Pierre Chandon, L’Oreal Chaired Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity, INSEAD and Director of the INSEAD-Sorbonne University Behavioural Lab I was about to give a talk at the Harvard School of Public Health when a distinguished nutritionist came to me and told me that he believed that the CEOs of Coca-Cola, Pepsico, General Mills, … More Epicurean Nudging: Pleasure as a path to healthier eating
In a February 2018 LSE lecture on climate change Cass Sunstein highlighted a problem of “solution aversion”; the phenomenon that people deny problems when averse to solutions. Titled, ‘Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief,’ and written by then PhD student Troy Campbell and Professor Aaron Kay the paper became Duke University’s most viewed research press release when it was released in 2014. In this blog, Troy Campbell, now a professor at the University of Oregon, explains the problematic phenomena, the nuances, extensions, and the many potential solutions to solution aversion. https://today.duke.edu/2014/11/mediasolutions … More Solution Aversion
Cass Sunstein and Lucia Reisch argue that the design of everyday things can be taken as a guidebook for policymakers; simplicity and intuitiveness of design lead to “sludge reduction” … More Reducing Sludge at Six
Maya-Bar-Hillel and Cass Sunstein explore problems of navigability: Humans do not know how to get to their preferred destination. Much work in behavioral economics (including that by 2017 Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler) can be seen as an exploration of the challenges that people face in navigating complex situations, and the imperfect strategies they develop to meet those challenges. The Grand Hotel in Stockholm, which plays annual host to the Nobel laureates and many of their guests, lives up to its name, but in illuminating ways, creates problems of navigability for those who stay there. This essay, written by two of Richard Thaler’s guests, explores some of those problems, with general observations about choice architecture, bathroom design, heterogeneity, and navigability. … More Baffling bathrooms: On navigability and choice architecture
By Christie Hurrell, Paul Pival, and Kathryn Ruddock , University of Calgary Library Can small incentives act as effective “nudges” to encourage researchers to adopt open behaviours in the scholarly communications process? A recent article by Maynard and Munafo in Behavioural Public Policy suggests a number of such small incentives at a variety of stages in the … More When open research won’t be nudged by a badge: The case for sticks and carrots
By Tony Hockley, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) In his article for the journal the former head of the UK civil service, Gus O’Donnell bemoans “the challenge of making nudge attractive to politicians”. In the same piece he recommends that the leading article by Sanders et al should be be … More Too little, or too much, politician interest in Nudge?
Charity governance expert Robert Meadowcroft argues that the sector is fast adapting to the challenge (and opportunity) of behavioural fundraising … More Charity culture & governance are fast adapting to behavioural fundraising
Lisa Genetian makes the case that that behavioural economics provides a valuable means to thread together parallel theories of parenting, and thus improve understanding of child development. … More More than time and money: Behavioural economics and child development
“The devil is in the details” when it comes to measuring and understanding health care quality, argues Richard Scheffler in his reponse to the May 2018 article by Barasz & Ubel … More Your Money or The Quality of Your Life
Tony Culyer responds to the article in the May 2018 issue of the journal on market failures in health, by Barasz & Ubel. Whilst agreeing with the analysis, Culyer argues that the spotlight needs to be turned on the policy prescription. If the answer is collective intervention, then what principles should guide collective agencies? … More A Word in Praise of Collective Consumerism
