Nudging

Der hier vorliegende ethnographische Text untersucht negative soziale Dynamiken, die durch die Nutzung sozialer Medien entstehen können. Das empirische Material basiert auf Feldforschungen, die zwischen 2013 und 2015 sowohl online als auch offline durchgeführt wurden. Bei dem Fallbeispiel handelt es sich um einen kommunalpolitischen Wahlkampf in der südostspanischen Stadt Murcia. Im Fokus stehen parteiinterne Diskussionen innerhalb eines linksgerichteten Bündnisses, die zu einem großen Teil in der Quasi-Öffentlichkeit sozialer Medien ausgetragen wurden. Einstiegspunkt in den Text bildet eine spezifische Vorannahme, die von den Aktivisten und Aktivistinnen im Vorfeld der Kommunalwahl geteilt wurde. Die beforschten Akteure gingen davon aus, dass die Art von Öffentlichkeit, die soziale Medien für sie generierten, ihnen dabei helfen würde, einen erfolgreichen populistischen Wahlkampf zu führen. Konträr zu dieser kulturoptimistischen Perspektive auf Technologie arbeitet der Text einen Widerspruch heraus, der den Wahlkämpfer*innen selbst verborgen blieb: Er bestand zwischen dem Ideal der demokratischen Gemeinschaftsform, das sie in ihrem Bündnis umzusetzen suchten, und der kommerziellen Logik jenes digitalen Mediums, dessen sie sich in ihrem aktivistischen Alltag hierfür bevorzugt bedienten: Facebook. Dessen Fragmentierung und Algorithmisierung wirkten in dem hier untersuchten Sample als Amplifikatoren bestehender sozialer Beziehungen. Zwar verstärkte das soziale Medium in einigen Fällen das Gefühl von Zusammengehörigkeit, größtenteils entfaltete es aber destruktive Dynamiken. Als „Egomedium“ war es nicht nur maßgeblich mit dafür verantwortlich, dass die Wahlkampfstrategie ins Stocken geriet, sondern auch dafür, dass das kommunale Wahlbündnis am Ende zerbrach. Aus der hier vorgestellten, kulturanthropologischen Analyse ergibt sich nicht zuletzt ein gleichermaßen demokratietheoretisches wie medienpolitisches Argument. Ein global operierendes Technologieunternehmen wie Facebook trägt auch eine Verantwortung für jene Formen von Mikro-Öffentlichkeiten, die seine Software – quasi als Nebenprodukt – in unzähligen lokalen Kontexten erzeugt.

Default options have been successfully utilized in influencing behavior across multiple domains. Recent empirical evidence advocated the induction of transparency to default interventions as an effective tool for increasing policy compliance. However, the roles of the different transparency components in achieving the effect remain unexplored. In an experimental study, we measured the effects of three different transparency disclosures on default effectiveness. The default’s target behavior, the default’s purpose, and the way defaults work were disclosed in separate conditions. Our results show that transparency significantly increases compliance to the default nudge. In addition, we provide an insight as to which transparency components are most effective in boosting the default effect.

Perhaps two of the most commonly asked questions about Covid-19 hysteria and the formulation and implementation of the disastrous policies across the globe in response to the Chinese virus are: why are we so willing to give up our freedoms, and how the hell did we get here? Excellent questions both. The answers may lie, at least partly, in the arguments of two popular works of non-fiction published over the last two decades. They are Nudge, written by Obama apparatchik Cass Sunstein and his academic offsider Richard Thaler, and The Tipping Point, by the airport bookshop star, Malcolm Gladwell. The former is a work of behavioural economics-for which Thaler received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2017-the latter a work of sociology that launched Gladwell as a writer. I am sure Gladwell wasn't intending to be prophetic or ironic when he said: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do".

Previous research shows that taste is one of the most important factors in determining food choices, and that food choices may be affected by ”nudging”. We analyze how taste, as determined by meal attributes, and nudging affects consumption of a healthy labeled meal. Our analysis is based on a field experiment in a lunch restaurant and our results imply that sales of the healthy labelled meal, and its market share, is greatly impacted by its taste. Nudging, as in order of display on the menu, does not impact sales of the healthy labelled meal in our experiment. We conclude that supplying tasty healthy meals may be key to significantly impact healthy eating, superior to other policy measures aimed at encouraging healthier food choices, such as information, nudging and food tax reforms.

Behavioral Economics is defined as a method of economic analysis that applies psychological insights into human behavior to explain economic decision-making. It mainly focuses on the effect of emotions, opinions, norms and habits on the process of decision-making and it supports that humans are characterized by a bounded rationality, which means that people are not fully rational when they make choices, either due to heuristics and biases or due to information asymmetries, lack of attention, limited working memory… The list is endless. A rational person is someone who has self-control and decides based on logic and reason, after considering the costs and benefits that are linked to a particular choice.

