I like the word nudge. Maybe when I read about how Google uses the word to get things done - not by rules or coercion which make people passively or overtly aggressive but by gently creating an environment where the choice lies with the people whose behavior you are trying to influence. It could be from making behavioral changes that affect your health to your financial situation to society to the world. Rules and laws don't cut it as much as knowing the art of nudging. Teachers, mentors, coaches, governments, leaders etc will all benefit from knowing the art of nudging (which is the opposite of 'Libertarian Paternalism' - a manner we all resist).
The authors define Nudge as -
'A Nudge 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 (ideally it must be easy to do or access and cheap)'
To begin with the authors explain that all humans cannot be seen as having the same manner of self-preservation. In fact most humans don't know or don't care about many things that are most important to them and need to be given the right 'nudge' to behave in a certain manner that will positively influence their lives and that of the world around them. Most humans are not good at decision making because of their own biases, inability to resist temptation and a mentality of following the herd. The authors therefore segregate people into humans (real people who make stupid and irrational decisions) and econs (imaginary people who make all the right decisions and never give in to temptation etc). Humans who are susceptible to biases fall for any of these 1) following rules of thumb 2) anchoring bias (3) availablity bias 4) representative bias 5) unrealistic optimism 6) loss aversion 7) maintaining status quo 8) framing bias
There are false assumptions that we make like "people make their choices in their own best interests" (which we know is not true considering how we live, eat, exercise etc). There are misconceptions like "its possible to avoid influencing people's choices" and "paternalism involves coercion". Keeping these in mind the idea is to have good choice architecture (like in a school cafeteria which promotes healthy eating). God choice architecture creates a user friendly environment so people do what's good for them (like claiming the right benefits at work). Apparently the UK govt set up what they called a 'Behavioral Insights Team' to study how to influence behaviors.
The Daniel Kahneman theory of 'thinking fast, thinking slow' comes into play where he talks of the two systems that guide our behavior 1) the fast and intuitive thinking (system 1) and 2) the slow and reflective thinking (system 2). To influence behaviors one can think of ways to curb temptation (remove object of temptation), provide self-control strategies (daylight savings time), have mental accounting strategies (like Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman - apparently Hoffman asked Hackman for a loan to eat while he had many jar filled with money at home for rent and other stuff - the logic being that the food jar was empty).
One of the most effective ways to nudge the authors say is through social influence. Humans like to conform (as one sees in music downloads), act as groups when given the right information (masks during COVID) and when identity is brought in (Don't Mess with Texas as campaign at cleaning up Texas)
When is the right time to nudge? One must offer nudges that are most likely to help and least likely to harm. People need nudges when 1) decisions require scarce information 2) decisions are difficult 3) one does not get prompt feedback 4) there's trouble translating aspects of the situations into terms that they can easily understand and 5) in situation that are unfamiliar or rare.
To design the right choice environment we need to know a few things. 1) People forget, so when do we nudge and how often (checklists) 2) Benefits of now versus costs later (people have self-control issues), 3) degree of difficulty in that particular behavior 4) how effective is feedback 5) frequency of nudge when tough choices exist and 6) when people don't know what they like.
The principle is that when humans have problems, they might benefit from a nudge.
The default behaviors of humans seem to be to take the path of least resistance. People rarely get into the active choosing mode. Making a prompted choice is matters where they could forget will be one nudge (like Gmail sends a prompt when an attachment is forgotten). Its best to design choice architecture expecting an error (like gas tank caps in cars, medication). Enable people to snudge (self-nudge) themselves. Simplify. Make it easy.
One key is to ask the following questions - 1) who chooses 2) who uses 3) who pays 4) who profits
People adopt behaviors when they are made fun. Like the experiment where they made walking stairs in the metro fun by making those stairs musical. Design is all about making it fun.
The authors feel that people will make better decisions if sellers make Smart Disclosures - which are a set of policy rules meant both to solve the problem of fine print (too much information to process) and to facilitate better decision making by consumers.
As opposed to Nudge, the authors also talk of Sludge, which is a barrier to making good choices. Anything that makes it difficult - red tape, rules, forms etc. One must identify Sludge and try to make incremental progress.
Money Matters
The authors try to make this relevant by using Nudge examples that could help people make better financial choices. For example how does one save for retirement and how does one enable those enrollment decisions - can we make it easy and automatic when people are unable to choose so they benefit from an existing program? Like a 'Save More Tomorrow' campaign which seemed to have yielded good results. Giving default investment options and having target date funds is another way to save.
In choices where one borrows more today and pays later like mortgages and credit cards, they say make more informed choices. For example dealing with two brokers brings down costs considerably. Can use Tally which will make priority payments automatic so you don't end up paying huge penalties. In Insurance they say choose the largest deductibles.
Similar issues prevail in organ donation which is a sensitive matter but which can save lives if the concerned authorities chose the right ways to nudge the general public. The choices of routine removal, or presumed consent, or explicit consent, are difficult in different situations. Maybe prompted choice can help - such as signing up when people are getting their Driving Licenses.
....
It's a way of living creatively, of making things happen by a gentle process which cultivates ownership (and mostly results) rather than forcing things on people and saying things didn't happen. Its creative, its gentle, its about results which are good for society. Health, money, climate, relationships...Nudge is the way forward. Glad I I read this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment