Title: what is nudging? | Behavioral Science & Policy Association
Headings: what is nudging?
what is nudging?
By PG Hansen, PhD., Behavioural Scientist, Roskilde University
Nudge
Nudging
Ethics and Policy
About the author

Content: A nudge is a function of (condition I) any attempt at influencing people’s judgment, choice or behavior in a predictable way (condition a) that is motivated because of cognitive boundaries, biases, routines, and habits in individual and social decision-making posing barriers for people to perform rationally in their own self-declared interests, and which (condition b) works by making use of those boundaries, biases, routines, and habits as integral parts of such attempts. (See Hansen 2016 for a discussion of this definition). By this definition, the operational independence of nudges as to regulation is not a formal condition, but an implication. That is, the original definition of a nudge provided by Thaler and Sunstein (2008) is actually a consequence of the more fundamental definition provided here. This is an important point because it means that even though nudges can operate independently from regulation, they are not required to do so. Thus, a nudge may be combined with traditional regulatory approaches but works independently of the rational consequences of (a) forbidding or adding any rationally relevant choice options; ( b) changing incentives, whether regarded in terms of time, trouble, social sanctions, economics, etc.; or (c) the provision of factual information and rational argumentation. The revised definition also help to make clear that nudges need not be used in the service of libertarian paternalism (think of marketing), but if applied in accordance with the reflected preferences of citizens do offer a central strategy to any libertarian paternalist (which also includes strategies that are not nudges, such as informational campaigns). Finally, this definition allows for a quite simple heuristic – noticed by Thaler and Sunstein themselves (Thaler & Sunstein 2008, p. 8) [ii] – for characterizing and identifying aspects of choice architecture that functions as nudges: