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Showing posts with label Nudge Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nudge Theory. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Nudge or Grudge? Choice Architecture and Parental Decision‐Making

Jennifer Blumenthal‐Barby and Douglas J. Opel
The Hastings Center Report
Originally published March 28, 2018

Abstract

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein define a nudge as “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.” Much has been written about the ethics of nudging competent adult patients. Less has been written about the ethics of nudging surrogates’ decision‐making and how the ethical considerations and arguments in that context might differ. Even less has been written about nudging surrogate decision‐making in the context of pediatrics, despite fundamental differences that exist between the pediatric and adult contexts. Yet, as the field of behavioral economics matures and its insights become more established and well‐known, nudges will become more crafted, sophisticated, intentional, and targeted. Thus, the time is now for reflection and ethical analysis regarding the appropriateness of nudges in pediatrics.

We argue that there is an even stronger ethical justification for nudging in parental decision‐making than with competent adult patients deciding for themselves. We give three main reasons in support of this: (1) child patients do not have autonomy that can be violated (a concern with some nudges), and nudging need not violate parental decision‐making authority; (2) nudging can help fulfill pediatric clinicians’ obligations to ensure parental decisions are in the child's interests, particularly in contexts where there is high certainty that a recommended intervention is low risk and of high benefit; and (3) nudging can relieve parents’ decisional burden regarding what is best for their child, particularly with decisions that have implications for public health.

The info is here.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Hostile environment: The dark side of nudge theory

Nick Barrett
politics.co.uk
Originally posted May 1, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Just as a website can use a big yellow button to make buying a book or signing up to a newsletter inviting, governments can use nudge theory to make saving money for your pension easy and user-friendly. But it can also establish its own dark patterns too and the biggest government dark pattern of all is the hostile environment policy established in 2012 to encourage migrants to leave the country.

The policy meant that without the right paperwork, people were deprived of health services, employment rights and access to housing and effectively excluded from mainstream society. They were not barred. The circumstances were simply created to nudge them into leaving the country.

For six years the hostile environment persecuted the least visible among us. It was only when its effects on the Windrush generation were revealed that the policy’s inherent prejudice became clear to all. What could once be seen as firm but fair suddenly looked cruel and unusual. These measures might have been defensible if the legal migration process hadn’t been turned into a painfully punitive process for anybody arriving from outside of the EU.

The information is here.

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Why It's OK Behavioral Economics Failed To Prevent Heart Attacks

Peter Ubel
Forbes.com
Originally published January 31, 2018

Here are two excerpts:

To increase the chance people will take these important pills, a team out of the University of Pennsylvania created a behavioral economic incentive. The intervention was multipronged. It included enrolling patients in lotteries, which gave them a chance to win money every day they took their pills. It encouraged patients to enlist a friend to help them stay on track taking their pills, a friend who would get notified every time they skipped their medications for a few days in a row.

But the intervention failed — it neither increased adherence to medications nor reduced hospitalizations for heart attacks. These results are shown in the figure below, which, despite appearances, shows two lines, representing the intervention group and the control group, respectively; the lines practically merge into one...

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Sometimes behavioral economics is criticized for being over-hyped, for being touted as the answer to all our behavioral problems. I’ve been one of those critics. But my beef isn’t with behavioral economists — my research frequently draws upon insights from that field. My issue is with people who think of behavioral economics as some kind of magic wand we can wave over stubbornly harmful behavior. Changing people’s behavior is hard to do, especially without resorting to draconian measures.

We need to keep experimenting with ways to help people take care of their health.

The article is here.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?

Shlomo Benartzi, John Beshears, Katherine L. Milkman, and others
Psychological Science 
Vol 28, Issue 8, pp. 1041 - 1055
First Published June 5, 2017

Abstract

Governments are increasingly adopting behavioral science techniques for changing individual behavior in pursuit of policy objectives. The types of “nudge” interventions that governments are now adopting alter people’s decisions without coercion or significant changes to economic incentives. We calculated ratios of impact to cost for nudge interventions and for traditional policy tools, such as tax incentives and other financial inducements, and we found that nudge interventions often compare favorably with traditional interventions. We conclude that nudging is a valuable approach that should be used more often in conjunction with traditional policies, but more calculations are needed to
determine the relative effectiveness of nudging.