The aim of this paper is to prove how relevant the insights of Behavioral Economics are for Data Protection Law, particularly regarding the complex phenomenon of Internet Profiling. Effective manipulation techniques are adopted by marketers and service providers in order to urge internet users to disclose personal information and to guide them to specific decisions. These techniques are based on the exploitation of human frailties. The same human frailties are to blame for users waiving their data rights, despite the fact that they are concerned about their privacy. Because of these human weaknesses, people disclose data which is then processed, analyzed and used for the construction of data profiles. These data profiles reveal even more personal information about them and thus enable even more effective manipulation to take place, now in the form of targeted advertisements.

In order to examine the complex phenomenon of Internet Profiling, a sociolegal approach will be adopted and a thorough analysis will be made. In the first section, I will try to define internet profiling and simplify its concept as far as possible. The role of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms in relation to the processing and the analysis of data will be examined. The second section will expose the ways data is distributed with a main focus on the intraoperable way, according to which a huge amount of data is accumulated under the control of a sole data controller. Two examples of such data controllers (Google and Facebook) will be given in order to show how many sources of data (data points) they have, by virtue of their expansion strategies.

In the next section, I will go through an analysis of all the problematic aspects of internet profiling. The first part will pinpoint that Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are not infallible in an effort to debunk the myth of the perfection of computing systems. The side-effects of the system’s errors will be examined. The second part will mainly deal with the way those who control the datasets use their power in order to avail themselves, with a central focus on “nudging”, a manipulation technique which takes advantage of human’s heuristics and biases. Apart from the consequences of this tactic on several levels, an assessment of the technique on grounds of effectiveness will also take place. In the third part, a discussion about autonomy and  privacy issues will take place, while in the final part, the theory of propertization of data and the proposal of paying with money instead of data for the use of certain services will be evaluated.

The next part will present the legal framework of Internet profiling. Firstly, an examination of the legal term of “concept” will take place, since it plays a central role in Data Protection Law and in the Cookies Directive, according to which users must consent to the tracking of cookies at their devices. The requirements for a consent to be valid will be cited. Secondly, the human frailties which are to blame for users’ giving their consent will be outlined. Last but no least, the implications of Article 22 of GDPR, regarding automated decision-making and thus of great relevance for internet profiling, will be presented.

So-called nudge policies utilize insights from behavioral science to achieve policy outcomes. Nudge policies try to improve people's decisions by changing the ways options are presented to them, rather than changing the options themselves or incentivizing or coercing people. Nudging has been met with great enthusiasm but also fierce criticism. This paper provides an overview of the debate on the ethics of nudging to date. After outlining arguments in favor of nudging, we first discuss different objections that all revolve around the worry that nudging vitiates personal autonomy. We split up this worry into different dimensions of autonomy , such as freedom of choice, volitional autonomy, rational agency, and freedom as nondomination. We next discuss worries that nudging is manipulative, violates human dignity, and prevents more important structural reform. Throughout, we will present responses that proponents of nudging can muster. On the whole, we conclude that the objections f...

In this article, I examine how nudging powered by Big Data relates to both negative and positive liberty. I focus in particular on how liberty is affected by appeals to irrational mechanisms. I conclude that it is problematic to use liberty as an argument for nudging. Such an argument would have to be based on the concept of positive liberty, empowerment and emancipation from irrationality, but I argue that even stronger arguments against nudging can be built on the same conception of liberty. I consider Big Data-powered nudging to have the potential to be both manipulative and coercive, and believe that we should be wary of the effects such efforts have on liberty. As I consider liberty to be part of what makes a good society, this becomes an effort to analyse one aspect of the effects of technology on society in general. While I do not accept arguments in favour of nudging based on liberty, it is easier to see that arguments based on utility could support nudging. I do not evaluate what the proper trade-off is between utility and liberty in this article, and it is obvious that, at times, utility trumps an absolute demand for liberty. However, I argue in favour of transparent traditional regulation and rational persuasion instead of nudging, when these approaches can serve the same purposes. Should we choose to nudge, we should not euphemise our efforts by claiming that we do so on behalf of freedom.

Nudging is a form of soft paternalism whereby governments manipulate the choice architectures of citizens to steer them toward desired outcomes (including eating better, voting more often, being less aggressive and violent, being more compassionate, living healthier, and leading more fulfilling lives). From the perspective of social activists (includ-ing moral entrepreneurs of various stripes), public health officials , social marketers, and government actors, the more subtle forms of nudging help mitigate populist backlash against nanny states which are viewed as overly aggressive and instrusive in mandating by force of law that citizens do what's best for them or face repurcussions. In his latest book, Cass Sunstein examines both the pros and cons of the use of behavioral economics by governments to nudge sometimes reluctant publics to pursue goals and establish lifestyles which experts believe will maximize life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Justice systems around the world are launching online courts and tribunals in order to improve access to justice, especially for self-represented litigants (SRLs). Online courts are designed to handhold SRLs throughout the process and empower them to make procedural and substantive decisions. To that end, they present SRLs with streamlined and simplified procedures and employ a host of user interface design and user experience strategies (UI/UX). Focusing on these features, the article analyzes online courts as digital choice environments that shape SRLs’ decisions, inputs and actions, and considers their implications on access to justice, due process and the impartiality of courts. Accordingly, the article begins to close the knowledge gap regarding choice architecture in online legal proceedings. Using examples from current online courts, the article considers how mechanisms such as choice overload, display, colorfulness, visual complexity, and personalization influence SRLs’ choi...

