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AbstractInsights from the behavioural sciences are increasingly used by governments and other organizations worldwide to 'nudge' people to make better decisions. Furthermore, a large philosophical literature has emerged on the ethical considerations on nudging human behaviour that has presented key challenges for the area, but is regularly omitted from discussion of policy design and administration. We present and discuss FORGOOD, an ethics framework that synthesizes the debate on the ethics of nudging in a memorable mnemonic. It suggests that nudgers should consider seven core ethical dimensions:Fairness,Openness,Respect,Goals,Opinions,OptionsandDelegation. The framework is designed to capture the key considerations in the philosophical debate about nudging human behaviour, while also being accessible for use in a range of public policy settings, as well as training.

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In this paper, I examine how nudges affect the autonomy and freedom of those nudged. I consider two arguments put forth by Thaler and Sunstein for the claim that these effects can only be minor. According to the first of these arguments, nudges cannot significantly restrict a person's autonomy or freedom since they are easy to resist. According to the second argument, the existence of nudges is inevitable, and thus, pursuing libertarian paternalism by nudging people doesn't make a relevant difference to people's autonomy and freedom. After arguing that both of these arguments fail, I elucidate the general conditions in which, and the degrees to which, a person's autonomy and freedom are affected by nudges. One focus of this discussion concerns how people's autonomy and freedom are affected if—for example, due to progress in information technology—nudges become more effective, more individualized and more common, and affect more people.

AbstractWhy are some nudges ineffective, or at least less effective than choice architects hope and expect? Focusing primarily on default rules, this essay emphasizes two reasons for this. The first involves strong antecedent preferences on the part of choosers. The second involves successful "counternudges," which persuade people to choose in a way that confounds the efforts of choice architects. Nudges might also be ineffective, and less effective than expected, for five other reasons: (1) some nudges produce confusion in the target audience; (2) some nudges have only short-term effects; (3) some nudges produce "reactance" (though this appears to be rare); (4) some nudges are based on an inaccurate (though initially plausible) understanding on the part of choice architects of what kinds of choice architecture will move people in particular contexts; and (5) some nudges produce compensating behavior, resulting in no net effect. When a nudge turns out to be insufficiently effective, choice architects have three potential responses: (1) do nothing; (2) nudge better (or differently); and (3) fortify the effects of the nudge, perhaps through counter-counternudges, or perhaps through incentives, mandates, or bans.

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This article introduces the concept of nudge – low-cost behaviourally informed modes of regulation that influence people's decisions without limiting their choice set – into the behavioural analysis of international law. It sketches out the pathways through which nudges might influence the behaviour of countries, and highlights the normative implications associated with utilizing these regulatory tools in the international arena. That done, the article presents numerous case studies that demonstrate how nudges such as defaults, goals and rankings are integrated into the international legal terrain.

Master i International Social Welfare and Health Policy ; Recently there has been growing interest in the use of "nudges" as a policy tool and their potential to solve some of society's biggest problems, such as obesity or climate change. Thaler and Sunstein in their influential book Nudge provide a broad but specific definition of "nudge", with the essence of nudging being changing the "choice architecture" or environment of people to influence behavior in ways that promote human welfare and protect freedom of choice. Nudges have a focus on how to influence behavior through engaging the "automatic system" of the human mind, and in ways that people are not always consciously aware. A major aim of the thesis is to examine what nudges are and how they work. Our approach is to examine the "mechanisms of change" that underlie the process from nudge to changed behavior. We categorise nudges as working through "core" mechanisms of change if they directly enters the "automatic system", harness social influence or appeal to our emotions. We categorise nudges that work through "peripheral" mechanisms of change as those that appeal more to the "reflective system" to influence behaviour change. We show how these mechanisms vary between nudges. In order to find out if nudges actually work and are cost effective, we selected a nudge for special investigation, namely prompted stair use interventions. We referred to systematic reviews and carried out our own small scale secondary evaluation of these interventions. We argued that it is not possible to make categorical statements as to whether this nudge works due to methodological weaknesses in these studies, particularly the lack of control group designs and lack of cost efficiency analyses. We argue the effective implementation of nudges may rely on traditional governance interventions, such as legal restrictions and information provision. Nudge has led to political initiatives in the form of the establishment of departments or committees in the UK, US and Norway to bring the "nudge" concept into policy making. We gathered empirical material, mainly through qualitative interviews, from members of a committee set up to advise and/or implement nudges in Lillehammer, Norway in order to compare to what extent we find similar issues related to what nudges are and how they work in this committee and in the academic literature. Similarities include awareness of nudge as a broad concept, an emphasis on nudges working at a 'semi-conscious' level as well as the importance of cost-effectiveness, generalizability and the value of control groups when evaluating nudges. A key difference was the limited reference to the ethical debate about nudges among committee members, in contrast to academic authors, perhaps because the former view nudges as small-scale interventions that aim to help people make better choices and do not raise serious ethical considerations. In conclusion we question whether "nudges" can in fact be defined as "libertarian" and "paternalistic", we call for public debates about the use of nudges and involvement in overcoming some of the ethical dilemmas nudges raise (particularly for those that work mainly through the automatic system) and enhance legitimacy. Finally we argue for more robust evaluation studies to build evidence base for this relatively new intervention. ; publishedVersion

