Cass Sunstein, prominent legal scholar and co-author of Nudge, on improving everyday decision making

Everyday we make choices that can impact our health, wealth, and happiness, from saving for retirement to what we eat. Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge and one of the most influential legal scholars of our time, shares his insights on making better decisions for ourselves and our families. Cass also talks about the role that digital technology can play in steering people to make better choices.

We’ve posted complete transcript of the podcast below. You can subscribe to Sequenced on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Dr. Kiki: Welcome to Sequenced. I am Dr. Kiki. Our guest today is Cass Sunstein. He’s the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. He’s an American Legal Scholar, was the Administrator at the White House in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama Administration from 2009 to 2012. He taught for 27 years at the University of Chicago Law School and studies legal publications.

And a study of legal publications between 2009 and 2013, found him to be the most frequently-cited American legal scholar, leading to the coining of the concept of a Sunstein number, reflecting the degrees of separation between various legal authors and Sunstein. He has also published numerous books, among them, 2008’s, “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness,” and more recently, “The World According to Star Wars,” and “The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science.” Welcome to the podcast, Cass.

Cass: Thank you so much, a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Kiki: It’s really wonderful to get the opportunity to talk with you. I love talking about brainy things and nudge, and the ideas of behavioral economics are absolutely fascinating. So to get started on this, can you talk a little bit about what you mean by nudge, from that book of yours?

Cass: Yeah. So a nudge is an intervention that allows people to go their own way, but it gives health and happiness and wealth the benefit of the doubt. So kind of defining a GPS device, which nudges you to take a certain route to get to the direction you want. A reminder can be a nudge, as when you get on your phone, a little beep that says, “If you don’t pay your bill soon, you’re gonna have a late fee,” or, “You have a doctor’s appointment.” A reminder is a nudge. A warning is a nudge. Something on prescription medicine, that says you know, “Don’t take more than eight of those, you might get in trouble if you do,” or a default rule that says, “You’re automatically enrolled in the retirement program,” or, “Unless you change your settings, you’re gonna have double-sided printing.”

All those things are nudges. They preserve your liberty to go in the direction you want to but they give a sense for you and for society, the benefit of the doubt. The excitement is that little interventions of this kind all over the world are saving lives, saving a ton of money, and basically making people able to enjoy their lives a lot more.

Dr. Kiki: Yeah. So going from a legal perspective, I mean, we can start even with the preamble of the constitution, you know, providing for the general welfare, right? Is our government and is there a legal precedent for the idea of nudges throughout society?

Cass: Well, I think it goes back to the “Bible,” where both God and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, they were doing some nudging. The serpent not for the best purposes but the serpent was a pretty adept nudger. And as long as human society has existed, either governments or private actors have been involved in nudging. So, you know, in ancient regime, where public officials are saying that people of our society do this, don’t do that, you can see in The Ten Commandments says nudges certainly if they’re not backed by sanctions, they’re instructions. And our government has Alexander Hamilton was a great nudger. “The Federalist Papers,” were nudging people to support our constitution.

So the excitement I think is not in the novelty of the phenomenon of nudging but in the recent decades of really earth-shattering work on human behavior and how we actually act, and how our brains operate. And that earth-shattering behavior work on…empirical work bringing that into contact with instruments that private entities can use and governments can use to nudge for good.

Dr. Kiki: Can you talk a bit about how you came to be a proponent of this idea, and writing about it, and thinking about it, and really discussing it in the public forum?

Cass: As you said, I was at the University of Chicago for a long time. And when I got there, the kind of, coin of the realm, was the idea that human beings make rational choices. That if it involves medical decisions or decisions about the stock market or decisions about parenting, people figure out what’s best and then they figure out the means to get there. And that well once, the Nobel Prizes had a big effect on governments, including the U.S. Government but I observed that my colleagues, who were proponents of the rational actor model, they were complaining about their own idiotic decisions, with respect to stock markets or how they were dealing with their spouses, and you know, how foolish they were.

And then I would observe on the tennis court, they take crazy shots. And this didn’t seem an accurate depiction. And I was one of, I think a gazillion people, who were kind of clueless skeptics about the rational actor model. And then I started reading, as did many others, in the ’80s, work by Richard Thaler, who got the Nobel Prize in 2017 and Daniel Kahneman, who got the Nobel Prize in 2002, which is not just saying people are irrational, in fact, it doesn’t say that at all. It says that people depart from rationality in ways that are predictable and systematic, and that is really the engine I think that work for the interests that I and many others have had in rethinking public policy.

