The Initial Idea
During Easter 2009, I successfully gave chocolate up for Lent. I did this through my own will-power (hardly the strongest in the world) and through little reminders from friends (normally of the unambiguous sort - don’t eat that!). As much as I appreciated my friends’ support, I began to wonder whether more durable support was available.
Around the same time I began reading the book ‘Nudge’, an influential text by Thaler and Sunstein, which draws from experiences of human psychology and behavioural economics and applies those fields to Government policy-making. ‘Nudge’ argues that people do not respond well to being told what to do but do take on board guidance that pushes them in the right direction. One of the key messages of the book is that public policy-makers should look to create frameworks to guide people towards the desired outcome.
Using my own experience of Lent and the thoughts of Thaler and Sunstein, I decided that it might prove possible to nudge people towards successfully fulfilling their promises. The question was how to nudge them?