Consensus building – the mediation of a conflict involving various stakeholders before the implementation of a policy – is a major challenge for policy makers since it can determine the success or failure of a policy. In view of the fact that traditional consensus-building techniques often lead to unsatisfactory outcomes, this research emphasizes the use of nudging techniques to build consensus over redistributive norms. The proposed approach consists of exploiting the biases and heuristics of decision makers in order to gently push them towards the acceptance of a norm.
The research design consists of two interlocking analysis based on laboratory and framed field experiments. The first consists of developing an experiment where alternative representations of the same redistributive norm are shown to different groups of experimental subjects. These representations are generated using specific deviations from the homo economicus model (framing effect, system justification bias, and social preferences). Individuals must then play either a public good or bad game. The results of this game will be interpreted as a measure of consensus. The second paper will verify the laboratory findings by conducting a field experiment with participants involved in the consultation process over a regional redistributive policy.

Nudging is simply guiding people behaviors by the use of user-interface and design elements in digital environments. Today, many decisions are made in online environments. Gaining insights about digital nudging can greatly help communicators, policy makers, and designers lead users to make the most desirable choice for them and/or for the wealth of the society as well. Digital nudges can be used in many digital environments like e-mail, SMS, push notifications, mobile apps, social media, gamification, e-commerce, e-government, location services, corporate digital information systems, and many other digital interfaces that include any kind of decision-making processes. This study is a descriptive study and more of a qualitative nature and aims to identify the digital nudging concept, dark patterns, and usage of digital nudges in real-life applications. It also proposes a brief digital nudging process schema to be used for designing behav-ioral digital interventions.

Papier invité rédigé suite à la conférence-atelier « Communiquer le développement durable et inciter au changement du comportement : quelques outils de l'approche nudge », aux Journées d'échanges Fertiles Rencontres pour l'EEDD, Séminaire 1 : Agir et réagir avec des publics qui changent. Arbois, 11 mars 2019. Métropole Aix-Marseille Provence

Résumé : Dans les services liés à l’environnement et au développement durable, la santé publique et autres domaines d’utilité sociétale, l’intérêt de donner un ‘coup de pouce’ au changement des comportements sociaux, sans contraindre mais en utilisant des leviers à priori plus efficaces de l’incitation douce, est plutôt indéniable. D’autant que toutes les études de méta-analyse, comparant les résultats de recherche antérieure, présentent à peu près les mêmes conclusions – la communication de sensibilisation « classique » par l’éducation et l’information n’aurait que des effets très modérés sur le changement effectif des comportements (entre 5% et 15% d’effet sur l’action effective, malgré les éventuels changements d’attitude). Mais, qu’est-ce donc plus précisément le Nudge – un nouveau mot à la mode, une technique, une théorie, un modèle ? Quels en sont les tenants et les aboutissants ? Une organisation, peut-elle en faire ; et enfin, faudrait-il s’en méfier ? Dans ce bref article vulgarisé, nous rappellerons les points clés du Nudge, reprendrons quelques nudges principaux selon les auteurs de l’approche, et donnerons quelques précisions sur leur application dans une organisation.

Pré-print d'article invité (version 1 étendue), mis en ligne avec l’autorisation de la MAMP

Ideally, the goals a society pursues are predicated on a voluntary consensus of the citenzenry who through their actions in the private and public spheres develop an approximation of the good or just society. However, just like bad-tasting medicine which may have to be force fed in order to get the patient well, the achievement of some elements of the good society seem to involve a group of experts, often far removed from popular sentiment or opinion, who must go behind the backs of citizens in order to move them toward the better life. But instead of the ham-fisted interventions of a nanny state which often lead to overt resistance and public ridicule, governments can use social marketing and the more subtle principles of behavioral economics to nudge a wary and reluctant public toward valued ends. I argue that although such obfuscation and sugarcoating may work over the short term, in the long run nudging may do more harm than good.

publiziert in: Rubikon, 5.4.2020

https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/psychologische-kriegsfuhrung

Mit massiver Angstmache durch Schock und Furcht soll die Bevölkerung in der Bundesrepublik auf den Regierungskurs in der Corona-Krise eingeschworen werden. Die Vorgehensweise, durch Angst die Menschen ruhig zu halten, beschreibt ein Arbeits- und Diskussionspapier aus dem Bundesinnenministerium (BMI) unter Horst Seehofer (CSU), das nun vom Online-Magazin „Frag den Staat“ öffentlich gemacht wurde.

zum Strategiepapier, publiziert im Online-Portal fuer Informationsfreiheit "FragDenStaat" geht's hier lang:

https://fragdenstaat.de/blog/2020/04/01/strategiepapier-des-innenministeriums-corona-szenarien/

Hier erklärt Dirk Müller kurz und bündig, worum es geht, die massenpsychologische Strategie des 'Nudging':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rijrUPqvlgY

Absolut sehenswert auch das Interview mit Prof. Knut Wittkowski zum Thema Herdenimmunität versus Massenpanik:

https://youtu.be/lGC5sGdz4kg

In seinem Werk Überwachen und Strafen beschreibt Michel Foucault 1975 das von Jeremy Bentham erdachte Panopticon und visualisiert metaphorisch anhand dieses Konzepts die Funktionsweise einer Disziplinargesellschaft. Wer das Gefühl hat überwacht zu werden, beziehungsweise, wenn die Möglichkeit überwacht zu werden besteht, nimmt diese Tatsache Einfluss auf das Verhalten einer Person.
Die Beobachtungen Foucaults aus den 70er Jahren sind heute aktueller denn je und werden in der Wissenschaft zum Beispiel von David Lyon aufgenommen. Die aktuellen techno-politischen Entwicklungen gehen über die Beobachtungen und Theorien Foucaults hinaus. Sie zeichnen eine postpanoptische Gesellschaft in einer flüchtigen Moderne, in der die Macht sich längst in höhere Gefilde entfernt und von der Politik emanzipiert hat und in der jeder sein eigenes Panopticon mit sich herumträgt. Wir legen heutzutage freiwillig Daten offen, gegen deren Erhebung die vorherige Generation noch während der ersten Volkszählung gekämpft hat. Überträgt man heutiges Verhalten in die analoge Welt, zeigt sich die Absurdität unseres Habitus. Würden wir freiwillig eine Kopie unseres Adressbuches an Global Player und Geheimdienste verschiedener Regierungen senden? Wären wir dazu bereit, eine Kopie unserer E-Mails und SMS an die eben genannten Organisationen zu schicken? Ich kann es mir nicht vorstellen. Und doch willigen wir, durch die Installation verschiedener Programme oder Applikationen und deren AGB, in genau diesen Zustand ein.
Bis heute dient Überwachung dem Ziel transgressives Verhalten aufzudecken, um dieses zu bestrafen. So sind Überwachung und Bestrafung eng, ja unauflöslich miteinander verbunden. Die Bestrafung hat seit dem Mittelalter eine grundlegende Transformation durchlaufen. Vom Zurschaustellen des Verurteilten und der öffentlichen Strafausübung hin zu einem Konzept der Besserungs- und Umerziehungsanstalten.
Auch die Überwachung hat eine solche Transformation durchlaufen und ist insbesondere in den letzten Jahren immer umgreifender und omnipräsenter geworden. Nicht zuletzt, weil erst durch Big Data und algorithmische Auswertung eine nahezu lückenlose Überwachung der Bürger möglich geworden ist. In China wird nun der Versuch unternommen, der Bestrafung durch eine absolute Überwachung zuvorzukommen. Die chinesische Regierung baut das ganze Land im Zuge der Errichtung eines Social Credit Systems um. Vorrangiges Ziel dieses Systems soll eine ehrliche und vertrauenswürdige Gesellschaft sein. Ab 2020 wird ein großer Anteil der von Bürgern generierten Daten, darunter das Einkaufsvolumen, persönliche Daten wie Arbeitsplatz und Familienstatus, die Zahlungsmoral, sowie die Bewertungen von Freunden gesammelt und von Algorithmen in einen einheitlichen Score umgerechnet. Dieser Score bestimmt dann nicht nur, ob man einen Kredit bei einer Bank bekommt, wie das auch schon in Deutschland (SCHUFA) und Amerika üblich ist, sondern auch, ob man ein Visum beantragen kann, Bücher in einer Bibliothek ausleihen darf oder einen Platz in einem Schnellzug bekommt.

Davranışsal İçgörü, başta psikoloji, bilişsel bilimler, ekonomi, iletişim, davranış bilimleri olmak üzere pek çok sosyal bilim dalından beslenen ve bu alanlardan elde ettiği veriler doğrultusunda kişilerin ve/veya toplumun refahını yükseltmeye yönelik uygulamalar ve politikalar oluşturmaya yarayan yaklaşımdır. Dünyanın dört bir yanından pek çok ülke, özellikle son on yıldır, davranışsal içgörüyü bir politika oluşturma aracı olarak kullanmaktadır.
Bu çalışma, sağlık iletişimi bağlamında, kamu sağlık politikalarının tasarımında davranışsal içgörünün kullanımını ve etkilerini ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Davranışsal politika çalışmalarında en sık kullanılan yöntemin rastgele kontrol denemeleri olduğu görülmektedir. Bu çalışmada da, örneklem olarak İngiltere Ulusal Sağlık Hizmetleri’nde gerçekleştirilen randomize kontrol çalışmaları ele alınmıştır. İçerik analizi kullanılarak, rastgele kontrol denemelerinde uygulanan davranışsal müdahaleler Sunstein’ın “10 Önemli Dürtme”, çalışmasına göre değerlendirilmiş ve Türkiye için çıkarımlarda bulunulmuştur.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Davranışsal İçgörü, Dürtme, Seçenek Mimarisi, Davranışsal Müdahale Tasarımı, Sağlık İletişimi

