Nudging

Impacts Decision-Making

Holly Briggs

Oregon State University

Nudging is when a persons choice is not restricted but modified by the way a choice is

presented therefore changing behavior in a predictable manner. Choice architecture is the

concept of altering a situation to create a desired behavior but without limiting choice options. A
key characteristic of nudging is the idea that choices will be structured to promote welfare but it
is not structured to limit a persons amount of choices. Libertarian paternalism is another word
for this idea of structuring choice but not restraining it. Another important characteristic of
effective nudging is that it appeals to a more automatic thought system, often referred to as
system 1. The research in nudging and decision making explains how it works on a
psychological level, physiological level, as well as observes and discusses the different
mechanisms of nudging. Some fields that have researched the effectiveness of nudging include
motivational psychology, public health disciplines, and social psychology.
Humans are said to run on an automatic (system 1) and a logical (system 2) when
performing cognitive functions. This system theory can be extremely helpful in explaining the
decisions we make. System 1 is reliable in for decision making, until its not. System 1 can be
influenced by bias created from the desire to use the least amount of cognitive processing
possible. (Milkman, Chugh, & Bazerman, 2009). The automatic system is able to be swayed by
altering the environment in a way that leads to positive decision-making, a process called choice
architecture. Choice architecture is indirectly influencing the choices that other people make
through manipulating the way a choice is presented. An example that is often used is the location
of healthy food compared to unhealthy food on a shelf. As humans, the food on the shelf that is
easier to reach is the food that will be mindlessly, system 1 function, purchased. Therefore an
effective choice architecture would be putting the healthier food on a middle shelf, increasing its

sales. Notice, the unhealthy choice was not removed but it was simply moved to a location that
requires more work to access.
In their book Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2008) explain six principles of a
good choice architecture. The six principles are incentives, understand mapping, defaults, give
feedback, expect error, and structure complex choices. Considering each of these aspects creates
an effective nudge system that will help improve decision making in humans. The concept of
expecting error can be expressed by thinking about all of the systems that are in place to help
correct the small mistakes people make. An example Thaler and Sunstein (2008) use is the bell
that rings when seatbelts remain unbuckled while a car is moving. Feedback, like that annoying
seatbelt buzzer, is a good way to help people improve performance or decision making because it
informs humans of mistake but these feedback systems can also communicate when someone is
doing something well. Another concept that influences choice are the cognitive processes used to
make a decision when there are many options or it is a complex decision. These processes leave
room for error, through bias, therefore creating space for choice architecture to structure complex
choice and to be much more influential on choice (Fishbach & Hofmann, 2015). Concepts of
default considers that people will make a decision that requires little action. An example that is
routinely used is an opt-in program, when a person must choose to enroll in a program the
benefits are usually not experienced because enrolling requires action. This opt-out or opt-in
notion is crucial in libertarian paternalism discussions because it puts the person in a situation
where they are able to make different choice but most do not because of the extra action that is
required.
Libertarian paternalism (LP) is the act of increasing peoples welfare while still respecting
the right to free choice. It is done through several strategies of choice architecture that are

discussed above. Some suggestions for achieving LP institutionally are including cost or trivial
work for those who choose to depart from the option promoting well-being, influencing choice
through framing, and using institutional default rules or opt-out (Ploug, Holm, & Brodersen,
2012). Nudges essentially have an underlying policy of libertarian paternalism because the goal
of a nudge is to predictably alter behavior by employing choice architecture but not to restrict
choice in any way. Research has been done into LP and how different choice structures impact
the welfare of those being exposed to the influential construction. Discussions of the ethics
behind using LP have also been a strong presence, with most concerns being in the influence of
nudging and default options in the healthcare field. Cancer screenings are an example because
people are encouraged by insurance companies or governmental policies to get screened for
various types of cancer. Many of these programs are opt-out options meaning that there is an
automatic enrollment in the screening program and opting out often carries other consequences
like guilt, trivial paperwork, potential fine, and tense social situations justifying an opt-out
decision. Other issues with a default enrollment can be the looming threat of misdiagnosis which
would be considered causing more harm than welfare (Ploug, Holm, & Brodersen, 2012).
Ultimately, the use of nudges can help improve the decision-making of humans but it must be
carefully executed as to not limit choice or negatively impacts others.
Nudge research is often performed when intending to improve a health related behavior.
A common behavior that is identified as needing improvement is healthy eating. Often unhealthy
foods are consumed over healthy foods because of their convenience (Hanks, Just, Smith &
Wansink, 2012). Convenience being things that make the food more readily accessible.
Unhealthy foods have characteristics, like prepackaging or availability in more stores, that make
them quick and easy therefore more desirable. The reason convenience is appealing is the

psychological biases towards making choice, in this case food. Status quo bias, also known as
selecting the default, would effect the types of food choice by making the common choice (good
or bad). Sunk cost fallacy, eating to get moneys worth, can play a role in the decision of amount
of food to be consumed (Hanks et al., 2012). Another bias that can effect the desire or reward
perceived from a food is the availability of the food. A study observed this effect by looking at
reward systems under fMRI scanner while a participant was shown pictures of foods that were
available for consumption after the scan or not available for consumption after the scan. In some
trials participants were able to choose a goodie from a list and then consume food during the
scan (Blechert, Klackl, Miedl, & Wilhelm, 2016). Similarly, research has investigated the effects
of convenience of a food in the lunchroom on healthy food consumption. Knowing if students
select more healthy foods by just simply being nudged to do is valuable in the combat against
childhood obesity. In the study performed there were two lines in a lunchroom, one that served
both the healthy option (sandwich bar, salad, fruit, flavored milk) and the unhealthy option
(prepackaged sandwich, chicken burger, tacos), the other line served only the healthy options
(Hanks et al., 2012). Availability and convenience seem to play similar roles because when a
food is more available, indicating immediate access to it, or is more convenient, meaning that
ideas of quick and easy become associated with the food, the food choice becomes simple. The
goal of pubic health is to use these concepts to nudge students in a lunchroom or families at a
grocery store towards more healthy food decisions. The results of the study using fMRI scanners
to look at the reward systems during varying levels of food availability showed, overall, that
when a food is available for consumption directly after the scan parts of the brain associated with
reward were more active than when shown foods that were not available for later consumption.
These available foods also ranked higher on liking and palatability scales than the non-available

foods (Blechert et al., 2016). In the research examining the effects of convenience on healthy
choice results showed that when healthy foods are created to be more quickly and easily
accessed they are chosen more. Though these healthy foods were chosen more often, according
to before and after weights of consumption, more healthy food was not consumed but
significantly less unhealthy food was consumed (Hanks et al., 2012). The nudging significantly
reduced the amount of unhealthy foods being consumed implicating that these nudges can help
reduce unhealthy food consumption. Considering these results, students were likely nudged to
take these healthy food options but preference for what foods are liked still did not change.
Making a food more available will result in a stronger desire to consume it and creating more
convenient access to healthy food options will result in better food choices, but may not lead to
healthier food consumption.
A different aspect of nudging that has gained research in multiple fields of psychology is
the effectiveness of different kinds of nudges. Looking at the different ways to alter choice
architecture and then considering the effects it has on participants immediately and in the long
term, as well as the awareness of the nudge can expose some of the effective and inadequate
choice structures. One study performed by Fishbach and Hofmann looked at the effects of
nudging people to prepare for obstacles on goal progress or the decision to work towards
something. This research looks to figure out if nudging people to increase there capacity to
ignore temptation by identifying potential obstacles then creating a plan will increase decisionmaking in the context that participants will work faster and harder towards a goal. The nudges
were delivered through a text message system that prompted them to take a survey, answer some
questions, and to write in a progress journal at night (Fishbach & Hofmann, 2015). Such research
allows an understanding of the effectiveness of smart phones as a nudge mechanism because the

results will show how impactful using technology to nudge participants to self control can be.
Participants of Fishbach and Hofmann (2015) were split into three groups, the control group (C)
who received no instruction, the anticipation group (A) that was told to predict obstacles to goal
achievement, and the anticipation and resolution group (AR) told to predict obstacles as well as
create definitive plans to achieve the daily goals. All participants were asked to report on their
daily goals, with four goals a day. Through out the day participants received four texts at even
time intervals that either gave them irrelevant questions or goal assessment questions. Depending
on what group (C, A or AR) the person is in these assessment questions gave no instruction,
instruction to just anticipate, or instructions to anticipate and create resolutions. The group that
was asked to anticipate obstacles and the control group saw no improvement in goal progress
from these nudge texts. Participants in the AR group saw increased goal progress only in a
highly challenging goal domain. The validity of the text message nudge was confirmed through
the lack of response bias with 99% of all surveys that were started being completed (Fishbach &
Hofmann, 2015). Proving that cell phones act as adequate nudge delivery devices. The idea of
this type of motivational nudge and its effectiveness on complex tasks utilizes the six principles
that Thaler and Sunstein (2008) cited as being important to good architecture. Structuring the
complex task made participants more susceptible to nudges that increased goal progress and a
system that allowed participants to except error by identifying obstacles, and give feedback
created a successful nudge system.
Another mechanism of nudge delivery is physical infrastructure in contrast to the typical
educational messages that can be expensive and requires access to resources that some do not
have. Researchers investigate the effects of altering paved pathways and painting guiding
footprints on changing the hand washing behaviors of young school children (Dreibelis, Kroeger,

Hossain, Venkatesh, & Ram, 2016). Such a study aims to figure out if behaviors can be changed
without specifically instructing or educating on hand washing behaviors. An important result
from this study will be the long term habits of and the effect of nudging on young children. The
study began with simply observing current hand washing patterns in school then by observing
patterns one day after each phase of the infrastructure was implemented and lastly two and six
weeks after all three phases (washing station, footpaths, and paintings) were in place (Dreibelis
et al., 2016). This experimental design allowed for analysis of which parts of the new hand
washing structure were most influential in nudging the students toward hand washing. At
baseline only 4% of students washed their hands, with the stations built 18 % were washing their
hands, once the footpaths were introduced it increased to 58% of students washing their hands
after use of the restroom. Eventually the numbers reached 74% of students washing their hands
and it remained at this number at the six-week mark showing that these nudges did not lose
effect on the students (Dreibelis et al., 2016). These results demonstrate that an inexpensive,
environmental cue is effective in altering behavior for the welfare of the population and that the
effects of a nudge do not diminish quickly, potentially, they help create new habits in young
children.
Nudges come from environmental cues as was just discussed in the above research. Our
environment can become an influence into the decisions humans make based on location of a
hand washing statement, the color on a wall calls a memory then influencing choice, or by the
people in the environment around us. Social norms and friendships play a large role in
influencing decision making (Chan, Tong, & Moh, 2012; Aldrovandi, Brown, & Wood, 2015). A
study investigated the influence of friendship concepts on risk decision-making by priming
participants with the name of a friend to activate friendship concepts then have them participate

