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A comment on Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly shaky. Parent comment

Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by vintermann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @04:34AM (#32261756)
I wonder if the problem with "nudge" is that for publicity reasons, people only call it a nudge if it sounds like a tiny thing that doesn't sound like it would work. If it's an obvious intervention, such as a default option in a pension form, or higher prices on tobacco, or condom vending machines in hotel restrooms, they don't call it a nudge anymore.

And I also have the feeling some of these may be babies that the Economist's editors would like to throw out with the bathwater.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by ZeroGravitas on Thursday July 28, 2022 @07:48AM (#32263074)
Nudges are basically the opposite of dark patterns.

If a headline seems dubious when you swap the two then it's probably got an agenda.

"Dark Patterns don't work anyway, so we should carry on using them" vs "Nudges don't work anyway, we should stop using them"

https://www.simpleusability.com/inspiration/2019/03/dark-pat...

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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by MichaelCollins on Thursday July 28, 2022 @09:52AM (#32264282)
Nudge does seem to imply some degree subtlety. In a colloquial sense, >100% tax rates on cigarettes is more of a shove than a nudge.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by throwaway0a5e on Thursday July 28, 2022 @10:35AM (#32264880)
Pretty much every policy stick short of a bullet seems to be sailing under the flag of a nudge these days.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by gmac on Friday July 29, 2022 @07:48AM (#32275749)
Absolutely: the definition of a nudge (Thaler and Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism”) was meant to include that it is cheap and easy to avoid, and therefore makes no difference to the (mythical) fully rational consumer. Taxes or other price interventions absolutely do not qualify.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by simonh on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:15AM (#32262059)
I don't follow. The Economist's editors aren't the ones deciding what is or isn't counted as a nudge in the academic literature.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by vintermann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:24AM (#32262130)
The headline doesn't say nudges. It says behavioural interventions.

(and as far as I can tell, the academic literature isn't consistent on what counts as a nudge or not)

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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by simonh on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:31AM (#32262199)
Nudges are behavioural interventions. It's just a headline.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by t_mann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:01AM (#32261937)
Default options in forms are the standard example of a nudge, a tax however is definitely not a nudge, the article actually explicitly says so.
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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by vintermann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:06AM (#32261976)
In that big meta study that questioned the efficiency of nudges, it was said in the discussion on HN that they excluded default options from the definition of nudges.

Either way, the line seems arbitrary to me, and it's part of why I think they're moving the goalposts.

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Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by t_mann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:13AM (#32262031)
I don't know what people on HN said, but it's the first example of nudges of you look here (and pretty much anywhere else):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory#Types_of_nudges

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Evidence for behavioural interventions looks increasingly... by vintermann on Thursday July 28, 2022 @05:39AM (#32262261)
The article in question was "No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias". That study apparently counted default choices on forms as "structural interventions" - a term wide enough to usually include immunisation programs and taxes.
[ Parent | on HN ]