Nudge

Nudge shows you how you can unconsciously make better decisions by designing your environment so it nudges you in the right direction every time temptation becomes greatest and thus build your own choice architecture in advance.

Have you ever been talked into going out by a friend, at first not wanting to go, but after she teased you a bit and you dressed up, you ended up having a really good time? That’s a nudge in action.

Used right, a nudge is a very small action or change in environment, which makes it easier for you to make the decision that’s best for you, without forcing you to decide a certain way.

For example, if the cafeteria put the fruits next to the registrar, and not the candy bars, you’d eat more bananas – simply because they’re easier to pick up. When the cashier at McDonald’s asks you “Do you want fries with that?” that’s also a nudge (but one in the wrong direction). The little flag some mailboxes have that turns up when mail is inside the box? Another nudge.

We’re being nudged all day, sometimes towards good decisions, sometimes towards bad ones. The cool thing is, you can design your environment in ways that more good nudges will happen, for example by installing blocking software to restrict access to distracting websites.

Sometimes, it’s possible to design situations where decisions need to be made in a way that if you decide automatically, you naturally make the right choice.

For example, if you send an email through Gmail and type something like “please find attached” or “I’ll attach the file” in the email’s body and you then forget to upload the actual attachment, Gmail automatically prompts you with the question “Did you want to send an attachment with this?” It’s a very situation-specific nudge, but it can save tons of time and frustration in the long run.

This particular type of nudge is called a default. Default nudges are set up in a way that if you do nothing, you’ll still do the right thing by sticking to the preset standard.

At scale, companies can use this by automatically enrolling their employees in their matching-retirement plan programs, unless they explicitly object to participating. This helps a lot of lazy people save for retirement because they would never have enrolled if they’d had to actively do it themselves.

Similarly, gyms and magazines abuse this by automatically renewing your subscription, unless you cancel it. Again, nudges can be used both ways.

Here’s a really basic way of describing how states work: if the majority of its members make good decisions, the welfare of the state grows. If the majority makes bad decisions,…