The studies that inform behavioral economics investigate an individual in the artificial setting of a university psychology lab, where the whole point is to isolate and control every variable. But this means she has been denuded of any environmental props she may rely on in everyday life. From the perspective of the extended-mind literature, it is not surprising that these studies show that we are poor reasoners in isolation. The fact that this artificial person has so little skill in practical reasoning is what authorizes the nudgers’ spirit of supervision.