AbstractConventional economic policy focuses on 'economic' solutions (e.g. taxes, incentives, regulation) to problems caused by market-level factors such as externalities, misaligned incentives and information asymmetries. By contrast, 'nudges' provide behavioural solutions to problems that have generally been assumed to originate from limitations in human decision making, such as present bias. While policy-makers have good reason for exploiting the power of nudges, we argue that these extremes leave open a large space of policy options that have received less attention in the academic literature. First, there is no reason that solution and problem need have the same theoretical basis: there are promising behavioural solutions to problems that have causes that are well explained by traditional economics, and conventional economic solutions often offer the best line of attack on problems of behavioural origin. Second, there is a wide range of hybrid policy actions with both economic and behavioural components (e.g. framing a tax or incentive in a specific way), and there exist many societal problems – perhaps the majority – that arise from both economic and behavioural factors (e.g. firms' exploitation of consumers' behavioural biases). This paper aims to remind policy-makers that behavioural economics can influence policy in a variety of ways, of which nudges are the most prominent but not necessarily the most powerful.

In areas such as health, environment, and energy consumption, there is a need to do better. A common goal in society is to get people to behave in ways that are sustainable for the environment or support a healthier lifestyle. Nudging is a term known from economics and political theory, for influencing decisions and behavior using suggestions, positive reinforcement, and other non-coercive means. With the extensive use of digital devices, nudging within a digital environment (known as digital nudging) has great potential. We introduce smart nudging, where the guidance of user behavior is presented through digital nudges tailored to be relevant to the current situation of each individual user. The ethics of smart nudging and the transparency of nudging is also discussed. We see a smart nudge as a recommendation to the user, followed by information that both motivates and helps the user choose the suggested behavior. This paper describes such nudgy recommendations, the design of a smart nudge, and an architecture for a smart nudging system. We compare smart nudging to traditional models for recommender systems, and we describe and discuss tools (or approaches) for nudge design. We discuss the challenges of designing personalized smart nudges that evolve and adapt according to the user&rsquo ; s reactions to the previous nudging and possible behavioral change of the user.

Source at https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies7020045 . ; In areas such as health, environment, and energy consumption, there is a need to do better. A common goal in society is to get people to behave in ways that are sustainable for the environment or support a healthier lifestyle. Nudging is a term known from economics and political theory, for influencing decisions and behavior using suggestions, positive reinforcement, and other non-coercive means. With the extensive use of digital devices, nudging within a digital environment (known as digital nudging) has great potential. We introduce smart nudging, where the guidance of user behavior is presented through digital nudges tailored to be relevant to the current situation of each individual user. The ethics of smart nudging and the transparency of nudging is also discussed. We see a smart nudge as a recommendation to the user, followed by information that both motivates and helps the user choose the suggested behavior. This paper describes such nudgy recommendations, the design of a smart nudge, and an architecture for a smart nudging system. We compare smart nudging to traditional models for recommender systems, and we describe and discuss tools (or approaches) for nudge design. We discuss the challenges of designing personalized smart nudges that evolve and adapt according to the user's reactions to the previous nudging and possible behavioral change of the user.

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on othersa concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy.

AbstractProfessor Sunstein (2017) discusses the possible causes for and policy implications of the failure of nudges, with special attention to defaults. Though he focuses on nudges that fail when they should succeed, Sunstein recognizes that some failures reveal that a nudge should not have been attempted to begin with. 'Nudges that fail', however, does not consider fully the relationship between the outcomes of nudging and their likely welfare effects, most notably neglecting the troubling case of nudges that succeed when they should fail. Hence, after clarifying the boundaries of legitimate nudging within a libertarian-paternalistic approach and noting the fourfold relationship between the efficacy of nudging and its normative desirability, this article evaluates more fully the case of failed nudges and examines the hitherto unaddressed problem of successful yet undesirable nudges. This analysis shows that the failure of nudging bears only limited diagnostic value, while the success of a nudge is even less indicative of its normative status. The article concludes with recommendations for policy-makers who wish to employ nudges that are not only efficacious, but also likely to advance the subjective well-being of the individuals they target.

Let's begin by addressing the most obvious question: given the vast number of books published on political science every year, why would the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) and its journalPolitics and the Life Sciencesexpend time, energy, and resources publishing a multiple-author analysis of a series of books that contain little (if anything) about the life sciences, Darwin, or evolution? The answer is that Cass R. Sunstein's recent research on "nudge science" provides an excellent opportunity for APLS to expand its commitment to interdisciplinarity, especially its long-standing interest in behavioral economics. Sunstein, a prolific author, has written many books and scholarly articles defending "libertarian paternalism." Libertarian critics have long argued that the conjunction of "libertarian" and "paternalism" is oxymoronic and that the "liberty principle" or the "principle of autonomy" excludes paternalistic intervention on behalf of rational, competent adults. Over the years, with varying degrees of success, Sunstein has addressed many, if not most, lines of criticism emanating from the political left and right. Like many scholars, his views have evolved over time based on that criticism. This introductory essay will focus on some of the more enduring elements of the conceptual framework and issues that underlie nudge science in the larger context of behavioral economics, including choice architecture, political bans and mandates, political nudges, ethics, and paternalistic intervention.

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others—a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy.