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school children, like adults, can be greatly influenced by small changes in the context. The influence can be exercised for better or for worse.
A choice architect has the responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions.
A good building is not merely attractive; it also ‘works.’
The insight that ‘everything matters’ can be both paralyzing and empowering.
The libertarian aspect of our strategies lies in the straightforward insistence that, in general, people should be free to do what they like – and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so.
Libertarian paternalists want to make it easy for people to go their own way; they do not want to burden those who want to exercise their freedom.
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.
To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates.
‘planning fallacy’ –the systematic tendency toward unrealistic optimism about the time it takes to complete projects.
First, never underestimate the power of inertia. Second, that power can be harnessed.
a nudge is any factor that significantly alters the behavior of Humans,
Freedom to choose is the best safeguard against bad choice architecture.
Choice architects can make major improvements to the lives of others by designing user-friendly environments.
The approach involves a distinction between two kinds of thinking, one that is intuitive and automatic, and another that is reflective and rational.1 We will call the first the Automatic System and the second the Reflective System.
these two systems are sometimes referred to as System 1 and System 2,
Automatic System are associated with the oldest parts of the brain, the parts we share with lizards
The Reflective System is more deliberate and self-conscious.
One way to think about all this is that the Automatic System is your gut reaction and the Reflective System is your conscious thought.
If people can rely on their Automatic Systems without getting into terrible trouble, their lives should be easier, better, and longer.
Their original work identified three heuristics, or rules of thumb – anchoring, availability, and representativeness – and the biases that are associated with each. Their research program has come to be known as the ‘heuristics and biases’ approach to the study of human judgment.
anchors serve as nudges.
In many domains, the evidence shows that, within reason, the more you ask for, the more you tend to get.
most people use what is called the availability heuristic. They assess the likelihood of risks by asking how readily examples come to mind.
Accessibility and salience are closely related to availability, and they are important as well.
The third of the original three heuristics bears an unwieldy name: representativeness. Think of it as the similarity heuristic. The idea is that when asked to judge how likely it is that A belongs to category B, people (and especially their Automatic Systems) answer by asking themselves how similar A is to their image or stereotype of B (that is, how ‘representative’ A is of
If people are running risks because of unrealistic optimism, they might be able to benefit from a nudge. In fact, we have already mentioned one possibility: if people are reminded of a bad event, they may not continue to be so optimistic.
losing something makes you twice as miserable as gaining the same thing makes you happy.
When they have to give something up, they are hurt more than they are pleased if they acquire the very same thing.
loss aversion operates as a kind of cognitive nudge, pressing us not to make changes, even when changes are very much in our interests.
One of the causes of status quo bias is a lack of attention.
‘framing.’ The idea is that choices depend, in part, on the way in which problems are stated.
Framing works because people tend to be somewhat mindless, passive decision makers.
People adopt sensible rules of thumb that sometimes lead them astray. Because they are busy and have limited attention, they accept questions as posed rather than trying to determine whether their answers would vary under alternative formulations.
display behavior that is dynamically inconsistent.
self-control issues arise because we underestimate the effect of arousal.
This is something the behavioral economist George Loewenstein (1996) calls the ‘hot–cold empathy gap.’ When in a cold state, we do not appreciate how much our desires and our behavior will be altered when we are ‘under the influence’ of arousal.
Some parts of the brain get tempted, and other parts are prepared to enable us to resist temptation by assessing how we should react to the temptation.
Eating turns out to be one of the most mindless activities we do.
Large plates and large packages mean more eating; they are a form of choice architecture, and they work as major nudges.
adopt internal control systems, otherwise known as mental accounting
we try to understand how and why social influences work.
First, most people learn from others.
The second reason why this topic is important for our purposes is that one of the most effective ways to nudge (for good or evil) is via social influence.
Social influences come in two basic categories. The first involves information.
The second involves peer pressure.
The bottom line is that Humans are easily nudged by other Humans. Why? One reason is that we like to conform.
Unanimous groups are able to provide the strongest nudges
A little nudge, if it was expressed confidently, could have major consequences for the group’s conclusion.
The clear lesson here is that consistent and unwavering people, in the private or public sector, can move groups and practices in their preferred direction.
many groups fall prey to what is known as ‘collective conservatism’: the tendency of groups to stick to established patterns even as new needs arise.
