Report no.1: ISSP Public Lecture w. Richard Thaler

By Pelle Guldborg Hansen, Andreas Maaløe Jespersen & Katrine Lund Skov

On October 21 the long anticipated ISSP Public Lecture 2011 was given by Richard Thaler at the Metropolitan University College in Copenhagen. 


More than 200 citizens, business representatives, academics, and policy makers had decided to use the Friday of the Danish one week "potato-holiday" to attend Prof. Thaler's lecture on Nudging.


The lecture
The lecture was arranged through the Danish Nudging Network in collaboration between ISSP, the Metropolitan University College, University of Southern Denmark, Trygfonden, the Danish Cancer Society, MindLab, DEA, and Aalborg University with the aim of giving anyone with an interest in our general 'health, wealth and happiness' a first hand encounter with the nudge-doctrine and one of its 'founding fathers'. The encounter became both intimate, deliberative and entertaining.

Throughout the lecture Prof. Thaler stayed close to the main tenets of the underlying book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness (2008) thereby truly respecting the fact that the idea of nudging is new to most people in Denmark. As a result the audience got an impression of the original motives underlying the writing of the book as well as its core ideas.

The lecture covered several 'high-impact' examples of nudging such as schemes for private pension systems and sign up procedures for organ donation. But it also presented some concrete examples from the world of design, architecture, and law, such as badly designed stoves, school lunch rooms, and mobile calling plans.

Common to all of the various examples Prof. Thaler presented was that they each showed in one way or another, how accepting and respecting the psychology of human decision making in the way we arrange the details of the physical, social, and juridical structures that underpin our decisions and behavior may make a significant difference on society and our individual well-being.

Questions and answers
After 1½ hour the ISSP Lecture concluded with a relaxed Q&A. The questions reflected the broad variety of interest represented in the audience. "Will nudging make us less capable of handling choices in the future?"  and "What separates nudging from manipulation?" were some of the questions asked thereby showing that the ISSP Lecture served its purpose of allowing people first-hand interaction and engagement with Nudging and one of its founding fathers.

In the picture you can see Prof. Richard Thaler (sitting), Co-Director of ISSP Pelle Guldborg Hansen (standing), Anders Hede (Trygfonden, back to camera), Science Journalist Peter Hesseldahl (background to the right) Credit: Tobias Egmose

However, to find out what Prof. Thaler answered to these question you have wait a little while...


While waiting you might want to read about the perfect way to nudge yourself to freedom.

Public Lecture: Richard Thaler in Copenhagen

ISSP and Danish Nudging Network are proud to present professor Richard Thaler on 21 October in Copenhagen.

Thaler is a Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor in Behavioural theory and-economics at Chicago Booth, but most notably renowned for, together with Cass Sunstein, having written the book Nudge – Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness (2008).

On 21 October (The Autumn holiday Friday) at 10:00-12:00 we are able to present a large public lecture with Thaler.

The event will be held at:

Professionshøjskolen Metropol, Campus Rådmandsmarken, Sigurdsgade 26, 2200 København N.

The purpose of Thaler’s visit is to increase awareness about the Nudge paradigm amongst the public and policy makers, especially in regards to the preliminary results, the future potentials and the immediate reservations in relation to this.

The Nudge paradigm has already gathered a large following and prevalence in the US and UK. Sunstein is advisor for president Obama’s administration, while Thaler has been special advisor for the British ”Nudge-Unit”, which in recent years has worked on integrating insights from behavioural economics into British health policy.

Sign up for the event

The event is coordinated by Danish Nudging Network, with ISSP, Kræftens Bekæmpelse, TrygFonden, Mind-Lab, Metropol, University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University and DEA as leading forces.


Next post: Why the piano-stairs are not a case of nudging

A Nudge to walk around the Earth

Digital artist: chrisroll 

By Pelle Guldborg Hansen & Katrine Lund Skov

Last week we attended the Nudge-Camp arranged by the Metropolitan University College (you can see the announcement in the DNN newsletter vol.2, and read more about the Nudge-Camp in a coming post). More than 50 students were gathered to try to develop ideas for nudging concrete problems which was delivered on the spot by institutions and organizations, many of which were members of the nudging network (The Danish Cancer Society, Odense Municipality, The Roskilde Festival, Provokator).

