Small and medium-sized enterprises constitute the largest share of companies in most economies. As major resource users and significant contributors to environmental pollution, they are relevant targets for public policy programs aimed at increasing sustainability. We study how ‘sludge’ – small frictions in the choice architecture – can impact the uptake and effectiveness of such public policy programs targeted at SMEs. To this end, we conducted a field experiment within an existing policy program designed to support SMEs in implementing cost-effective environmental management practices. We manipulated the process of receiving free green items intended to support the implementation of those environmentally friendly practices within firms. We find that sludge, in the form of minor additional effort required to order the items, substantially undermined the program’s effectiveness. These results have important implications for policymakers: even minor sludge in the choice architecture can seriously impair the effectiveness of public policy programs targeted at companies.

Transparency is intimately linked to debates about the ethics, political legitimacy and effectiveness of nudging. This paper provides an overview of empirical studies investigating how changes in the transparency of a nudge affect people's choices and evaluations of the nudge. I conclude that the present literature provides generally consistent evidence supporting that the effectiveness of a nudge does not decrease when choosers are given good opportunity to detect and understand the influence it might have on their choices. However, several conceptual and methodological issues are identified, significantly limiting the scope of the conclusions that can be drawn. The limitations are discussed and organized into six themes, with recommendations provided for how future research may address them.

Although customer support is critical to the wider uptake of nudging strategies to promote fruits and vegetables (FV) in institutional food service (FS) settings, empirical research is sparse and typically based on small convenience samples. An online survey was conducted to assess support, perceived effectiveness and intrusiveness of nine nudge types drawn from Münscher et al.'s Taxonomy of Choice Architecture. We focused on the setting of campus FSs across Canada. A national sample of post-secondary students regularly using campus FSs was used (N 1057). Support for changing the range of options (B3) was the highest, closely followed by changing option-related effort (B2) and changing option-related consequences (B4). Facilitating commitment (C2), changing default (B1) and providing a social reference point (A3) received lowest support. Furthermore, we extracted three clusters of respondents based on perceived effectiveness and intrusiveness of nudge types. Characterised by a relatively low level of perceived effectiveness and moderately high level of intrusiveness, Cluster 1 (61⋅7 % of the sample) reported the lowest support for nudges. Cluster 2 (26⋅6 %), characterised by intermediate effectiveness and low intrusiveness of nudging, reported a high level of support for nudges. Lastly, Cluster 3 (11⋅7 %), characterised by high perceived effectiveness of as well as high perceived intrusiveness, reported the highest level of support for nudges. Findings confirm overall support for FV nudging, with significant differences across nudge types. Differences in customers’ acceptance and perception across nudge types offer campus FS operators initial priors in selecting nudges to promote FV.

The family home is the most important asset on household balance sheets, aside from human capital. Choosing a suitable mortgage is therefore critical to financial well-being but households often make costly mistakes. We collect data in an online survey to test borrowers’ comfort with, and understanding of, mortgage debt. We analyze the impact of financial literacy, mortgage broker advice and whether the loan is framed as a lump sum debt or an equivalent stream of repayments. We conjecture that participants’ comfort with loans and their ability to match lump sum debt to equivalent repayment streams will help them to choose a suitable mortgage. Results show that participants with high financial literacy are less comfortable with mortgage debt in general and also less sensitive to framing than those with low financial literacy. Literate participants are better able to match repayment streams with the equivalent lump sums. Endogeneity-controlled regression analysis shows that consulting brokers leads to higher comfort with debt and lower sensitivity to framing. Survey responses also indicate more uncertainty about future house prices among borrowers who intend to consult brokers than among those who do not.

Two concepts shaped and continue to shape the discussion on the limits of a liberal and democratic state. First, Mill's harm principle, according to which the fundamental justification for a state exercising power over individuals is to prevent harm being done to others. Second, the distinction between the public sphere, where liberal democracies can intervene, and the private sphere, where individuals are, in principle, free to do as they like. I argue that both concepts have to be revisited in the context of today's ‘ultra-processed’ world, in which sophisticated technologies and highly engineered products reach deep into the private sphere, exploiting human psychology and jeopardizing citizens’ health and welfare in the interest of maximizing profit. In this ultra-processed world, where the distinction between the public and the private spheres is blurred, systemic interventions such as regulation and taxation, often criticized as paternalistic, are necessary to minimize harm. However, they must be complemented by interventions informed by behavioural science that modify and guide individual behaviours. Beyond the soft paternalism of nudging, people can be empowered to self-nudge – a non-paternalistic approach that enables them to design and structure their own decision environments and choice architectures as they see fit.