So if you’re a government and you’re interested in helping people to quit smoking or helping people to enjoy benefits that the government provides, to get permits or licenses, to help make the air a little bit cleaner, or water safer to drink, the way that people actually behave is a clue about what policies might work. So it’s kind of a Big Bang, the revolutionary work in behavioral science, psychology, and economics hitting law on public policy.

Dr. Kiki: And this idea that people are not necessarily rational actors. And so, what are the systems that work in our decision-making in how the brains work? So, I mean, the nudging is that’s from the outside and it has a long human history, but now we’re starting like you said, we’re starting to understand through psychology and neuroscience on how the brain is actually coming to these decisions.

Cass: Well, one way of thinking about this, triggered by your word systems, is that a lot of the work says the human mind has two systems in it, kind of, charmingly named System 1 and System 2, where System 1 says you know, “I see a big dog and I better run because I’m gonna get bitten,” or System 1 feels an airplane starting to hit turbulence and thinks, “Oh my God, I’m gonna die,” or System 1 thinks you know, “I just saw…I met someone and I’m gonna fall in love.” And that those three things might be not fully rational. And System 2 thinks, you know, “Planes don’t crash usually,” and, “Big dogs are usually nice,” and, “Falling in love is not a daily occurrence.”

So these systems, System 1 and System 2 actually have brain connections in the brain. The amygdala is a part of the brain that is associated with fear and you can think of that as System 1. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that is more deliberative and reflective, and you can think of that as associated with System 2. And often our daily life is a kind of struggle between the System 1 part of our mind, which is you know, thinking, “I’m mad,” or, “Nothing can hurt me,” or, “I shouldn’t do this now, I can delay until tomorrow.” And System 2 is thinking, “You know, you probably ought to do it now,” and, “You’re not invulnerable.”

There are more concrete findings that, kind of, clarify what System 1 is all about. It tends to be unrealistically optimistic. Human beings are vulnerable or blessed by unrealistic optimism. Approximately 100% of people, when they get married, think that the chance that they will get divorced is around zero, even though they know statistically that that’s not how it is. That’s unrealistic optimism. And people focus on today and not next year. They tend to usually neglect the long-term and that’s System 1 thinks, “How am I doing now?” Not, “How is it gonna be in 2022?”

And we tend to assess risks but not by running statistics, but by thinking, “This happened to someone I know. Do I know someone who is like me, who suffered heart disease?” And that you know, if you don’t know anything at all, that’s not the worst question to ask but it maybe then you don’t know anyone who suffered heart disease, but you’re still at risk, and you…maybe you should do something about it.

Dr. Kiki: So speaking of heart disease, heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death and account for more than 40% of mortality rates. So do you have ideas on how we can use the idea of nudges to get past this kind of short-term thinking and not really planning for the future or this optimistic idea that everything is gonna be fine in the future regardless of what you’re doing now? How many French fries you’re eating or whether or not you’re working out. Are there ways we can make use of nudges to intervene in people’s health choices?

Cass: There are a million of them. It’s a fantastic question and it’s also an inspiring question because it shows you at relatively low-cost, we could have such huge benefits for our society among all demographic groups. So let’s talk maybe a little bit about some success stories. The rate of deaths on the highways has decreased significantly over the years. And one reason is the nudging against drunk driving. Another reason is the nudging in favor of seatbelt buckling. Now, of course, there are laws also against drunk driving and seatbelt buckling and they’re very important, but nudges have been crucial supplements, whether it’s public campaigns in favor of clicking it or public campaigns that are, you know, friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And those things have been huge contributors to saving lives on the highways. And they’re nudges.

Cars now have nudges built into them, in the sense that, there’s a beep if you haven’t buckled your seatbelt or if you’re crossing lanes, there’s a beep. And these are things that don’t constrain your freedom, in the sense that there’s no coercion involved, but they kind of help you make better decisions. For cigarettes, notwithstanding the fact, that there’s a ton of progress to be made and now we’re talking about cancer. There’s been a ton of progress that’s been made through, in part, nudges in the form of information campaigns, warnings, and reminders that are helpful.

