Column Making the right choices

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: use at home in real time, might prompt you to switch electric devices off more readily. A more subtle nudge could enlist comparison with a peer group. Knowing (at the bottom of the bill, for example) how much less electricity the energy-efficient households in the neighbourhood consumed per-capita might focus consumer attention on conservation.

A fundamental nudge design works by making the desired condition the default. In Spain everyone is assumed to have donated organs unless they choose to opt out. Think of any desired participation plan, for example, a savings scheme. When people are enrolled into the scheme as a matter of course but with the option to opt out, participation rate will be seen to rise dramatically relative to the case where they are left free to opt in to the scheme.

One behavioural bias we all suffer from takes the form of forming judgement from very small samples of our personal experiences. For example, if you see a traffic accident, you tend to overestimate the probability of dying from a crash. If you see a couple of motor-cyclists not wearing helmets you tend to think most people do not conform to rules. Conversely, a survey that showed that over 90% of drivers in town wore seatbelts persuaded a friend to belt up. When there is a desired norm (seatbelts, helmets etc.), publicising the proportion of people conforming to it may help to convert all but the terminally recalcitrant – if of course, a large proportion do actually conform. There will of course always be areas where direct regulation is necessary, but complementing these, nudges can economise on bureaucracy and costs. Nudges can swap large bureaucracies for smart ones.

A most interesting nudge variant consists of implicit but compelling instructions: a home-grown example takes the form of painting images of diverse Gods on surfaces that are subject to the risk of men taking a quick if public leak! In a very effective inverse of this mechanism, the designers of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport (and others, since) have had a fly painted at the centre of the receiving porcelain surface of each of the urinals in their men’s rooms to improve aim accuracy, and reduce cleaning bills!