Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunsteinbook data
516 ratings,
3.55
average rating, 167 reviews
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published
April 8th 2008
by Yale University Press
binding
Hardcover, 224 pages
isbn
0300122233
(isbn13: 9780300122237)
description
Every day we make decisions on topics ranging from the personal investments we select to the schools we pick for our children to the foods we eat to t...more
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avg 3.55
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
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 Görin...more
Don’t you just love the internet? I wanted to start this paragraph with that quote by Görin...more
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3 comments
Read in October, 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...more
In the book, they provide a funny, engaging, remarkably clear exposition of the various factors which...more
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Read in August, 2008
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 "choi...more
I'm glad I did. While Thaler and Sunstein are happy to revel in the small ways that their insights into "choi...more
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Read in June, 2008
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 foc...more
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Read in November, 2008
This is one of those rare combinations of a book that is both banal and ennervating. It is not ennervating because it is popular, but rather because it is based on a flawed premise for how we should go about improving the world. Its banality stems from the fact that it seems to circumscribe the improvement of the world within such themes as getting people to quit smoking, invest in solid 401(k)s, and choose items on the cafeteria menu that will not make them too fat.
I could spend a v...more
I could spend a v...more
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Read in February, 2009
recommended to Terry by:
I think it was Ars Technicarecommends it for: policy wonks
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 b...more
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Part of the flood of books on behavioral economics that have come out in the last few years, this book synthesizes a lot of excellent research in the field – including research by the authors themselves. The fathers of this whole field, based on research that first published in the 1970’s, are two Israeli-born academics, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman won the Nobel prize in Economics in 2002 for this work (Tversky died in 1996). The authors of Nudge in fact co-authored a number...more
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Read in April, 2009
As someone who agonizes over some decisions, goes with my gut on others, and actively avoids making choices in certain areas in my life, I was intrigued by this book's premise. In essence, the authors explore the external forces guiding our decision-making and proposes ways to channel those forces into making wiser life choices.
Having finished it, I am not convinced that I am substantially better equipped to make wiser choices. However, I am glad to have read the book, if only for ...more
Having finished it, I am not convinced that I am substantially better equipped to make wiser choices. However, I am glad to have read the book, if only for ...more
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Read in May, 2009
Similar to, but not nearly as fun as Freakonomics, Malcolm Gladwell's books, The Paradox of Choice, or some other books I've read lately. This book is less geared towards the average layperson than to policy makers, employers, and others in a position of influence.
The central thesis of this book is that people don't make great choices a lot of the time, due to their own laziness, stupidity, ignorance, etc. It would really help if society could structure things such that it was ea...more
The central thesis of this book is that people don't make great choices a lot of the time, due to their own laziness, stupidity, ignorance, etc. It would really help if society could structure things such that it was ea...more
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Read in November, 2008
i thought this book was fantastic in the sense that it is going to help me frame any project i do that aims to change human behavior. it showcases the power of a very small change to what you're doing for the purposes of reaping huge benefits. my favorite example was in the field of home power usage: one town in california (can't remember which) started telling people whether they were above or below the town's average power consumption on their bill each month. those who were above average cut ...more
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05/11/09
Kevin
is currently reading it
A book co-written by Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor recently tapped by President Obama to become the administration's regulatory czar as the head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), describing the myriad ways in which choice architects control the world around us in subtle ways. The key philosophical term Thaler and Sunstein use to describe their system is "libertarian paternalism," which sounds so conflicted and ominous and Orwellian that ...more
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The authors of Nudge promote "libertarian paternalism" - basically, ways to guide or "nudge" people towards better decisions without taking away their freedom of choice. Nudges they espouse include providing decision makers with easy-to-understand information, creating incentives (market or other), and otherwise structuring choices so that real people are able to navigate some of the more complex decisions in life. The book discusses how nudges could help with issues includin...more
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Read in April, 2009
Bizarrely similar to software user interface design books I've read. The dominant message is "people are impatient and impulsive," and "set sensible defaults."
Some great low-hanging fruit as examples (fixing medicare part D so it defaults to saving seniors money, for one). It's written in a plain-talking style that assumes no political or philosophical knowledge, but that borders on condescending at times.
It's pretty hard to argue with the particulars ...more
Some great low-hanging fruit as examples (fixing medicare part D so it defaults to saving seniors money, for one). It's written in a plain-talking style that assumes no political or philosophical knowledge, but that borders on condescending at times.
It's pretty hard to argue with the particulars ...more
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12/05/08
Catherine
is currently reading it
I am in the middle of this book. I had to take it back to the library because I ran out of time and someone else wanted it. So I am still on the wait list to get it back. My main thought so far about this book is that it is sort of like that book Social Intelligence. I mean, a lot of the stuff in common sense really if you have ever thought about the subject. But it is interesting to have all the information together. And sometimes you have a moment where you are like, "Oh shit - I ne...more
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Good things about this book: It's cheerfully written; it gives basic yet oft-ignored investment and other financial advice (turns out Dad was right); its thesis is sensible and does unite right and left; one of the authors is advising President Obama. (Hm. Goodreads doesn't seem to recognize "Obama" as a word -- and now I see that Goodreads doesn't recognize "Goodreads" as a word!)
Less than impressive things about this book: It acts as if it's offering a panacea,...more
Less than impressive things about this book: It acts as if it's offering a panacea,...more
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Read in May, 2009
Add this to my extensive list of unfinished books.
It contained some interesting ideas, though in some ways nothing that we didn't already know from marketing, i.e. the way you display things or present choices to people effects their decision making.
The book posits that the benevolent people who display items for us, should, knowing what is best for us, create displays that cause us to lean in the direction of making the best decision for ourselves. Sounds kind of ins...more
It contained some interesting ideas, though in some ways nothing that we didn't already know from marketing, i.e. the way you display things or present choices to people effects their decision making.
The book posits that the benevolent people who display items for us, should, knowing what is best for us, create displays that cause us to lean in the direction of making the best decision for ourselves. Sounds kind of ins...more
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Read in January, 2009
This book essentially argues for a re-think of how the government and private companies design complex and important choices, such as the choice of a health care plan or a home mortgage. While the traditional free-market capitalist idea has simply been to maximize the number of options in any scenario, this design fails to recognize the limited knowledge and expertise and motivation that any given person is likely to have in the field of, say, investing for retirement.
The chief desi...more
The chief desi...more
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Read in May, 2008
I'll sound like an old lady for saying this but the text was super tiny. And it read like a text book, so only read it if you need a headache or are researching the topic.
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Read in January, 2009
Interesting ideas about how "choice architecture" or the way you structure the choices that people make about health, investment and social institutions, can influence outcomes. For instance, one researcher found that by moving the positions of various foods in school cafeterias, you could change by as much as 25% which foods the kids chose. (Putting fruit at eye level, rather than cake, for instance, does more than lecturing kids about calories and the risk of diabetes.) I found th...more
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01/05/09
Nathan King
is currently reading it
Read in January, 2009
Very interesting read from the emerging school of behavioral economics. The book seeks to answer the question, how do you design a product/service/government program that rewards the appropriate selection by the customer. In my line of work, our revenue depends on how successfully we persuade people to make good health choices. As we all know from our own lives, even though we nominally desire to not eat too much and to exercise regularly, we're not too good at it. What incentives do we need to ...more
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