So what I think with cancer, first and foremost, we should think what are the behaviors that lead to elevated risks and how can people be nudged against those behaviors? Now, if they want to eat food that is not maybe the best in terms of cancer prevention, that’s probably their right that is their right. But to help them know what they’re getting into is a really good idea so that they can make an informed choice. And in terms of technological frontiers, we’re kinda there, in terms of genetic testing and inspired by seeing that our people can get a sense of what their risks are and once you get your risk, that’s power.

A lot of people think that knowledge of risks is like a big red flag over your head or a cloud. It’s much better to think it’s power. It enables you to avoid something that might otherwise prevent you from seeing your grandchildren or seeing your daughter graduate from college. And to combine both preventive measures, which we know work and are available, with knowledge of tendencies and the predispositions, genetic often, that’s, you know, a really, in terms of reasons for optimism about us curing some of our most serious public health problems were there. We have that reason.

Dr. Kiki: And so, kind of, going back to the example of smoking and some of the warnings, let’s talk a little bit about the various levels of nudges, the kinds of nudges, and the extent to which a nudge is good or bad. So now, we started out with light warnings on cigarette boxes, cigarette cartons, and now, that’s just basically like, “Smoking kills,” you know, it’s gotten a lot more direct, in its warning and the statement of the risks. So is there a conversation taking place about how big of a nudge is appropriate?

Cass: Definitely. So I would say that you cross the line from a nudge into something else if you have a ban or a mandate or an economic incentive. And let’s bracket the question which you should use and just notice that so long as people aren’t faced with a threat of sanctions or a fine or a jail sentence or a tax, they’re being nudged. They’re facing no material incentive at all. And so a nudge is light. You’re quite right to say that nudges, which are light, compared to mandates and bans, can be less light.

So the lightest might be just a statistical warning that, “Smoking creates an elevated risk for cancer,” and maybe the least light is a graphic health warning, I was involved in that federal government in our regulation struck down to my regret by federal court, which would have had a very graphic health warnings in the form of pictures on cigarettes packages. In my view, those very graphic health warnings are completely ethical. And the reason is that they don’t forbid people from choosing smoking. If that’s the route they want, they can see the picture, and say you know, “I get it but I’m still gonna do something I enjoy.” So they don’t infringe on liberty.

They do give people a very vivid sense of the risks to which they are being subject by virtue of their decision. And people deserve to have that vivid sense given the magnitude of the stakes. And also, the data suggests that once people see the vivid graphical warning, which is the least light of the nudges, they actually have a better appreciation of the reality of the risks that they face than if they didn’t see the picture. So the picture doesn’t just make the amygdala start going wild, it also gets into the prefrontal cortex. It gets people to reason better. So that’s positive.

So I wouldn’t see any of those things as ethically-objectionable, where you might have a nudge that would be a problem is if people are being nudged in a direction that isn’t in their interests that would make their lives go worse. So some private companies, which have gotten in trouble with court have kind of automatically enrolled people or tried to encourage people to enroll in some sort of scam, where they’re paying money every month for some service that is worthless. Like, you know, a right to a discount on vacations and some obscure place in South America, and that’s not a very good deal. And people didn’t really understand that, then, they’re paying a certain amount of money every month for years and years, that’s kind of fraud. So that’s automatic enrollment and that’s not such a good idea.

But nudges that are in people’s health interests, are ethically good, and maybe compulsory, so long I think, on ethical grounds, so long as people always have the option to go their own way. Now, there’s an intervention in the case of cigarettes, which is, I think justify which is beyond a nudge, which is the cigarette tax. And a cigarette tax can be justified on two grounds. First, to counteract the fact that smokers impose costs on others, both the health system and also on non-smokers who are subject to them. The tax kind of imposes that cost on the smokers themselves. And second, cigarette tax, there’s reason to think that its interest in would be in actual smokers themselves ironically because if it reduces the incidents of smoking, the people who are not smokers anymore or didn’t start or are probably better off.

Dr. Kiki: Yeah. I can’t help but think about health insurance companies using nudges to get people to engage in particular healthy behavioral practices. And I know also some corporations and businesses are asking their employees to take part in daily activity or meditation or various activities that then kind of feedback into the overall health of the corporation and also the insurance company that’s supporting the health claims of all the individuals.

