{"id":19007,"date":"2019-12-20T19:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T19:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19007"},"modified":"2019-12-21T03:29:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T03:29:31","slug":"heres-how-you-can-be-nudged-to-eat-healthier-recycle-and-make-better-decisions-every-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/heres-how-you-can-be-nudged-to-eat-healthier-recycle-and-make-better-decisions-every-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s how you can be nudged to eat healthier, recycle and make better decisions every day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jos\u00e9 Antonio Rosa<\/a>, Iowa State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Every day, you make important choices \u2013 about whether to feast on fries or take a brisk walk, whether to spend or save your paycheck, whether to buy the sustainable option or the disposable plastic one.<\/p>\n

Life is made up of countless decisions. The idea of nudging people<\/a> in the right direction, instead of relying on their internal motivation, has gained traction over the last decade.<\/p>\n

In general, nudging involves gently coaxing someone into a decision or behavior. The perfect nudge is one that results in the desired decision or behavior without the person recognizing any external influence.<\/p>\n

Think of employees being automatically enrolled in retirement savings programs<\/a>. Workers who must opt out, instead of needing to opt in, participate more in retirement savings. Or picture those little cards in hotel bathrooms encouraging people to reuse their towels by stating that most hotel guests do, instead of appealing to the guests\u2019 social responsibility.<\/p>\n

In these and countless similar situations, people feel in control, but were nudged to prefer one option over the other.<\/p>\n

So how does all this nudging work within the mind? As someone who studies consumer decision-making<\/a>, I can tell you: It\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re of two (or more) minds<\/h2>\n

Neuroscientists, starting with pioneers like Antonio Damasio, have shown that the brain is not like a computer<\/a> where complex programs deliver optimal solutions. In fact, the mind seems to involve many relatively simple systems<\/a>, some inside the head and some distributed throughout the body<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These systems are not always in agreement. Some systems are selfish and shortsighted, some care about relationships with others and some prioritize transcendent things such as God and the future of humanity. In addition, people aren\u2019t equally conscious of each mechanism, so that sometimes you make decisions carefully and thoughtfully<\/a> and other times you make them fast and intuitively.<\/p>\n

When your systems are in contention, which one informs your next decision depends on what else is happening<\/a> in that moment. A diabetic, for example, may thoughtfully consider his long-term health and family responsibilities \u2013 and even God\u2019s will \u2013 when deciding to eat the salad and not the breadsticks at Olive Garden one day. But on his next visit, he might respond to the smell of fresh-baked bread by devouring every breadstick in the basket. Different situations, different mechanisms, different decisions.<\/p>\n

Appeals to your internal norms<\/h2>\n

Nudging can work via many mechanisms, some conscious and some not. Typically you don\u2019t recognize you\u2019re being nudged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Everyone else reuses the towels \u2026<\/span>
\nAndrea Davis\/Unsplash<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One nudge method relies on highlighting the decisions of others<\/a> you may consider influential. After reading that \u201cMost other guests staying at this hotel reuse towels,\u201d many people envision others like them or maybe of higher status reusing towels. They feel compelled to align their behavior with that of the majority in order to fit in. The decision is theirs, but they\u2019ve been nudged.<\/p>\n

Another nudge technique focuses on how one should act in a particular situation. These are sometimes called \u201cinjunctive norms<\/a>,\u201d and they can vary by culture. Imagine the towel appeal had instead read, \u201cBy reusing towels, you join millions who care about the environment.\u201d In this case the guest\u2019s subconscious concern about earning the disapproval of those \u201cmillions\u201d of others triggers him to hang up his towels.<\/p>\n

And if the towel message is instead phrased that \u201creusing towels meets a high standard for environmental responsibility,\u201d it highlights self-imposed standards or norms, if they exist in the decision maker. Such personal norms are termed injunctive because they involve beliefs about right and wrong that consider transcendent and abstract concepts, such as devotion and obedience to God.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, such prompting \u2013 whether by subjective social or personal norms \u2013 does not work on everyone. Some may work better<\/a> in some cultures (for instance, in Asian societies) and with some age groups (such as in younger people) than others.<\/p>\n

Setting the scene for a desired choice<\/h2>\n

Another way to nudge people is to change the decision environment. This technique is sometimes called \u201cchoice architecture<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume that a grocery store is trying to encourage consumers to purchase ecologically responsible products, such as recycled paper notebooks. If all eco-friendly products are displayed together in an end-of-aisle display, people notice and their internalized norms are activated. But it may not translate into multiple purchases, because buying just one product suffices to meet the norm. If the products are displayed throughout the store, though, so multiple in-store displays can re-trigger the internalized norm, it\u2019s likely that more ecologically responsible purchases will be made in the same shopping trip.<\/p>\n

Nudging people is not deception. In most cases, nudging works by raising a particular decision or behavior\u2019s prominence. If you\u2019re already predisposed toward something \u2013 like eating healthy \u2013 a nudge helps tip your mental mechanisms in that direction. Nudges are reinforcement, especially in cases when your decision-making mechanisms are in contention with each other \u2013 like when the aroma of fresh bread is wafting through the air.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
That scent of fresh-baked bread could be used to nudge you in the direction the restaurant prefers.<\/span>
\nToa Heftiba\/Unsplash<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the same time, that wafting aroma is in itself a nudge. It may be deliberately enhanced to promote pleasurable consumption that improves mood and may lead to more spending or more generous tipping. Nudging can work to enhance or suppress virtuous behaviors, and it is the responsibility of companies and organizations to use nudging judiciously and responsibly.<\/p>\n

Nudging cannot make people do something they don\u2019t want to do, although sometimes the desire is nonconscious and lurking in the background. It only encourages them to follow through on a decision or behavior that may be currently overshadowed by other factors. It\u2019s when individuals believe consciously that the decision or behavior \u2013 be it healthy eating, buying environmentally responsible products, or saving for retirement \u2013 is beneficial that nudging works best<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[ Insight, in your inbox each day.<\/em> You can get it with The Conversation\u2019s email newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Antonio Rosa<\/a>, Professor of Marketing and John and Deborah Ganoe Faculty Fellow, Iowa State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jos\u00e9 Antonio Rosa, Iowa State University Every day, you make important choices \u2013 about whether to feast on fries or take a brisk walk, whether to spend or save your paycheck, whether to buy the sustainable option or the disposable plastic one. Life is made up of countless decisions. The idea of nudging people in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3410],"tags":[542,3595,6464,3220,232,7424,1731,228,4709],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19013,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19007\/revisions\/19013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}