While the ethics and politics of nudging have received a great deal of attention, the legality of non-coercive interventions aimed at changing human behavior has received less attention. In this contribution, I examine firstly which limits, if any, the principle of proportionality (" Verhältnismäßigkeitsgrundsatz ") as applied by the German Federal Constitutional Court imposes on governmental " choice architects ". While nudges as such generally do not interfere with fundamental rights, including the very broad " right of personal development " of art. 2(1) Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, their implementation will often interfere with the fundamental rights of citizens other than the decision makers and therefore trigger constitutional scrutiny. Since paternalistic motives are – in principle – not accepted as legitimate ends that may justify an interference with fundamental rights, nudges solely intended to protect the decision maker from self-harm may not pass the proportionality test. Secondly, I examine whether the necessity prong of the proportionality principle may force the legislator to choose a non-coercive nudge over a more traditional coercive measure. Given the empirical evidence of the limited effectiveness of nudges in changing behaviour compared to traditional regulatory means, I come to the conclusion that the proportionality principle does not compel the use of nudges.

This paper tries to assess to what extent libertarian paternalism lives up to its libertarian credentials, and whether this “softer” version of paternalism is more or less desirable than the traditional, more coercive (but also more transparent) form. Since much is made in the libertarian paternalistic programme of the ease of reversibility of “nudges,” it is argued that the distinction between effective and nominal ability to reverse a nudge is more important than its theoretical ease of reversibility—the more so, if anchoring, framing and status quo bias are as powerful as the libertarian paternalists maintain. If the libertarian paternalistic nudges are effective, but not always transparent, it is argued that this raises some questions (which do not seem to have been adequately addressed in the current literature) about the legitimacy of the interventions; about how the true preferences of the “consumer” can be guessed by the choice architect (and the role played by rationality in this process) and about the effective respect of her autonomy. Finally, this paper highlights some alternatives to “nudging”  which place a greater emphasis on the full process of choice—rather than just on its outcomes—and can therefore better preserve true autonomy of choice.

Data protection is nowadays of immense importance considering the fact that more than 250 million people in the European Union alone make use of the internet daily, such as using it to deal with online transaction whilst shopping, online banking, using social media or any other form. This results in boundless amounts of data being exchanged every day between different public and private actors, be it for benevolent purposes or not. For this to occur, however, these bodies need to acquire the consent of the individual (data subject) whereby the latter has to give it in a freely, specific, informed and unambiguous form. Not only are these criteria not fully fulfilled after the adoption of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), but having created a connection between autonomy and consent, it seems that they water down the fundamental right of privacy which entails even further complications in the judicial system.

The acquiring of consent demands within itself several implications when it is given to private bodies. Facebook, for instance, uses this data through computational inferences to interpret and predict confidential and private information that, in the long run, goes against the GDPR and also fundamental rights. Such data may infer someone’s sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views, etc. These tools can be utilised for social control, dominance, or even chaos. Moreover, consenting can be linked to nudging. This is a way to influence people’s behaviours by allowing them the freedom to choose between different options. Nudging is a seldom-legislated area in the European Union and it requires different perspectives as to how to tackle public and private bodies interfering with people’s autonomy and manipulating them into desired outcomes.

Consent is not in itself the issue. The instruments exercising it are, because they create a narrow perception of what happens in the world and should be tackled in a behavioural aspect: not assuming how people behave, but by observing how they really behave.

Current food consumption and production cannot be considered sustainable due to extensive ecological, social and economic issues along the supply chain. Reducing food waste is a major instrument in increasing food security and alleviating environmental pressure and thus increasing sustainable food consumption. In Germany, the main generators of food waste are private households. The typical approach to mitigate this is to better inform consumers by means of awareness campaigns. However, research shows that additional solutions are required to tackle the problem of household food waste. Nudging is a relatively new approach to guide consumer behavior gently into a certain direction but there is little experience with its application in the field of consumption politics, let alone food waste reduction. The study addresses this research gap and conducts a first exploratory analysis of the possibilities to reduce household food waste via nudging. The study focuses on the use of food purchase plans as a means to reduce household food waste. It analyses 101 personal questionnaires which were carried out to extract consumers' preferences in this respect. The evidence shows that respondents are open to a change of behavior and also to the use of purchase plans. Furthermore they are interested in feedback on individual food wasting behavior, specific advice on meal planning and social interaction on this topic with their communities. The results also show that young respondents and those living in large households with families are more open to changing their behavior in this respect. These results may be used to gain first experiences in using nudging to reduce household food waste; however, future research is needed to validate and build on these results.