Cass: Absolutely. So a lot of companies have been interested in nudging people not to use their cell phone while driving, not to text while driving that’s been a private initiative which is a nudge. And companies, of course, have had an interest in encouraging their workers not to engage in risky behavior that, you know, might involve a worker’s compensation claim or might just reduce productivity. And that’s beautiful, where a company’s economics health interests and its public interests in this, are completely aligned in the direction of helping their workers not get sick.

Dr. Kiki: Yeah. And as we are moving forward, there’s also a huge role for digital technology, where we’re all on our cell phones, you and I are connecting online, and people are online many hours a day up to five hours per day on mobile devices and…

Cass: Only five hours a day, that’s…

Dr. Kiki: If you talk to a teenager, maybe it’s a bit more. And there are these apps and various…there’s a new role for technology in how we live our lives and our behavioral choices. How can technology help steer people to be healthier, to make better financial decisions, all these things?

Cass: Okay. So many people in the private and public sectors who are interested in nudging, have a slogan and it’s simple, let’s make it easy. And the idea is if you want to encourage behavior, if you make it easy for people to engage in it, you will often succeed. And often, technology just makes it easy. So if you want to monitor how much sleep you’re getting, you know, now you can. And since there is a relationship between sleep and wellbeing, and sleep and health, that’s valuable.

If you want to monitor how much exercise you’re getting, how many steps is kinda crude. I play squash, which involves a lot of running and not a lot of steps and I resent the fact that the technology says I haven’t done a whole lot. But it’s still, it’s a proxy. And we’re increasingly able to use technology to track whatever we want to and it’s kind of an extended nudge. It doesn’t have the simplicity of a warning or a reminder but it does nudge people in certain directions people keep track.

And I’m very excited just because of data from the last four years, which is showing that reminders are a kind of sleeper nudge. And the reason it’s cool is that a reminder is such a simple thing but it also connects with I think the deepest insight in behavioral science, which is the limited nature of attention. If there’s one inside in behavioral science that should…we should give to let’s say Martians, if they’re trying to learn what behavior science is about, it’s that the human attention is limited. And a reminder just overcomes the fact that people’s minds go in directions that may miss something that they need to attend to.

And so, the Federal Communications Commission basically nudged companies, telephone companies to remind people if they’re going over their minutes or if they’re about to incur a late fee, doctors that are increasingly using reminders to get people not to miss their appointments. I think the latest data is of over 120,000 Americans die every year because of non-compliance with the medical regimen not that has been prescribed for them. That’s 128,000 dead people from zero should die.

Dr. Kiki: That’s preventable, yeah.

Cass: They are all preventable. And this is closely associated I think with responses to genetic testing where people can get an understanding of what they can do to reduce the risk. And with technology, you could get reminded, you know, “It’s time to take your blood pressure medicine,” or whatever, and then it becomes easy for you because the fact that you were focused on your kid or on this amazing movie on Netflix, doesn’t prevent you from taking your high-blood pressure medicine.

Dr. Kiki: Do you or have you ever worn a wearable device?

Cass: What a personal question? Under oath, I say, “I do not invoke the fifth amendment.” I say, “I have never worn a wearable device. Not once.”

Dr. Kiki: Not once. So for you, that kind of technology hasn’t been something that’s been particularly useful at this point in time, but for many people, you know, like you mentioned, being able to count and track your steps every day or track your activities. Are there designs or ideas for these like you were talking about reminders if you’re wearing something on a little bracelet or on a necklace that seems like it’s such an easy, so close to you, way to remind people about things or to track everything they do? Do you think that the designers are on the right track right now?

Cass: I think we’re at the beginning of a fantastic set of health improvements because of what you mentioned. And we’re really at the earliest stages and you know, in the scheme of things, the world of apps is very young. And what we’re going to see I think, is market forces working well with the kind of technological creativity so that people will get a little buzz on their cell phone, maybe with a wearable device, maybe not, and the buzz will tell them, “It’s time to pay attention to X or Y or Z.” And that will be great.

So I’m thinking, as we talk of, you know, serious health risks. So notwithstanding the improvement on the rate of deaths on the highway 40,000 people die almost annually in the U.S. that that should be cut way, way down and technology can help and is starting to help with things that are reminders. I have a 2017 vehicle that after you’ve been driving a long time says, “You might wanna brake.” Don’t ask me how I know this, but if you’re driving a little erratically, it says, “You know, maybe you need a break right now.”

