Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness Paperback - 2009

Details

• Title Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
• Author Richard H. Thaler; Cass R. Sunstein
• Binding Paperback
• Edition Revised & Expand
• Pages 320
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Penguin Books, New York
• Date 2009-02-24
• Illustrated Yes
• ISBN 9780143115267 / 014311526X
• Weight 0.64 lbs (0.29 kg)
• Dimensions 8.44 x 5.4 x 0.8 in (21.44 x 13.72 x 2.03 cm)
• Library of Congress subjects Consumer behavior, Economics - Psychological aspects
• Dewey Decimal Code 330.019

Common "Nudges"

1. The design of menus gets you to eat (and spend) more. For example, lining up all prices on either side of the menu leads many consumers to simply pick the cheapest item. On the other hand, discretely listing prices at the end of food descriptions lets people read about the appetizing options first…; and then see prices.
2. "Flies" in urinals improve, well, aim. When Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was faced with the not uncommon issue of dirty urinals, they chose a unique solution: by painting "flies" in the (center of) commodes, men obligingly aimed at the insects, reducing spillage by 80 percent.
3. Credit card minimum payments affect repayment schedules. Among those who only partially pay off credit card balances each month, the repayment level is correlated with the card's minimum payment — in other words, the lower the minimum payment, the longer it takes a consumer to pay off the card balance.
4. Automatic savings programs increase savings rate. All over the country, companies are adopting the Save More Tomorrow program: firms offer employees who are not saving very much the option of joining a program in which their saving rates are automatically increased whenever they get a raise. This plan has more than tripled saving rates in some firms, and is now offered by thousands of employers.
5. "Defaults" can improve rates of organ donation. In the United States, about one–third of citizens have signed organ donor cards. Compare this to Austria, where 99 percent of people are potential organ donors. One obvious difference? Americans must explicitly consent to become organ donors (by signing forms, for example) while Austrians must opt out if they do not want to be organ donors.