The article is here.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Is There a Right Way to Nudge? The Practice and Ethics of Choice Architecture

Evan Selinger and Kyle Whyte
Sociology Compass, Vol. 5, No. 10, pp. 923-935

Abstract

What exactly is a nudge, and how do nudges differ from alternative ways of modifying people's behavior, such as fines or penalties (e.g. taxing smokers) and increasing access to information (e.g. calorie counts on restaurant menus)? We open Section 2 by defining the concept of a nudge and move on to present some examples of nudges. Though there is certainly a clear concept of what a nudge is, there is some confusion when people design and talk about nudges in practice. In Sections 3 and 4, then, we discuss policies and technologies that get called nudges mistakenly as well as borderline cases where it is unclear whether people are being nudged. Understanding mistaken nudges and borderline cases allows citizens to consider critically whether they should support “alleged” nudge policies proposed by governments, corporations, and non-profit organizations. There are also important concerns about the ethics of nudging people's behavior. In Section 5 we review some major ethical and political issues surrounding nudges, covering both public anxieties and more formal scholarly criticisms. If nudges are to be justified as an acceptable form of behavior modification in democratic societies, nudge advocates must have reasons that allay anxieties and ethical concerns. However, in Section 6, we argue that nudge advocates must confront a particularly challenging problem. A strong justification of nudging, especially for pluralistic democracies, must show that nudge designers really understand how different people re-interpret the meaning of situations after a nudge has been introduced into the situations. We call this the problem of “semantic variance.” This problem, along with the ethical issues we discussed, makes us question whether nudges are truly viable mechanisms for improving people's lives and societies. Perhaps excitement over their potential of nudges is exaggerated.

The article is here.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded to American Richard Thaler

David Gauthier-Villars in Stockholm and Ben Leubsdorf in Washington
The Wall Street Journal
Originally posted October 9, 2017

Here are two excerpts:

Mr. Thaler “has given us new insight into how human psychology shapes decision-making,” the academy said.

Asked to describe the takeaway from his research, Mr. Thaler told the academy and reporters: “The most important lesson is that economic agents are humans and that economic models have to incorporate that.”

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“I’ll try to spend it as irrationally as possible,” Mr. Thaler said.

The article is here.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Re: Nudges in a Post-truth World

Guest Post: Nathan Hodson
Journal of Medical Ethics Blog
Originally posted July 19, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

As Levy notes, some people are concerned that nudges present a threat to autonomy. Attempts at reconciling nudges with ethics, then, are important because nudging in healthcare is here to stay but we need to ensure it is used in ways that respect autonomy (and other moral principles).

The term “nudge” is perhaps a misnomer. To fill out the concept a bit, it commonly denotes the use of behavioural economics and behavioural psychology to the construction of choice architecture through carefully designed trials. But every choice we face, in any context, already comes with a choice architecture: there are endless contextual factors that impact the decisions we make.

When we ask whether nudging is acceptable we are asking whether an arbitrary or random choice architecture is more acceptable than a deliberate choice architecture, or whether an uninformed choice architecture is better than one informed by research.

In fact the permissibility of a nudge derives from whether it is being used in an ethically acceptable way, something that can only be explored on an individual basis. Thaler and Sunstein locate ethical acceptability in promoting the health of the person being nudged (and call this Libertarian Paternalism — i.e. sensible choices are promoted but no option is foreclosed). An alternative approach was proposed by Mitchell: nudges are justified if they maximise future liberty. Either way the nudging itself is not inherently problematic.

The article is here.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?

Dirk Helbing, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer,  and others
Scientific American
Originally posted February 25, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

One thing is clear: the way in which we organize the economy and society will change fundamentally. We are experiencing the largest transformation since the end of the Second World War; after the automation of production and the creation of self-driving cars the automation of society is next. With this, society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.

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These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics. Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behaviour by means of a "nudge"—a modern form of paternalism. The new, caring government is not only interested in what we do, but also wants to make sure that we do the things that it considers to be right. The magic phrase is "big nudging", which is the combination of big data with nudging. To many, this appears to be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes. Could this overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world? If so, then citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.

The article is here.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Nudges in a Post-Truth World

Neil Levy

Abstract

Nudges – policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour – are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned. I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.

The article is here.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Good News! You're Not an Automaton

By Cass R. Sunstein
Bloomberg View
Originally published March 30, 2016

A good nudge is like a GPS device: A small, low-cost intervention that tells you how to get where you want to go -- and if you don’t like what it says, you're free to ignore it. But when, exactly, will people do that? A new study sheds important light on that question, by showing the clear limits of nudging. Improbably, this research is also good news: It shows that when people feel strongly, it’s not easy to influence them to make choices that they won’t like.

The focus of this new research, as with much recent work on behavioral science, is on what people eat. Numerous studies suggest that if healthy foods are made more visible or convenient to find, more people will choose them. We tend to make purchasing decisions quickly and automatically; if certain foods or drinks -- snickers bars, apples, orange juice -- are easy to see and grab, consumption will jump.

The article is here.

Note: The podcast on nudge theory and how it applies to psychotherapy can be found here.