Read more: "Nudge power: Big government's little pushes"
NUDGES are born of good intentions and clever ideas. Alas, that's not enough.
I once proposed a nudge to promote online civility. I suggested that magazines and newspapers should moderate comments using a variation of ToneCheck, an "emotional spell-checker" for email that prompts users to tone down angry messages.
Richard Thaler, one of the chief architects of nudge, loved it, tweeting: "A Nudge dream come true." But my students saw a problem: legitimate opinions getting censored or watered down. The lesson I learned is that nudge designers must always consider the possibility of unintended consequences. In fact, that is only one of many concerns about nudging.
As I found, creating effective nudges is difficult. Thaler and Cass Sunstein's influential book Nudge creates the impression that nearly anyone can do it. All you need is a basic understanding of how ...
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