in a task the involved blowing up a balloon and gaining points each pump but if the balloon
exploded from too many pumps all the chips would be lost, therefore each pump is considered
participation in a risk taking decision (Chan, Tong, & Moh, 2012). Some participants were
primed with the name of a friend while others were primed with irrelevant woods to act as a
control group. The participants whose choice was altered by the activation of friend concepts
were much more likely to decide to participate in more risk taking behaviors. Such a study is an
example of how our behaviors can be nudged by social settings.
A similar study aims to also investigate how susceptible our judgments are to social
influence but this study looks at how a rank-based system is influenced by social norms. These
rank-based ideas operate using relative judgment by comparing a self rank to the ranks that are
perceived for others (Aldrovandi, Brown, & Wood, 2015). An example of relative judgment,
when identifying the healthier sandwich between two sandwiches. In the store there can be a
sandwich that has all calorie and nutritional information but no sandwich to compare with so we
draw on memory to make a judgment on the healthiness of this sandwich relative to other things
like a salad. An error can be made here when memory is inaccurate, like overestimation of
caloric value or only remembering that one sandwich that had an abnormally large amount of
calories therefore skewing the choice that will be made. The study by Aldrovandi, Brown, and
Wood (2015) explained how depending on what surrounds a value, the rank of the same value
point can change. In their research there is distribution A and distribution B and the same
number can rank at 7 in A and then at 10 in B just based on what other numbers are in the
context. Rank-based decision making is influenced by social norms when the social norms vary.
This rank based concept was then used in behavioral nudging by presenting participants with
either their rank-based normative information or mean-based nudging (Aldrovandi et al., 2015).

A rank-based normative point is considering the participants consumption in comparison with

the actual level of consumption of others while mean based uses the mean consumption levels of
others compared to the participants. These results showed that those nudged with rank based
normative information were more likely to increase purchasing behavior in healthy food options.
Evidence that rank-based models in social interventions are much more effective when using
personal rank-relevant information instead of just the average. Also consistent with a previously
discussed study about how friendship concepts or social influence can nudge the decisions we
make due to the mere fact the humans wish to be included.
Nudging can be done with different kinds of delivery systems like environmental cues,
social norms, text message reminders, and by appealing to a more automatic processing. Creating
choice architecture that does not limit choice but guides behavior to a desired goal can be useful.
Research into choice architectures role in advertising, public health, policy making and many
other fields has been done but only in the short term. What are the effects of nudging long term?
Do the wear over long periods of time or can nudging promote habit creation that will stay for a
lifetime? Will these long term effects be different if the nudge is performed at a young age
versus and old age? One study by Dreibelis et al., (2016) scrapped over these topics but failed to
observe the effects dependent on age and time. The results of a longitudinal study that consider
age at time of nudge, type of nudge, the ability for the nudge to over time create habit, and
ultimately look at the long term effects of a nudge can be pivotal in education and health
programs because it could help to develop better health habits by using automatic processing
systems instead of appealing to system 2 processes with educational programming.
Understanding the most effective age of nudging can be extremely helpful in figuring out when
to expose people to specific kinds of nudges. For example, with obesity being so prevalent in

America knowing when a nudge is most effective for long term change can be vital to preventing
obesity and fostering better eating habits through nudges experienced at school and in the
grocery stores. Having the knowledge of if a nudge can even create habit would also be helpful
because if it is possible implementing a nudge to help with things like quitting smoking or
motivating ourselves would be beneficial. Lastly, deciphering what type of nudge (text,
environmental, educational, etc) is most effective will just help achieve maximum result from the
above examples.
The process of conducting a study like this would be expensive and hard due to having
many variables. It may be best to split these studies into multiple events. Creating a study to test
which nudge mechanism is best could be done by identifying a target behavior and then creating
nudges in many different mechanisms. Researching the ability to create habit from nudges can be
done by implementing a nudge for a predetermined amount of time, observing behavior, then
removing the nudge and examining if the target behavior still remains at the same levels as with
the nudge present. Unfortunately longitudinal studies are hard because of high drop out rates or
noncompliance rates and they are expensive to run. The good news is that longitudinal research
and age go very well together. A way to explore the concept of long lasting effects of nudges and
to observe the effects at different ages would be to identify a target behavior and then implement
nudges at different ages for groups of people. Next, leaving the nudge present the same amount
of time for each group until this point, remove the nudge from half of each age group and see
how long the target behaviors continue. This can reveal the effects of age on lasting effects of
nudging as well as showing patterns in how long a nudge will influence behavior. Once all of
this information is obtained it can be used to change healthcare programs, influence the way
schools teach, and even refine policies so they are better able to encourage the best choice.

References
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