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others—a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy.

This chapter examines what role new behaviour-modification policies – commonly known as “nudges” – might play in cultivating virtues. At first sight, they would appear to be ruled out as a candidate means; but, by offering a more nuanced analysis, the chapter argues that some nudges have virtue-cultivating properties. It distinguishes between two kinds of nudges – 'automatic-behavioural' and 'discernment-developing' – and shows that what divides them is the ability of the latter, which the former lacks, to play an ecological-educative role in developing the virtue of practical reason, which is required for the other virtues too. It thus provides an answer to the question of whether virtue-cultivating nudges are possible, while remaining neutral on whether virtue cultivation is, or under what conditions it could be, a legitimate aim of liberal-democratic states.

Die Soziologie der Menschenregierungskünste beobachtet Gesellschaft als Arrangement von Selbst- und Fremdführungsstrategien. In seinem neuen Buch analysiert Ulrich Bröckling übergreifende Handlungsorientierungen wie Planung, Prävention und Resilienz, Verfahren der Konfliktbearbeitung, kommunikative Technologien, Programme der Kontraktpädagogik sowie Konzepte subtiler Verhaltenslenkung, wie sie etwa unter dem Label des »Nudging« propagiert werden. Auf Krisen sozialer Integration reagieren diese Methoden mit der Stärkung von Selbststeuerungspotenzialen. Statt auf Zwang oder Strafmaßnahmen setzen sie auf Kontextsteuerung und kybernetische Rückkopplungsschleifen.

To nudge is to design choice contexts in order to improve choice outcomes. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein emphatically endorse nudging but reject more restrictive means. In contrast, I argue that the behavioral psychology that motivates nudging also motivates what may be called jolting—i.e. the design of choice content. I defend nudging and jolting by distinguishing them from the sometimes oppressive means with which they can be implemented, by responding to some common arguments against nudging, and by showing how respect for preferences over option sets and their aggregate properties may require the trimming of option sets, as well as helpful choice contexts.

Physical inactivity leads to a high risk of medical complications and triggering substantial health care expenses. The goal of the project within which the research is conducted is to explore the effect of the use of nudges to dissuade individuals from physical inactivity. This study is aimed to design and develop a zero/low-cost nudging mHealth intervention that allows users to check their time with normative messages when walking. This intervention is then utilised for individuals to investigate whether it stimulates physical activity. The design of the nudging intervention is followed by an iterative Design Thinking process. The result of the pilot study has shown us that participants highlighted personal normative message installed as a screensaver in a smartphone as a zero-cost solution to dissuade their physical inactivity. Our future effort is to access this intervention by experimental design studies with quantitative and qualitative surveys, which will be carried out with students to measure physical activity behavioural change.

Environmental regulations have failed to significantly modify the habits and behaviors of the population towards sustainable lifestyles. This paper makes the hypothesis that this failure partly stems from the reliance of modern environmental law on the premise of Homo oeconomicus, a cornerstone of mainstream economic analysis which portrays the human individual as obeying to perfect rationality. Indeed, environmental law consists of regulations— obligations or prohibitions—and financial incentives such as taxation and subsidies to promote eco-friendly behavior. In other terms, modern environmental law considers individuals as utility maximizing and self-interested economic agents, and it seeks to modify their interests in order to change their consumption decisions. However, behavioral economics challenges the assumption at the heart of neoclassical economics by identifying a series of limits to human rationality. These limits pertain to human decisions, which, as behavioral economists show, are partly the result of automatisms, emotion, social norms, and psychological biases. Hence, environmental law should be revisited on premises closer to the behaviors and biases of Homo sapiens rather than a purely theoretical Homo oeconomicus. This article explores a new generation of behaviorally informed legal instruments conceived for environmental protection. Public authorities could facilitate the adoption of eco-friendly lifestyles through “green nudges”, which would leverage cognitive biases to elicit sustainable behaviors. Finally, this paper takes a critical perspective on behavioral economics and its potential for triggering an ecological transition. By targeting individual behaviors rather than encouraging systemic reform, the behavioral approach promises ecological redemption without threatening the commercial and political status quo. It is therefore insufficient to address environmental issues that are deeply politically and structurally embedded. Nudging may be useful to draw forth a cognitive evolution in our legal instruments. However, it cannot become the new legal paradigm of environmental law.

