choice architecture

The Three Laws of Human Behavior

Human behavior is remarkably complicated. And yet, just as Newton's laws of motion distill three fundamental truths about the physical world, the three laws of human behavior describe three fundamental truths of human behavior: People tend to stick to the status quo unless the forces of friction or fuel push us them off their path; behavior is a function of the person and their environment; every decision includes tradeoffs and the potential for unintended consequences.

Good for Some, Bad for Others: The Welfare Effects of Nudges

Nudges have become popular policy instruments, for good reasons. However, recent studies show they might sometimes backfire or cause undesired distributional effects – differing impacts across people. Such studies highlight the importance of careful policy analysis that examines both the average and distributional impacts of nudges.

Supporting Decision-Making under Uncertainty: Nudging, Boosting or Both?

Heuristics play an important role in daily judgments and decision-making, but a scientific debate has been ongoing as to whether heuristics result in systematic errors or make us smarter. Both approaches have resulted in tools to support decision-making. Nudges address systematic errors and biases, while boosts support informed decision-making under uncertainty. But can these two opposing approaches be integrated into one framework?

Nudges in Personal Finance: The Case of Overdrafts

Unarranged overdrafts are financial products which help personal current account holders deal with outstanding balances or declined payments. However, consumers have the tendency to use these products too often, underestimating their negative financial consequences. Concerned by their financial well-being, the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom has begun to address the issue through the application of nudges.

Using Multiple Social Nudges to Reduce Peak Energy Demand

Can multiple social nudges be combined to achieve behavior change in electricity consumption? Find out in this post.

Why We’re Loving It: The Psychology Behind the McDonald’s Restaurant of the Future

Insights into the innovative behavioural design that underpins McDonald’s reinvention.

What is the Future of Behavioral Research and Large-scale Nudges? Five Practical Tips

By Nathan Maddix   Can Nudging Overcome Physics Envy? As is now well-known, tremendous results have been found for nudges – behavioral interventions designed to facilitate choice for welfare-promoting outcomes. In my work over the last 5 years, I have sought not only to design and administer nudges, but also to understand how economists and [...]

A Nudge in the Green Direction

Despite good intentions, environmentally friendly attitudes do not always translate into corresponding food choices (the so-called intention-behavior gap). To investigate the potential benefits of behavioral nudges, the Flemish government’s Environmental, Nature and Energy Department, together with its partners, conducted tests in several retail locations. The results of our research are reported in this post.

Five Reasons Why We Compromise Our Privacy Online

Historically, most of us have been concerned about information privacy on the internet. But when it comes to our actual behavior, many of us liberally share personal information online, a finding termed the ‘privacy paradox’ in the academic literature. Why this apparent gap between attitudes and behavior?

Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven

By Benjamin Voyer   Out of all the areas of public life that can benefit from the applications of behavioural economics (BE) principles, healthcare is probably the one where it can make the biggest societal contribution. There are two main reasons why the healthcare industry should welcome (more!) BE insights. The first reason is that many [...]

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