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In their book, Nudge, authors Thaler and Sunstein identify what they call “libertarian paternalism” that can impact how people make choices. They indicate that knowledge of how others perceive a decision can impact a decision maker because there is an inherent tendency to conform. One example they identify relates to an experiment they ran in California regarding energy usage. The simply addition of information about their neighbor’s usage, caused heavy energy users to reduce their usage – even though there was no suggestion that they should do so. Similarly, getting people to think about whether or not they want to do something (such as asking them to explicitly chose whether or not they want to be an organ donor) causes more people to select the positive action. |
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