Nudges are proving to be particularly useful for guiding citizen’s behaviour towards certain desirable objectives without resorting to coercion or economic incentives. However, nudges have their limitations: they need to be carefully designed and implemented and raise both technical and ethical questions. This paper provides an overview of all these problems, offering a systematic reconstruction and reflecting on how to integrate nudges into Public Law and, in particular, into Environmental Law

Background: Nudging refers to interventions that organize the choice architecture in order to alter people's behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. As a strategy to encourage healthy behaviour, nudging can serve as a complement to health education. However, the empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of nudging as a way to influence food choice remains contradictory. To address this issue, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to test the effects of nudging to encourage people to select more fruit and vegetables. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed on PubMed, Medline, PsycInfo, Cochrane library, Scopus and Google Scholar. After quality assessment, 20 articles (23 studies) were retained for narrative synthesis. Twelve articles (14 studies) contained enough information to calculate effect-sizes for meta-analysis using Comprehensive Meta-analysis software. Results: The meta-analysis shows that nudging interventions that aim to increase fruit and/or vegetable choice/ sales/servings have a moderately significant effect (d = 0.30), with the largest effect for altering placement (d = 0.39) and combined nudges (d = 0.28). Conclusion: The results of this review provide an indication of the effectiveness of nudging on fruit and vegetable choice in terms of actual effect-sizes, while also highlighting the problems that must be addressed before more definitive conclusions can be drawn.

Este trabajo estudia la relevancia del ahorro en el caso aplicado de Argentina y en el marco de la economía del comportamiento. Específicamente, analiza la literatura sobre los nudges orientados al ahorro e identifica empíricamente la ausencia de instrumentos afines en el sector financiero público local. Adicionalmente, mediante dos entrevistas de diseño propio se estudian las únicas dos empresas de tecnologías financieras (las Fintech Invuelto y Front) que aplican nudges para incentivar el ahorro en Argentina. El análisis permite concluir la ausencia de iniciativas afines en la Banca Pública y esgrimir recomendaciones de política pública tendientes a poner en práctica nuevos instrumentos en esta, analizando la viabilidad de su implementación y buscando contribuir al debate para la promoción de la inclusión financiera en Argentina mediante el ahorro.

This workshop is intended to support practitioners in the application of digital nudging and digital persuasion strategies to increase individual’s competency and self-efficacy beliefs for goal attainment. The workshop allows them to engage in solving different nudge and persuasion-based tasks through technology-enhanced solutions. Thus, the expected outcome is to enhance the capacity of using digital nudging and persuasion to achieve a more sustainable behavioral change in individuals.

Andreas Schmidt and Neil Levy have recently defended nudging against the objection that nudges fail to treat nudgees as rational agents. Schmidt rejects two theses that have been taken to support the objection: that nudges harness irrational processes in the nudgee, and that they subvert the nudgee's rationality. Levy rejects a third thesis that may support the objection: that nudges fail to give reasons. I argue that these defences can be extrapolated from nudges to some nonconsensual neurointerventions; if Schmidt's and Levy's defences succeed, then some nonconsensual neurointerventions neither harness irrationality, nor subvert rationality, nor fail to give reasons. This, I claim, poses a challenge both to opponents of nonconsensual neurointerventions, and to defenders of nudging.

My task in this chapter is a discussion of the issue of automaticity in Kotarbiński aided by some analysis of his stance concerning the know-how question. I shall also try to investigate the impact of this discussion on the philosophical framework of action theory which has been accepted in Chapter 1 under the umbrella of intentionalism. My overall stipulation is that, as in the case of many other important issues explored by Kotarbiński, the praxiological approach to automation and the know-how question appears not only as pioneering but also, in several respects, as still attractive and fresh. The basic praxiological intuition that automaticity economizes our actions and thus makes much sense in the context of our limited mental resources is at heart of the contemporary problems in philosophy and cognitive psychology.

Individual preferences for environmental policies can be influenced by the frame in which choices and decisions are presented. In this paper we present results of a field experiment on the contributions to carbon offsetting programs under two alternative treatments for the default option. The opt-in treatment asked subjects to pay for the policy proposal while the opt-out treatment asked subjects if they wanted to be excluded from payment for the policy proposal. The results show that the frame of the default option had a significant effect on the amount of money paid for the policy proposal. Subjects were more likely to accept the policy proposal if the default option was the opt-out treatment. The results have implications for the design of environmental policies.

Nudges have been criticized for working ‘in the dark, ’ influencing people without their full awareness. To assess whether this property renders nudging an illegitimate policy tool in liberal democracies, we argue that in scrutinizing nudge transparency, we should adequately divide our focus between nudging techniques, the nudgers employing them, and the nudgees subjected to them. We develop an account of what it means for nudgees to be ‘watchful,’ a disposition that enables them to resist and circumvent nudges. We argue that such ‘watchfulness’ should be cultivated if we want to implement nudges in legitimate, accountable, and democratic ways.

