Why Nudges Hardly Help
The atlantic | FRANK PASQUALE | DEC 4, 2015
Abstract: Can anyone be gently pushed toward a more secure retirement? Or a healthier diet? That’s the hope of a growing number of policymakers, economists, and psychologists. They aim to “nudge” people into spending and eating less, while saving and exercising more. Sometimes the nudges are merely informational: A law may require restaurants to reveal the number of calories in items on their menu.
Even if a nudge does work, the one doing the nudging can alter the context of a single small decision, but cannot change the larger environment. For instance, the nutritionist Kelly Brownell once observed that in the U.S., cumulative annual government spending on promoting healthy food amounts to what food advertisers spend every few days. A prim little reminder that a Big Mac has 563 calories is easily overwhelmed by the saturation of McDonald’s toy promotions, jingles, and movie tie-ins. Nor can the average consumer even begin to comprehend the efforts of countless scientists and marketing researchers aiming to make food appealing to the point of addiction.