Very small but cumulated decreases in food intake may be sufficient to erase obesity over a period of years. We examine the effect of slight changes in the accessibility of different foods in a pay-by-weight-of-food salad bar in a cafeteria serving adults for the lunch period. Making a food slightly more difficult to reach (by varying its proximity by about 10 inches) or changing the serving utensil (spoon or tongs) modestly but reliably reduces intake, in the range of 8–16%. Given this effect, it is possible that making calorie-dense foods less accessible and low-calorie foods more accessible over an extended period of time would result in significant weight loss.

The translation of choice attributes into more meaningful information (e.g., from kWh to costs) is a form of choice architecture that is thought to facilitate decision making by providing decision signposts that activate personally relevant but latent objectives and guide decisions towards options that are most congruent with the activated objectives. Here, we investigated the psychological mechanisms that underlie and drive the directional effects of attribute translations on decision making. Across two choice experiments (total N = 973), we provide empirical support for our proposition that attribute translations operate via pre-decisional attention processes. Specifically, we demonstrate that attribute translations focus individuals’ attention on choice options that are most congruent with the concerns highlighted by translations, and that this attentional prioritization of alternatives predicts choice. In addition to the cognitive mechanisms underlying attribute translations, we highlight the choice architectural principles that moderate the effectiveness of translations. We show that the directional effects of attribute translations are driven by the information that translations provide rather than by contextual changes in the decision environment. In line with previous research on evaluability, we find the effectiveness of attribute translations to depend on information format, with translations conveying evaluative information having a larger impact on decision making than translations providing numerical information. The present study is among the first to investigate the decision making processes underlying a choice architectural intervention. It provides insights into the mechanisms that drive and facilitate the signpost effect and renders recommendations for the implementation of attribute translations in policy making.

“Very small but cumulated decreases in food intake may be sufficient to have significant effects, even erasing obesity over a period of years” (Rozin et al., 2011). In two studies, one a lab study and the other a real-world study, we examine the effect of manipulating the position of different foods on a restaurant menu. Items placed at the beginning or the end of the list of their category options were up to twice as popular as when they were placed in the center of the list. Given this effect, placing healthier menu items at the top or bottom of item lists and less healthy ones in their center (e.g., sugared drinks vs. calorie-free drinks) should result in some increase in favor of healthier food choices.

To successfully select and implement nudges, policy makers need a psychological understanding of who opposes nudges, how they are perceived, and when alternative methods (e.g., forced choice) might work better. Using two representative samples, we examined four factors that influence U.S. attitudes toward nudges – types of nudges, individual dispositions, nudge perceptions, and nudge frames. Most nudges were supported, although opt-out defaults for organ donations were opposed in both samples. “System 1” nudges (e.g., defaults and sequential orderings) were viewed less favorably than “System 2” nudges (e.g., educational opportunities or reminders). System 1 nudges were perceived as more autonomy threatening, whereas System 2 nudges were viewed as more effective for better decision making and more necessary for changing behavior. People with greater empathetic concern tended to support both types of nudges and viewed them as the “right” kind of goals to have. Individualists opposed both types of nudges, and conservatives tended to oppose both types. Reactant people and those with a strong desire for control opposed System 1 nudges. To see whether framing could influence attitudes, we varied the description of the nudge in terms of the target (Personal vs. Societal) and the reference point for the nudge (Costs vs. Benefits). Empathetic people were more supportive when framing highlighted societal costs or benefits, and reactant people were more opposed to nudges when frames highlighted the personal costs of rejection.

Recently, defaults have become celebrated as a low-cost and easy-to-implement nudge for promoting positive outcomes, both at an individual and societal level. In the present research, we conducted a large-scale field experiment (N = 32,508) in an educational context to test the effectiveness of a default intervention in promoting participation in a potentially beneficial achievement test. We found that a default manipulation increased the rate at which high school students registered to take the test but failed to produce a significant change in students’ actual rate of test-taking. These results join past literature documenting robust effects of default framings on initial choice but marked variability in the extent to which those choices ultimately translate to real-world outcomes. We suggest that this variability is attributable to differences in choice-to-outcome pathways – the extent to which the initial choice is causally determinative of the outcome.