Das Problem ist bekannt: Man weiß, dass es besser wäre, das Auto stehen zu lassen, Produkte aus ökologischem Landbau zu kaufen oder beim Kauf eines neuen Elektrogeräts eher auf den Stromverbrauch als auf das Design zu achten. Dennoch entscheiden wir uns jeden Tag nicht für die vernünftigste Option, sondern lassen uns von Gewohnheiten, Vorlieben oder Ängsten leiten – zum Nachteil von Gesundheit und Ökologie. Rüdiger Graf zeichnet in seinem Aufsatz am Beispiel der Umweltpo-litik den Aufstieg der Verhaltensökonomie nach und stellt die Kontinuitäten heraus, die das verhaltenssteuernde Nudging von heute mit den Umbrüchen in den Jahren " nach dem Boom " verbinden. Damit geht es aber um nicht weniger als um den Wan-del politischer Regulierung und staatlichen Handelns im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahr-hunderts. nnnn

This chapter sets out two main insights gleaned from examining how empirical research enriches our understanding of the nature of autonomy. The first insight adds to existing externalist concerns by considering the degree to which people exhibit evidence-responsiveness: how one’s beliefs and values relate to reality. This understudied aspect of the relation between critical reflection and autonomy is complemented by a second insight into the phenomenon of preauthorization: a novel, internalist dimension of the way in which a person’s decision-making is influenced by external factors and actors. This theoretical analysis is then applied to situations in which infringement of autonomy is a concern, such as nudging and persuasive technologies, to draw out its practical implications.

Öz Davranışsal içgörü, dünyada özellikle son birkaç yıldır hükümetler tarafından gittikçe artan şekilde kullanılan bir araç haline gelmiştir. Son on sene içerisinde yayınlanan pek çok yayın araştırma, rapor ve benzeri çalışmalar göstermektedir ki davranışsal içgörü, pek çok politika sorununa katma değerli çözümler getirebilme yetisine sahiptir. Ödül (sübvansiyonlar, teşvikler, ödüller, burslar, krediler vb.) ve ceza (trafik ve vergi cezaları, yasal zorunluluklar, kısıtlamalar... vb.) gibi, devlet yönetiminin uyguladığı klasik yöntemlerin yanı sıra bir tür yumuşak politika olarak karşımıza çıkan davranışsal içgörü / dürtme uygulamaları, çevre, sağlık, eğitim, enerji, finans, sosyal güvenlik ve daha pek çok alanda etkin, uygulaması kolay ve getirisi yüksek pratikler yapmaya olanak sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışmada davranışsal içgörü uygulamalarının klasik politika araçları ile karşılaştırıldığında ne oranda faydalı olduğu, hangi kurumlar ve devletler tarafından, hangi alanlarda, ne şekilde kullanıldığı, davranışsal içgörünün bir kamu politikası aracı olarak kullanılabilirliği ve konu çevresinde tartışılan etik yaklaşımlar irdelenmiştir. Bu alanda ülkemizde yapılmış ilk çalışmalardan biri olması sebebi ile çalışmanın davranışsal içgörü / dürtme konularında Türkçe yazına katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir. Abstract The last few years saw increasing use of behavioral insight as a tool by the governments all around the globe. Numerous pieces of scholarship published in the last decade, not to mention substantial efforts in research, countless reports and other studies show that behavioral insight offers value-added solutions to many policy problems. When combined with the rather conventional tools available to the governments, such as rewards (subsidies, incentives, means of support, scholarships, loans, etc.) and punishments (traffic and tax fines, legal obligations, restrictions etc.), behavioral insights can be used in soft-policy contexts.

À la fin des années 1970, Gibson élabora le concept d’« affordance » pour désigner des objets qui apparaissent comme immédiatement signifiants dans le champ perceptif (voir The Theory of Affordances en 1977, puis The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception en 1979). Propre tout d’abord à la psychologie de la perception, ce concept s’est ensuite diffusé à d’autres domaines, notamment celui du design, en particulier au travers de l’ouvrage publié par le cogniticien David Norman en 1988, The Design of Everyday Things. Dans la conception des jeux vidéo, le concept d’affordance a une place toute trouvée, le game design consistant généralement en l’élaboration d’un monde signifiant pour le joueur, qui doit idéalement l’appeler à l’action de par sa seule constitution et perception. En s’inscrivant dans une démarche épistémologique et l’analyse d’exemples concrets, il s’agira d’interroger les enseignements que la philosophie peut tirer de la façon dont les jeux vidéo organisent et théorisent (ou non) la perception, d’une manière implicite ou explicite, par ce concept d’affordance. Son usage, parfois assumé (voir le « Collectif Bam »), y est-il fécond et adapté ? À quelles limites ce concept est-il confronté ? Ses adaptations dans la conception des jeux vidéo peuvent-elles enrichir la philosophie de la perception ?

Nudging is a tool of libertarian paternalism. It involves making use of certain psychological tendencies in order to help people make better decisions without restricting their freedom. However, some have argued that nudging is objectionable because it interferes with, or undermines, the rational decision-making of the nudged agents. Opinions differ on why this is objectionable, but the underlying concerns appear to begin with nudging's threat to rational decision-making. Those who discuss this issue do not make it clear what this threat to rationality amounts to. In this paper I evaluate what effect nudging has on our decision-making and I argue that it does not typically interfere with our rationality in a problematic way. Perhaps nudging is objectionable for other reasons, but we should not argue that nudging is objectionable based on concerns about rational decision-making.