Dr. Kiki: You’ve hit the white line on the side of the road too many times, maybe you need a nap.

Cass: Completely. And that’s, you know, not everyone is gonna love this but the life they save maybe their own. And for, you know if people either have cancer, let’s say or are at risk of cancer, apps can help them engage in behavior that can very simply help them find a path that increases the chance that they’ll meet their grandkids. And that, you know, that it seems a little abstract but every one of the people we’re talking about who might meet their grandkids, that’s a real person and that’s a real grandchild.

And so, we’re averting tragedy in creating something, you know, if we actually saw a little…that too many quips about it, probably everyone listening to this would be in tears. And there’s innumerable that was caught in the throughout that wasn’t that I’m in the tears. I hate to see that and with their innumerable chances to achieve that through technology. And [inaudible 00:27:42] your question’s fantastic at doing is that it connects something which we really were just starting to get there is using the behavioral economics behavioral science work, which is being, you know, discussed a lot in academic journals and significantly, by private companies and governments but in introducing that to the tech world where there’s a kind of ingenuity that way outstrips anything we ever have seen before. And that, that connection is, you know, like an infant, a bouncing infant.

Dr. Kiki: So I’d love to move a little bit into your talking a bit about ethics of influence and we’d…like I mentioned, we’re on our mobile devices for many hours a day nowadays. And a lot of time it’s social media and social media has been getting a lot of negative press especially the big Facebook Company about the way that information is given to people. There have been studies that show the algorithm used by social media platforms like Facebook, like Twitter, like others, engage…are similar to slot machines at casinos, where it engages the brain to keep scrolling, waiting for that next big positive hit.

And so people potentially spend more time on social media than they would otherwise, and that can have negative mental health outcomes. And then there is the secondary effect of the actual information that they’re receiving from certain biased parties to nudge them to do certain things or to share certain links. How do you feel about all of this coming together online?

Cass: Social media, in general, I’m very upbeat. And the reason is that people’s capacity to learn things, whether it involves, you know, their health or what’s happening in Berlin or something involving a sports team that they’re excited about or something involving their own friends from high school that’s grown in ways that, you know, my parents could not possibly have anticipated. And that has potential, for everything good in human life to get a bit better so hurray for that.

The ability for people to draw concerns, whether it involves depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder or a road that is blocked by a snowstorm or a tree, to draw that concern to their public officials or the people who are in a position to help a little bit that’s also better than any point in human history. So that’s also a fantastic positive thing from social media. And people find it fun. In terms of things that are less good, I would emphasize true consistent with your latter points.

One is that falsehoods can be disseminated and not get corrected in a way that is also unprecedented in human history, whether the falsehood involves the adverse effects of vaccines that I’m just stipulating that it’s a falsehood and then people don’t get vaccinated because they heard that it’s gonna get autism, that’s terrible or it can be a falsehood that is spread by Russia about something involving political candidates from America. And that’s…that it can be extremely damaging both to individual lives and to democratic processes.

I think the solution is something that social media, if it’s focused on the problem, can itself move toward. And Facebook has certainly been working on that it’s a work in progress. There’s reason to hope that the progress will be brisk in the next year. And then certainly, it’s kind of moral obligation on Facebook and its users, all of us really to help make that progress brisk against falsity, reducing of the benefits of a democratic process, and also leading people down rabbit holes with respect to health or anything. So there’s that.

There’s also independent of falsehoods. There’s the echo chamber problem. And I’m very worried myself about a situation, in which people use social media to live in an information cocoon, where let’s say you’re a Senator Sanders supporter and basically, everything you’re seeing is that he’s even more wonderful than you thought and that those who don’t agree with him including say Secretary Clinton or basically Wall Street stooges and the Republicans are all a [inaudible 00:32:56] of people and you read that and pretty soon you’re gonna think that “Boy, if Senator Sanders isn’t president, we’re all doomed.”

Which, you know, if you end up thinking that, that’s fine but you shouldn’t think it because you’re in an information cocoon. And if you think that President Trump is the best president we ever had and that anyone who disagrees with him is not a patriot, that you’re entitled to that belief, of course, but it shouldn’t be because you’re living in a world in which all the information sources you consult are leading in that direction.

