What is Nudging?

Recognizing that people do not always act in ways that serve their own best interests, Thaler and Sunstein suggest that in many instances, individual decision-making could be improved by using simple “nudges.” By appealing to individual psychology, effective nudges increase the likelihood of people making choices that reflect their underlying interests, while still respecting their freedom to choose. These aims form the basic premise of libertarian paternalism (Thaler and Sunstein Reference Thaler and Sunstein2003; Thaler and Sunstein Reference Thaler and Sunstein2009).

To illustrate the principle of nudging, consider the following example. As any instructor can attest, most students say they want to earn good grades. Yet, realistically, all kinds of temptations and obstacles (e.g., jobs, video games, partying, romantic escapades) discourage students from preparing for assignments ahead of time. The task expands to fit the time allotted. Understanding that students do not always take appropriate action to meet their goals, an instructor can “nudge” students by giving smaller, incremental assignments that build toward a larger assignment. Students still have the freedom to not work ahead of time, but the likelihood that they will earn a good grade on the larger assignment improves drastically with a slight “nudge” in the right direction.

The idea of improving decision-making through nudging also has its skeptics (Mitchell Reference Mitchell2005; Klick and Mitchell Reference Klick and Mitchell2006; Rachlinski Reference Rachlinski2006; Rostbøll Reference Rostbøll2005). Given the range of competing viewpoints, I saw Nudge as an excellent tool for students to not only learn about major themes in the field of decision-making, but also see how concepts discussed in the classroom have genuine applications to public policy. I wanted students to achieve three learning goals through this assignment. First, they should be able to synthesize concepts discussed throughout the course to design their own nudges. Second, they should learn how to anticipate critics' responses by identifying potential problems and limitations of their solutions in advance. Third, the project should increase students' tolerance for uncertainty through the recognition that there may not be one “right” way to address the problem at hand.

Students read sections of Nudge, and I supplemented the readings with in-class lectures and discussions about the concept of libertarian paternalism. After students had gained a clear understanding of the idea of “nudging,” I distributed the assignment, which contained three separate elements.

In the first element, students worked in small groups to design one or more “nudges” that aimed to solve an assigned political or social problem. The one stipulation was that the nudge could not be a proposal to change existing law. Each group put together a short presentation to “sell” their nudge to a skeptical audience of their peers, using course concepts to justify how their proposed nudge would work. After the 15- to 20-minute presentation, groups fielded questions from a jury of their peers for about 10 minutes.

In the assignment's second element, the jury, students role-played the part of critics during other groups' presentations and offered constructive feedback for how their nudges could be improved. Students turned in their written ideas and comments at the end of each group's presentation. This element kept students thinking actively about “nudging,” sharpened their constructive criticism skills, and gave less talkative students an opportunity to provide feedback. The jury's written comments were easy to collect, summarize, and relay to the respective groups.

As the third element, students wrote individual papers describing and critiquing their own ideas, addressing the jury's concerns, and delving into the ethical issues surrounding the principle of choice architecture. The individual paper also gave students an opportunity to reflect on the project as a whole.

Conducting the Assignment

Students' internal motivation to succeed on an assignment increases when they can work on a topic that interests them personally (Pintrich Reference Pintrich2003). For this reason, I solicited student input in deciding the nudge topics. Early in the semester, I asked students to brainstorm social and political problems that they thought were particularly pressing. During the last 10 minutes of a class period, students listed their suggestions on small, individual forms, which I then reviewed. Blending these ideas with a few of my own, I presented a list of eight political and social problems at the beginning of the next class period. Students then individually ranked five problems that interested them the most on another form. After reviewing these ranked requests, I tried to assign each student either their first- or second-choice topic.

The final set of assigned problems was:

• • Increasing political participation in areas other than voting

• • Limiting the influence of moneyed interests on elected officials

• • Encouraging people to speak up when they see something wrong

• • Increasing exercise

• • Reducing drunk driving

In the following class period, students received their group assignments. In total, five teams were assembled, with three to five group members each. I gave students a detailed assignment rubric that established the tasks on which the teams would be working and the criteria that would be used to evaluate their performance.

Over the course of the semester, I reserved three class sessions as designated times for students to work on their group presentations. With the power of nudging in mind, I purposely built time for this task into the course to prevent students from leaving the work until the last minute. The scheduled sessions allowed me to check in with each group regularly. In these sessions, students were unknowingly creating “drafts” of their projects. These scheduled periods resulted in more robust project ideas and increased the overall quality of the work that students submitted for their graded assignments.

Students also spent additional time outside of class working on their projects. In the project feedback forms, several students said that timing the presentations to occur immediately after Thanksgiving break made the group work more stressful, but they also reported that the in-class time likely reduced their overall stress and heightened the quality of their projects.

Outcomes

Over the course of one week (three class sessions), each group delivered their in-class presentations. I was astounded by the creativity of solutions they offered. A sampling of some of their ideas follow.

Student Feedback

To gauge student learning outcomes at the conclusion of the project, I asked students to give anonymous written feedback about the Nudge assignment. Ninety percent of students recommended that I use the project again in the future. Some of their comments are presented here:

• • Nudges are hard and the problems they try to solve are even tougher. I became passionate about our topic…. It became much more than a simple [project] about a book and a problem. [This project] was a challenge because it forces student to think of class concepts and apply them.

• • I learned it is really hard to design a good nudge! It is challenging to come up with a nudge to solve real problems. There are not many projects requiring such a level of creativity.

• • [The project] helped me to realize the importance of nudges in day-to-day life, as without them, the world would be very different. [Until now], I was never aware of nudges. I always assumed that was just the way things were.

• • If people take initiative, then anything is possible. [This project] made me think outside the box and take an optimistic view on many social issues in the community…. This is a great critical thinking project and really makes group members go deeper than the subject material.

• • [This project] improved my thinking on how to solve a problem…. There can be various solutions to one problem.

• • I learned that there are various problems today that do not have a very concrete answer. The main idea of each group is that public support is necessary for any of these nudges to be successful. [The project] showed me how hard we as a society have to work to try and minimize these problems, since it is impossible to completely eliminate them. It was good to see that we are actually trying to solve real and not hypothetical problems.

Suggestions

The Nudge assignment offered students a unique learning experience by developing their ability to actively apply their understanding of course concepts to formulate creative solutions to real political and social problems.

A similar assignment could be used in almost any class on decision-making in the discipline of political science, public policy, psychology, or business. This type of assignment could also be used as a supplement to service learning. Instructors could assign political and social problems to complement current events or focus on issues salient to the local community. This assignment is one way to promote students' civic connectedness while also building their creative problem-solving skills and developing their sense of efficacy. Although students may not realize it, with such an approach, instructors can “nudge” them toward all of these goals.