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Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard Thaler
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Synopses & Reviews Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself. Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that takes our humanness as a given. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful “choice architecture” can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new takefrom neither the left nor the righton many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative books to come along in many years. Review: Leonard Mlodinow has had, to speak informally, a pretty random career: He earned a Ph.D. in physics from Berkeley, wrote for "MacGyver" and "Star Trek" and has now settled down as a science popularizer. A far more sober instance of randomness, however, underpins his new book, "The Drunkard's Walk." And it's not hard to see it as a sort of Rosebud, explaining why the author finds unpredictability ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) so compelling. During World War II in the Nazi death-camp Buchenwald, his father and other starving inmates had been told they'd be killed one-by-one until someone confessed to stealing some bread that had gone missing. Upon confessing, Mlodinow's guilty father was not executed, as expected, but promoted to serve as the chef's assistant. A different capricious decision then, and the author Leonard Mlodinow would not exist today. It's been said that what divides liberals and conservatives is the degree to which each thinks luck plays a role in where one ends up in life. For Mlodinow, "There but for the grace of God" is a mathematical (if not theological) truth. In "A Drunkard's Walk," which takes its title from scientific slang for a purely random succession of events, Mlodinow argues that it is quintessentially human to stamp the results of largely arbitrary processes as, in retrospect, inevitable. Shifting from his own family's encounters with fate, for example, he notes that it is hard to imagine a world without "Harry Potter," yet publishers rejected J.K. Rowling's manuscript nine times before someone finally said yes. There's a self-helpish lesson here: Whether we succeed in life is partly out of our hands — think of the other worthy authors whose manuscripts languish in desk drawers — but by persisting we offer lightning more chances to strike. Sandwiched in this book between a morally freighted opening and conclusion is a primer on the science of probability. "Probability is the very guide of life," Cicero wrote. If so, most of us are mapless. We put our money in the hands of moneymen with the best records over the past (say) five years, ignoring research that demonstrates that these big-swinging stockpickers are as likely as their peers to wind up at the bottom of the pile over the next five-year period. Even the scientifically literate can be confounded by probability. Mlodinow once tested positive for HIV, at which point his doctor sadly told him that there was a 99.9 percent chance he had a death sentence. But the doctor had failed to properly balance the 1-in-1,000 chance of a false positive against the 1 in 10,000 chance that a man in Mlodinow's demographic (heterosexual, married, white, non-IV-drug-user) had the virus. Within that group, only 1 in 11 people who test positive is truly infected; Mlodinow wasn't. Once in a while, Mlodinow sends you scurrying for a statistics textbook when he ventures into deeper mathematical waters or skips steps in his explanations, but when things get slow, there's usually a diverting historical detour. This is the kind of book in which you learn that Pascal, after he set aside his work on statistics, took to wearing "an iron belt with points on the inside so that he was in constant discomfort," lest the siren song of happiness tempt him. "Nudge," in contrast, is a much more policy-oriented book. It comes with substantial advance publicity, thanks in part to the imprimatur of Sen. Barack Obama, who has embraced some of the authors' proposals, which are underpinned by libertarian paternalism. ("Paternalism" because the authors want to steer people to make better choices; "libertarian" because they feel people should still be free to make bad ones.) Like Mlodinow, Richard Thaler, a pioneer of so-called behavioral economics, and Cass Sunstein, a noted law professor, discuss numerous studies that show just how far short humans fall from the ideal of homo economicus. Inertia, herd behavior, ignorance of odds, and egotism conspire to cause people to make bad decisions and poor predictions. (Typically, only 5 percent of Thaler's business school students say that they will end up in the bottom half of his class.) Thaler and Sunstein's best-known proposal has to do with 401(k) plans. When people fail to sign up for such plans, they are leaving money on the table — especially when employers match employees' contributions — not to mention raising the odds they'll be subsisting on chunk light tuna in retirement. One study found that enrolling workers automatically in these plans — switching from an "opt in" system to "opt out" — drove participation in the plans from 65 percent to 98 percent. In the arena of organ donation, switching to an opt-out system could save thousands of lives annually. One study in Iowa found that 97 percent of residents supported organ transplantation, yet only 43 percent of those people had checked the relevant box on their driver's license application. That gap could be closed if participation in organ-donor programs were the default position. If opt-in seems too aggressive when it comes to bodily organs, even a "forced choice" could improve the situation. Demanding that people give a clear yes or no would surely raise the number of donors, given the popularity of the concept. Some nudges might be purely informational. How much of the current mortgage crisis would have been averted had prospective homeowners been presented with a clear, readable document laying out some of the bad-case scenarios when their low, teaser interest rates ended? And there's more! What about a debit card explicitly reserved for charitable donations, which would make it a cinch to keep track of tax deductions and encourage more giving? Or software that detects uncivil language in your e-mail and asks if you really want to send it? In the end, it must be said, the profusion of proposals in "Nudge," however worthy, and the countless summaries of studies supporting them grow a bit wearisome. As influential as the book is likely to be, it's hard to imagine it pushing its way alongside Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" (inferior social science, far breezier style) on the best-seller list. Then again, who dares judge the odds of the publishing biz? None of us knows when lightning will strike. Christopher Shea, a Washington-based writer, is the Boston Globe Ideas section's "Brainiac" columnist. Reviewed by Christopher Shea, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "An essential read . . . an entertaining book. . . . The book isnt only humorous, its loaded with good ideas that financial-service executives, policy makers, Wall Street mavens, and all savers can use."-John F. Wasik, Boston Globe Review: "Two University of Chicago professors sketch a new approach to public policy that takes into account the odd realities of human behavior, like the deep and unthinking tendency to conform. Even in areas-like energy consumption-where conformity is irrelevant. Thaler has documented the ways people act illogically."-Barbara Kiviat, Time Review: "I love this book. It is one of the few books Ive read recently that fundamentally changes the way I think about the world. Just as surprising, it is fun to read, drawing on examples as far afield as urinals, 401(k) plans, organ donations, and marriage. Academics arent supposed to be able to write this well."-Steven Levitt, Alvin Baum Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and co-author of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Review: "The suggestions in Nudge provide fascinating examples of how tiny changes in context can cue radically different behaviour. Awareness of these cues empowers consumers, voters and decision-makers."-Rebecca Walberg, National Post Review: "A manifesto for using the recent behavioral research to help people, as well as government agencies, companies and charities, make better decisions."-David Leonhardt, The New York Times Magazine Review: "Engaging, enlightening."-George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe About the Author Richard H. Thaler is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and the director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicagos Graduate School of Business. Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago Law School and Departent of Political Science.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780300122237
- Subtitle:
- Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
- Author:
- Thaler, Richard
- Author:
- Thaler, Richard H.
- Author:
- Sunstein, Cass R.
- Author:
- Sunstein, Cass
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- Subject:
- General Business & Economics
- Subject:
- General Social Science
- Subject:
- Economics
- Subject:
- Consumer behavior
- Subject:
- Economics - General
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Industrial & Organizational Psychology
- Subject:
- Consumer Behavior - General
- Subject:
- Social Psychology
- Subject:
- Economics -- Psychological aspects.
- Copyright:
- 2008
- Edition Description:
- Trade Cloth
- Publication Date:
- April 2008
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Illustrations:
- Y
- Pages:
- 293
- Dimensions:
- 9.49x6.47x1.00 in. 1.33 lbs.
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