Know Your Own Bone – Nonprofit Marketing & Online Engagement

Photo from www.nudges.org

I came across Nudge; Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness in the bookstore at The University of Chicago under a large sign reading, “University Affiliated Authors.” Ian was immediately drawn to it and kept telling me that it was the perfect book for my interests. He does not share my passion for public administration, and though he and I did love the constant references to our favorite locations and the practices of our alma mater, Nudge is a book that everyone can enjoy.

I absolutely recommend this book for anyone interested in public administration, public policy, government, human behavior, and collective human welfare.

The back of the book states, “Nudge is a book about choices– how we make them and how we’re led to make better ones.” That may sound dull or ambiguous to some, but this is the kind of book that you simply cannot read while you’re around another person, because it is filled with interesting and often surprising research that makes you want to turn to somebody immediately and say, “I bet you didn’t know…”

“Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein offer a new perspective on how to prevent the countless bad mistakes we make in our lives– including ill-advised personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources, and other numerous bad decisions regarding health care, our families, and education. Citing decades of cutting-edge behavioral science research, they demonstrate that sensible “choice architecture” can successfully nudge people toward the best decision without restricting tier freedom of choice. Terrifically straightforward, informative, and often very entertaining, this book is a must read for anyone with an interest in our individual and collective well-being.”

At large, the book is about choices (as mentioned), but it is also about libertarian paternalism. It asks big questions about how choice architects (those people who choose where food is placed in the cafeteria, or the default settings for our retirement plans, or whose name should appear first on a presidential ballot) should go about making the choices that they make and how they effect our collective behavior. Thaler and Sunstein remind us that there are several small and large “nudges” that companies and the government can give to people to help them make wiser choices. As we know from experience though, not all choice architects have the one’s well-being in mind. For instance, it is often the case that once you sign up to receive a free magazine, you are kept on the mailing list long after the promotion is over, and you find yourself paying for these issues later. Until you have the energy to call the magazine and request to be taken off of the list, you’ll be paying for these magazines. Due to pure inertia, several individuals stay on these lists for much longer than they’d intended- if they had intended to pay for the magazine subscription at all!

Here are five sneak-peak studies and thoughts relating to nudges, from Nudge. All of these ideas are directly from the book, and the research behind them is cited there. These are intended to be quick tidbits to whet your appetite for this perspective-changing book. For more information on these points, read the book or check out the Nudge website.

1. There is a stretch of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, where the road makes a series of S-turns. Many drivers ignored the reduced speed limit during this stretch of the road, and were in danger of wiping out on the curves. In order to battle this problem, the City of Chicago used a small visual nudge: “at the beginning of the dangerous curve, drivers encounter a sign painted on the road warning of a lower speed limit, and then a series of white stripes painted onto the road… When the stripes first appear, they are evenly spaced, but as drivers reach the most dangerous portion of the curve, the stripes get closer together, giving the sensation that driving speed is increasing. One’s natural instinct is to slow down” (39). There’s even a great aerial shot of Lake Shore Drive in the book, depicting these unevenly-spaced white lines. These white lines are nudges.

2. Thaler and Sunstein make the distinction between two types of thinking in human beings: the Automatic System (immediate, instinctive doer) and the Reflective System (deliberate, self-conscious planner). To illustrate the difference between the two systems, Thaler and Sunstein show you 3 seemingly-simple math questions that you’ll, most likely, answer incorrectly due to your Automatic System taking over; our brains take the short-cut and believe to have the correct answer without taking the time to utilize our Reflective System. The authors comment on our relationships with our own Automatic and Reflective systems. For instance, it is often our Automatic System that gives into temptation and decides to eat a cookie just hours after after our Reflective System aided us in constructing a healthier diet. Nudges are sometimes aimed to help make healthy decisions more automatic.

3. Nudge sites several behavioral research studies that illustrate our incredible tendency to follow the herd, and brings up questions about how to positively influence that heard. Here’s one of the many examples that I found interesting: It’s no secret that our eating habits are influenced by those around us. “On average, those who eat with one other person eat about 35 percent more then they do when they are alone; members of a group of four eat about 75 percent more; those in groups of seven or more eat 96 percent more” (64).

4. Here’s an example of a positive nudge used to decrease energy use in San Marcos, California: residents in three hundred households were informed of their energy use in relation to other houses in the neighborhood. “Households that consumed more than the norm received an unhappy ‘emoticon’, whereas those that consumed less than the norm received a happy emoticon” (70). The largest energy consumers showed a much bigger decrease in consumption when they received the negative visual emoticon than energy users who were only told of their high energy usage. But the fact remains that when their household usage (with or without emoticons) was reported to them in the context of comparing them to their neighbors’ energy usage, the individual household decreased its energy consumption.

5. Wording of options– and wording in general– are other avenues for utilizing nudges. There are several examples of this in the book, but this one is straightforward: In regard to charities, “people will give more if the options are $100, $250, $1,000, and $5,000 than if the options are $50, $75, $100, and $150” (24).

These rather straight-forward insights into nudging don’t even begin to approach the bigger issues tackled in the book, such as mortgages, health care, loans, marriage and education. As I mentioned, libertarian paternalism plays a large role in the book; nudges can be used to help people make better choices, but it does not force people into anything. Individuals at all times maintain their freedom and do not need to– say, slow down on Lake Shore Drive– but, for those tuned in to the radio and their Automatic Systems, some aid is offered to avoid a potentially-dangerous situation.