Interventions that tackle ‘last mile’ behaviors in the form of improved choice architecture are fundamental to Behavioral Public Policy (BPP), yet far less attention is typically paid to the nature and design of underlying system conditions and infrastructures that support these interventions. However, inattention to broader conditions that impact participant engagement and intervention functionality, such as barriers to access that deter participation or perverse structural disincentives that reward undesirable behaviors, may not only limit the effectiveness of behavioral solutions but also miss opportunities to deliberately design underlying ‘plumbing’ – the choice infrastructure – in a way that improves overall system efficacy and equity. Using the illustrative case of civic policy in food licensure, this article describes how using a ‘SPACE’ model to address Standards, Process mechanics and policies, Accountability, Culture within systems, and Evaluative and iterative feedback can support the development of improved choice infrastructure, contributing to BPP problem-solving efforts by helping practitioners create system conditions that are more conducive to the success of behavioral solutions.

This paper presents the results of a choice experiment that is designed to examine whether changing how plan information is presented affects planned retirement-savings behavior. The main hypothesis is that providing plan information in a more concise format with helpful recommendations, rather than providing lengthy and detailed information, will alter retirement-planning choices. The specific choices examined include: whether to enroll, how much to contribute, and how to structure (broadly) the asset allocation. The choice experiment is conducted on three different samples: (i) a Qualtrics panel of new employees, (ii) a Qualtrics panel of job seekers, and (iii) a sample of business-school students. Our results suggest that, controlling for demographic and other factors, our main hypothesis was not supported by the data in any of the samples. Thus, the data cast some doubt on the notion that simplifying and condensing the retirement-plan information presented to employees will result in vastly different retirement-planning choices.

Criticisms of nudging suggest that nudges infringe on decision makers’ autonomy. Yet, little empirical research has explored whether people who are subjected to nudges agree. In three between-group experiments (N = 2083), we subject participants to contrasting choice architectures and measure experiences of autonomy, choice-satisfaction, perceived threat to freedom of choice, and objection to the choice architecture. Participants who received a prosocial opt-out default nudge made more prosocial choices but did not report lower autonomy or choice satisfaction than participants in opt-in default or active-choice conditions. This was the case even when the presence of the nudge was disclosed, and when monetary choice stakes were introduced. With monetary choice stakes, participants perceived the threat to freedom of choice as slightly higher in the nudge condition than in the other conditions, but objection to the choice architecture did not differ between the conditions. Taken together, our results suggest that default nudges are less manipulative and autonomy-infringing than sometimes feared. We recommend that policymakers include measures of choice experiences when testing out new interventions.

People often fail to make the choices that best satisfy their preferences. The design of the social environment inevitably makes some choices easier than others. According to Libertarian Paternalists, these facts justify governments nudging people towards better choices through changes to the so-called choice architecture. This is a form of means paternalism. However, the social environment affects not only people's choices or means, but also the preferences they adopt in the first place. Call this the problem of ‘preference architecture’. This article argues that preference architecture constitutes a fundamental challenge to the justificatory basis of Libertarian Paternalism. More generally, it explores when, if ever, government paternalism that influences preference formation can be justified. While Libertarian Paternalism cannot provide a satisfactory answer, the author defends a contractualist account of paternalism based on a notion of primary goods and democratic deliberation.

Populations' diets typically fall short of recommendations. The implication of this on ill health and quality of life is well established, as are the subsequent health care costs. An area of growing interest within public health nutrition is food choice architecture; how a food choice is framed and its influence on subsequent food selection. In particular, there is an appeal to manipulating the choice architecture in order to nudge individuals' food choice. This review outlines the current understanding of food choice architecture, theoretical background to nudging and the evidence on the effectiveness of nudge strategies, as well as their design and implementation. Interventions emphasising the role of nudge strategies have investigated changes to the accessibility, availability and presentation of food and the use of prompts. Empirical studies have been conducted in laboratories, online and in real-world food settings, and with different populations. Evidence on the effectiveness of nudge strategies in shifting food choice is encouraging. Underpinning mechanisms, not yet fully explicated, are proposed to relate to salience, social norms and the principle of least effort. Emerging evidence points to areas for development including the effectiveness of choice architecture interventions with different and diverse populations, and the combined effect of multiple nudges. This, alongside further examination of theoretical mechanisms and guidance to engage and inspire across the breadth of food provision, is critical. In this way, the potential of choice architecture to effect meaningful change in populations' diets will be realised.