Nudge : improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness

Now available: Nudge: The Final Edition

The original edition of the multimillion-copy New York Times bestseller by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions--for fans of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, Charles Duhigg' s The Power of Habit, James Clear ' s Atomic Habits, and Daniel Kahneman' s Thinking, Fast and Slow

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times

Every day we make choices--about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children's health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible "choice architecture" to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.

• Acknowledgments p. vii
• Introduction p. I
• Part I Humans and Econs
• 1 Biases and Blunders p. 17
• 2 Resisting Temptation p. 40
• 3 Following the Herd p. 53
• 4 When Do We Need a Nudge? p. 74
• 5 Choice Architecture p. 83
• Part II Money
• 6 Save More Tomorrow p. 105
• 7 Naïve Investing p. 120
• 8 Credit Markets p. 134
• 9 Privatizing Social Security: Smorgasbord Style p. 147
• Part III Health
• 10 Prescription Drugs: Part D for Daunting p. 161
• 11 How to Increase Organ Donations p. 177
• 12 Saving the Planet p. 185
• Part IV Freedom
• 13 Improving School Choices p. 201
• 14 Should Patients Be Forced to Buy Lottery Tickets? p. 209
• 15 Privatizing Marriage p. 217
• Part V Extensions and Objections
• 16 A Dozen Nudges p. 231
• 17 Objections p. 239
• 18 The Real Third Way p. 255
• 19 Bonus Chapter: Twenty More Nudges p. 257
• Postscript: November 2008 p. 269
• Notes p. 272
• Bibliography p. 281
• Index p. 303

Common "Nudges" 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. "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. 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. 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. "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. Excerpted from Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.