Now, I think that social media users, each of us, can work on broadening our information exposure but also the producers including Facebook and Twitter, should be and I know Facebook publicly has been focused on should be thinking about ways to make sure that algorithms aren’t sorting people into echo chambers. So if Facebook knows that you tend to be pretty right of center, it could have an algorithm that makes sure your newsfeed is completely consistent with what you tend to be.

But since human beings aren’t robots, they are learners to focus on serendipity and exposure to things you might not choose, is really important in an individual life, where you will see something that you wouldn’t have chosen [inaudible 00:34:23] feeling is what you think but it might jar you in a really productive way that’s good for you. It’s also good as a way of seeing our fellow citizens, not as enemies but as, you know, like us and maybe right and if wrong, still they’re like us.

Dr. Kiki: So following up on that, if Facebook or Twitter or these social media algorithms have a way of detecting whether your mental health is in decline, say that you are beginning to suffer from depression, do you think that these companies having these algorithms to nudge us into productive directions have a responsibility to change the material that were then presented with, to say more positive content?

Cass: Well, that’s also a fantastic question. I think it’s a little worrisome if a company detects that someone’s kinda sad and then decides to perk you up without you knowing it. If you’re sad, maybe, you know, there’s reason to be sad and sadness is productive of something that’s gonna be great. And if your Facebook thing is sending you cheerful things, there’s a kind of manipulation to that. So I don’t feel very excited about that.

If Facebook has a sense or some other social media producer has a sense that one of its users is having very severe depression or anxiety or something, it’s a nice question whether it isn’t illegitimate for Facebook to do something to help. I think not by sending, you know, a happy episode of a TV show, but by some intervention that is, like a reminder or a notice of some kind. But I think, you know, Facebook is not a government, it’s not your doctor so the question where Facebook’s obligations are in those cases, I think is not straightforward. What is straightforward is, if social media is used to create a more polarized society or a society that is…are pervaded by belief and falsehoods or society that’s being driven by Russians. Those things are things that Facebook and other social media should try to counteract.

Dr. Kiki: And then speaking of governments, incorporating nudges into how they govern, how are governments using behavioral economics to nudge people currently and are people receptive to those nudges and/or do they oppose them?

Cass: Well, I was privileged to work in the U.S. government the Obama Administration for about four years and I can say a lot of the things we worked on were super controversial but the nudges were not among that. So greenhouse gas regulations were pretty controversial, regulations that impose big costs on farmers were pretty controversial. The nudges, were generally very well-received. So I’ll give you a few examples.

It was a program that Congress authorized that allows states and localities, if they know someone’s poor, I’m talking about kids, directly they certify them for free school meals and lunches. It’s called the Direct Certification Program. And as a result of that, it’s a nudge people are automatically enrolled in the program. They don’t have to take advantage of it but they’re automatically in. Millions of American children are receiving free school meals, to which Congress has entitled them, and that’s fantastic. That means healthier children.

We have in our cars in the United States now, when you buy a new car, you have a fuel economy label that tells you about the economic cost of operating the vehicle assuming normal driving patterns. It also tells you how much you’d spend or save compared to the average car on gas, and it tells you something about the environmental effects. That, which everyone sees, when they buy a car is helpful. It’s probably not the perfect label, it can probably do better but it’s a good start.

There are on your credit card bills now, the courtesy of the credit card active 2010 information. There’s information about the costs you’ll incur if you pay the minimum amount. And there’s other information about what happens if you don’t pay on time. And that is saving consumers very significant money. It’s a nudge. It’s informational. There’s a food plate now, which has replaced the old and not lamented food pyramid, which was basically impenetrable. And the food plate tells you, “Make half your plate fruits and vegetables that’s kinda healthy.” And the vegetarians out there might think all your plate fruits and vegetables. And this is a way of clarifying what might make for a healthy plate and people are using it all over America. It’s a nudge, it’s not compulsory.

The Federal Communications Commission had an intervention to try to get communications providers to notify people if they’re running over their allotment of minutes. They ended up doing that voluntarily. That’s also a nudge. The nudges that the U.S. government has engaged in some are principally-driven by Republicans, some principally-driven by Democrats, and they have generally been either uncontroversial or produced a, you know, big applause, “Hurray, the government did that.”

