Nudging

How do you get people to do what you want them to do?  Or what they should do, even without you?

Lawton, in a recent issue of New Scientist calls this technique "nudging".

A famous nudge is at the urinals of the airport in Amsterdam.  A picture of a fly is etched into each urinal.  With something to aim for, men have been urinating better than they did in the past.  This reduced the amount of work and the cost of cleaning the toilets.

Some other nudges noted in the article are:

• Motivating people to vote by telling them that their neighbours are voting;
• Similarly, motivating people to save power by citing how many dollars their neighbours are saving;
• Placing the brands of groceries that supermarkets want to sell at eye level and at check-outs;
• Setting the default in forms to be the choice you wish people to take - some people will choose a non-default option, but many won't bother

Do you find nudging to be manipulative?  Do you think your freedom to choose has been reduced because others have made part of that choice for you?

Lawton says that people generally have two paths of consideration.  One is to choose quickly and make the choice that seems right quickly, or to take a longer time deliberating and chose more carefully.  In this age of haste and lack of energy to consider carefully, most people are generally inclined to make the quick choice.  What seems right is often chosen, even if it isn't really right.

Would you fall for that kind of choice?  What if your life depended on it?

The easy choice is to choose what everybody else is choosing.  But that choice can be the choice that leads to death.  What would you choose then?