One of the nudges we found most interesting was a nudge to walk around the earth. Yes, that's right - to walk around the earth!

The idea was developed to solve a challenge posed by Odense Municipality of how to get employees within the eldercare not just to be a bit more physically active at work, but also to enjoy it.

So how does it work?

Digital artist: vorakorn kanokpipat

The idea is strikingly simple. The first “step” is to equip employees with a pedometer. Well, that's not new you think. Haven't we known for a long time that a pedometer may increase awareness of and thus the number of steps taken through the mechanism of disclosure combined with self-competition? Well, at least that it works for a while?

Yes, and that's the problem. Disclosure may change behavior, but the battery of the pedometer lasts longer than its behavioral impact.

What the students suggested was to invigorate the behavioral effect of the pedometer by attaching it to a social nudge. Now this is always a dangerous strategy, and as we have written about in an earlier post, one should be particularly careful of not combining social nudges with incentive schemes.

So how did the students combine the pedometer nudge with a social nudge in a pleasant and non-coercive way?

Well, they suggested that the number of steps were aggregated before being publicly disclosed on a world map, showing how far the team had walked together on a trip around Earth.

Extension
Simple, small, pleasant, and social - and if one finds it impossible to refrain from adding some kind of incentive scheme, then it is possible to find some insignificant but still pleasant ways to extend the nudge. One week the apples might be from Italy, next week the coffee might be from Turkey, the week after the lobby may play music from Egypt, and so on...


Ooh - by the way
There are 3 things that we would really like you to do:)

1. If you liked this post, why not share it with your social network - you can find the Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. buttons just down to your left.
2. Did you know that "Prof. Nudge" aka Richard Thaler is coming to Copenhagen this month? And did you remember to sign up for his Public Lecture? If not, you may do it here.
3. Finally, don't miss the next post - you may sign up for e-mail subscription in the top right corner of this post. 

DNN præsenterer Richard Thaler i København 21. oktober (Danish)

Richard Thaler, Ralph and 

Dorothy Keller Distinguished Prof.,
Chicago Booth. 

Af Pelle G. Hansen og Andreas Maaløe Jespersen

Dansk Nudging Netværk er stolte af at kunne præsentere prof. Richard Thaler d. 21. oktober i København.

Thaler er Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor i
adfærdsteori og –økonomi på Chicago Booth, men for de fleste nok bedre kendt for, sammen med Cass Sunstein, at have skrevet bogen Nudge – Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness (2008). Den 21. okt. Kan vi præsentere en række arrangementer med ham i København.

Formålet med Thalers besøg er at øge opmærksomheden for Nudge blandt offentligheden og policy-makere, særligt omkring de foreløbige resultater, fremtidige potentialer og umiddelbare forbehold der er i forbindelse med Nudge paradigmet.

Nudge paradigmet har allerede fundet stor udbredelse i US og UK. Sunstein er rådgiver for præsident Obamas administration, mens Thaler har været særlig rådgiver for den britiske ”Nudge-Unit”, som i de sidste år har arbejdet på at indarbejde indsigter fra adfærdsøkonomien i den britiske sundhedspolitik.

P.t. planlægges Thalers besøg til at omfatte to offentlige begivenheder. Et bredt åbent foredrag der sigter på at introducere bredt til Nudge paradigmet, og derefter et fokuseret stakeholdermøde, der sigter på engagere offentlige institutioner og private organisationer med interesse for at indarbejde Nudge i deres arbejde. Begge arrangementer afholdes i København.

Arrangementet bliver koordineret af Dansk Nudging Netværk med ISSP, SDU, Kræftens Bekæmpelse,TrygFonden, Mind-Lab, Metropol, AAU og DEA som de nuværende hovedkræfter.

TILMELDING TIL DET OFFENTLIGE FOREDRAG ER NU MULIG. DU FINDER DEN HER:

http://www.science-society-policy.org/events/2011/public-lecture-richard-thaler-i-kobenhavn/