Dr. Kiki: Yeah. It seems as though the big aspect of this is whether or not it’s a factor of choice. Whether or not at the end, it’s the nudge if you have a choice and you can look at it and say, “Oh, that’s great. I’m just gonna go along with this. My bank is telling me that I’m going to overdraw my account so I can change my spending habits. Fantastic.” But if the bank clamps down your account and says, “You can’t spend any more money,” then that is infringing personal liberty and that’s where it becomes more of a mandate.

Cass: Right. So we might want to make the following distinctions, the…with apologies for the professor’s inclination to make distinctions. But okay, so there’s if the private sector is providing you with a reminder or information or a warning, it’s very hard, so long as it’s truthful to have anything other than enthusiasm for that. That’s good if your car company is telling you something about the tires that you’re purchasing on your cars, that they’re not as durable as other tires or that the car has various safety features that other cars don’t and you can choose one or the other, that’s beautiful, nothing wrong with that.

Then there’s government providing information or otherwise, nudging you. It could be that the government is providing a very clear nutrition facts when you buy a food product or the government is mandating calorie labels in fast food restaurants or you know that a foot-long hotdog is gonna have a ton of calories. That’s government nudging. And it’s not mandating consumer behavior of any kind, it’s just empowering consumers to make choices. That’s also really good, I think, in general. You could think of cases where not so much, but in general, that’s really good.

Then a third case is where the private sector is imposing a mandate, as when the banks says you know, “You’re not allowed to overdraw your checking account,” or, “If you overdraw it at this certain amount, then we’re gonna take your checking privileges away.” I would think in a free market economy, so long as we really have no monopolies in lots of banks, that’s not something to scream about though it might not be something to smile about. And the reason is, you know, if companies are facing people who are overdrawing their checking account repeatedly, they’re entitled at some point to say, you know, “Go to another bank please,” or, “You’re costing us money.”

Then the fourth category is where the government imposes a mandate or a ban. And that’s a little more worrisome, I think in general, in the private sector because the government has some monopoly on the use of force. So if it tells you, “You’re gonna go to jail if you do this. You’re gonna be fined if you’re gonna do that,” that is, I think in America, a reason for a little red flag to go up. But still sometimes it’s a good idea, social security is mandatory, and that’s been a successful program.

Prohibitions on certain kinds of the violent or fraudulent conduct, those aren’t just nudges and those are completely fine. Racial discriminations, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, those are forbidden, not just nudged against, and that’s good. We might want a nudge to be supplemental to those things, but there are domains when the interests inequality or the interest in freedom from fraud justifies a prohibition from the government.

Dr. Kiki: As we wrap up this interview, I wonder if you have any final tips that people can take home with them like any, any either final message that you’d like people to take home or personal tips for using nudges in their everyday life.

Cass: Yeah, I have two. The first is that there’s an intuition which is tempting which is that if people aren’t doing what you want them to do, you should give them a push or a literal nudge. And that is sometimes right but often wrong. It’s often better to think whether you’re dealing with coworkers or friends or children or employees, “Why aren’t they doing the thing that I would like them to do?” And then remove the obstacle. So instead of giving people a push, make it easy by taking away the thing that’s stopping them. And often the stopping them approach, in thinking what’s stopping them approach is the more productive approach.

The second thing is to think if there’s ever a problem that seems intractable, it’s often most productive to think, what are the bright spots? What are areas in one’s own life or in one’s community or in the country where the problem isn’t occurring, where is the bright spot? And if you identify the bright spot, you can often find a lesson that you can then to bring bear directly on the seemingly intractable problem. So the hunt for the bright spot is often a kind of secret sauce for solving problems that in the abstract produce that kind of, “Oh my, God” reaction.

Dr. Kiki: And going back to your book, related to Star Wars, is the force really just one big nudge?

Cass: Force is very mysterious. And I think that it would be kind of a mistake to challenge Obi-Wan’s authoritative statement about the force, and how it binds us, and how it’s all around us, etc. in the second greatest movie that was ever made, that I do hope. So I think I would defer to Master Kenobi on that question.

Dr. Kiki: Okay. Is there anything else that you’d like to let our audience know about?

Cass: Ask the general things and nudge for good.

Dr. Kiki: Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today. It was just wonderful to speak with you.