brain to resist in-the-moment-temptation of the acting part of their brain) people who do not spend much could benefit from earmarking some ahead of time for entertainment (allowing the acting part of their brain to relax because the entertainment was planned for ahead of time) (52).
* When one person in a group expresses a strong opinion and the members of that group are switched out over time, a new completely different group will still largely hold to that original opinion (57-8). In selecting which songs to download, people are strongly influenced by what songs others have downloaded before them, going back to the first few downloads in a system (62).
* Extended warranties are a waste of money but remain overpriced because there is no market incentive for them to decrease (80-2).
* Given n options to pick from (such as n types of candy or n investment funds), people will generally divide evenly between the options. If one fund is all stock and one is half-stock-half-bonds, they will generally select equal amounts of both funds. The same is true if one fund is all bonds and the other is half-stock-half-bonds, even though this means a very different underlying allocation (124-6).
* It's possible to get a mortgage in which the only payments are toward the interest (135). Some mortgages come with a "prepayment penalty" that prevents people from paying off their mortgages early (138). In general, the loan market has gotten sufficiently complicated to render outdated the Truth in Lending Act's stipulation that the APR be provided ahead of time to given people a sense of how risky their mortgage is (138-9). The whole industry would benefit from clearer choice architecture, such as requiring that all the fees and interest be presented summed together for each option (139-40).
* Sometimes greater transparency can help to solve problems on its own, without more forced regulation. Requiring companies to publicly disclose their hazardous waste statistics has made them compete to have less hazardous waste (192-3).
* If people could waive the right to sue for medical malpractice, health care costs would be lower owning to a combination of reduced litigation expenses and a reduced number of over-precautionary tests (209-11).
(hide spoiler)] ...more

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Feb 14, 2010 Allisonperkel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, design, non-fiction, social-science

Nudge was not what I expected. I was looking for something about marketing, personal impulse, and more on how the brain can fool you. However I got something much more compelling: Nudge.

Here our two authors take a general theory; choice architecture, and present it in a very simple, easy to understand package. At times the writing is humorous (other times their jokes fall pretty flat) but the meanings were never lost. Quite simply, with a little bit of retooling, we could have a potentially hug Nudge was not what I expected. I was looking for something about marketing, personal impulse, and more on how the brain can fool you. However I got something much more compelling: Nudge.

Here our two authors take a general theory; choice architecture, and present it in a very simple, easy to understand package. At times the writing is humorous (other times their jokes fall pretty flat) but the meanings were never lost. Quite simply, with a little bit of retooling, we could have a potentially huge impact on how our society works (within certain realms). This is powerful and heady stuff indeed. And not being a fan of the Chicago School of Economics, I personally was blown away by the simple fact that I agreed with these two professors so very much.

At the 50,000 foot view, a nudge is a simple change that gently pushes the odds of someone doing, or not doing something, in the direction that the choice architect wants. A great example, not from this book, is placing items a store wants to move on the isle end caps. A better example, from this book, is having an opt-in organ donor policy in order to get more people to become donors and thus save more lives.

Sometimes the authors really hit home run after home run for example when they talk about the benefits of cap and trade and on increasing taxes on polluters. Bonus, they are all for complete transparency (yay!). Even better, they give examples of how complete transparency has helped in the past! This all pushes the reader toward seeing their point of view on the subject.

However other parts lost a little of the choice architecture luster. One chapter that I believe is brilliant was a stretch for choice architecture - and that was the chapter on same sex marriage. They argue that the states should get rid of marriage, create simpler, civil unions for all and let religious groups (or scuba groups) marry whomever they want. Now I'm all for this - government should not be in the business of marriage and everyone, gay, straight, etc should be able to have a civil union - a legally binding contract together, if they so chose. With all that goes with it (taxes, the right to visit each other in the hospital, etc). however this was a stretch for the main topics of the book. Still it was great to see a rational argument for giving everyone the same rights. As someone wise once said, everyone should have the right to marry the person they want to annoy (in a loving way) for the rest of their life!

Past that, the book also gave me some food for thought on school programs (so called vouchers) and the medicare drug option program (and how we could make it better). The latter is actually something that I'm starting to look at as my mom is trying to figure out what to do. She's a former pharmacist so if she's having trouble, you know the design is pretty bad! The simple proposals in Nudge would make life a ton easier. Simply import your current drug regime and get a breakdown on which plan best fits your needs. How much easier could you ask for? Total transparency with an easy mechanism to make things work.

Overall this was a great, quick read that left me wanting to read a little more deeply on this topic. This book, by design, only skims the surface. That's both its blessing and its failure. There were too many topics covered, briefly, and not enough meat at times. This left a few of the ideas feeling half formed; which I think is a disservice to the authors. I don't agree with all their ideas but their presentation was fair, well thought out and articulated from the position of wanting to help everyone - especially those who don't know what their best interests are (and we all fit into that category sometimes). An excellent read. ...more

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