Improving Decisions About Health - and Happiness/Chinese Edition

This book effectively shows how very small changes to defaults can leverage human nature in complex systems to help people make choices that will ultimately be better for them. Using the concept of Libertarian Paternalism, the authors explain how "Choice Architects" can make the world a better place while allowing people the freedom to make the wrong choices.

Thaler and Sunstein sum up years of research (theirs and others') on enticing people through psychological nudges-rather than monetary incentives. Some premises may be debatable (are stocks really the best investment for retirement savings? After the crisis, it does not look so) yet the conclusions are always interesting. Incidentally, recent research has shown that costless default options encourage more retirement savings than expensive matching grants.
The book is useful for public-policy (Thaler and Sunstein have now been fruitfully employed by both President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron), business and everyday life.
Indeed, this review is itself the outcome of a nudge: I am writing it only because the store sent me an e-mail with link enclosed.

This book is very different. It takes a completely different look on the things that influence us, and does a very good job at that. My only complaint is that there are a few points made that seem irrelevant to the rest of the book.

With the widely recognized academic reputation of Thaler, I would have expected a far more creative book that covers new territory. I only made it half way through and put it down because it wasn't telling me anything new. This book largely reframes what has been written by several other authors.

What a book! Great introduction to behavioral economics anf the role of the decision architects in health, wealth and happiness...Easy to read and very well written with a lot of examples and practical content.

As an economist, Nudge was a book that I desperately wanted to like. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Perhaps my low rating of the book stems from my high expectations of a book co-authored by the well-regarded behavioral economist Richard Thaler. Without such expectations, my rating might have been higher. But at the same time, without such expectations, I might not have bothered to read the book at all.

The only interesting part of the book is the first part, which consists of the first five chapters. Here, the authors lay out the main premise of the book. The decisions humans make are affected by "nudges." Since nudges are not easy to define, they are best explained through examples. The clearest example of a nudge is a default. When you register online at a site, you are often asked, "Would you like to receive future emails?" By default this box could be either checked or not checked. The default matters; that is, different results emerge under different defaults. The main point of the book is that nudges matter and thus should be carefully designed.

The rest of the book presents a laundry list of policies to which we should apply this principle. For me, this got boring fast. For some reason, the authors seem to be obsessed with identifying every possible nudge and offering their nudge design suggestions. The end of the paperback version of the book became really ridiculous - a bonus chapter of twenty more nudges. I think that the hardcover version is saved from this madness, because the bonus chapter was added after the publication of the hardcover version.

Many may find Nudge overly political. The authors weigh in on what they believe to be good nudges on a large number of hot political issues such as Medicare and same-sex marriage. I personally didn't mind their political stances as much as I minded the lack of economics.

The book is also poorly written. I felt that the publishers gave the authors complete free reign since the authors were well-regarded academics, and obviously academics don't need editors. One problem with the writing was the lack of a targeted audience. The book is supposed to be targeted towards a mass audience; or at least, that is the target of the book's marketing efforts. It is not a textbook or standard teaching material targeted towards undergraduate economics majors. It is also not a serious academic discourse targeted towards other economists. And yet, although it's supposed to be targeted towards the layman, the writing is oftentimes confused about its audience. Additionally, I didn't care for the writing style. While I do enjoy a casual and conversational tone, this book suffered from unnecessary tangential remarks that detracted from the main point. All of the writing issues in this book could have been easily rectified with a good editor. I don't fault the authors as much as I do the publishers for that oversight.

I weakly recommend Part I of Nudge to the intellectually curious layman. The rest of the book I recommend only to those want to read a laundry list of political suggestions.

A (purposefully?) gentle sell of a pretty compelling idea, bolstered by entertaining behavioral econ vignettes. Reads a little like a self-help brochure, but somehow succeeds in being palatable (coincidence? I think not).

Firstly, the book is extremely well written. Each chapter focuses on a different idea, and the authors provide plenty of relevant examples, and a good amount of humour - makes for a very easy and enjoyable read.

Secondly - the material covered is extremely interesting whether you are a student of human behaviour, behavioural economics, or are just interested in how the human mind works.

The book goes into a good amount of detail, without making the book difficult to read. To enjoy it, no particular technical knowledge or education is required.

This book has many relevant ideas and gets you thinking about how nudges influence your own life. And it is helpful in thinking about nudges you might set up in your work or daily life. Excellent read!

The idea that good government -- effective, productive, protective -- is possible, and even desireable, seems to drive libertarians and Tea Party conservatives up the wall. It may have something to do with an overweening devotion to liberty, but I think it might have most to do with the fact that some people profit from the mistakes of others, and anti-government types want more individual profit. They enjoy the chaos and competition of an unfettered marketplace, which is unfortunately most beneficial to those who depend on investments rather than a salary.

But when we consider the damage done to our society and our economy during the eight years of the Bush administration, when we see the results of a government that doesn't intervene when health and safety and livelihoods were at stake, we realize that liberty must be limited to some extent. The authors of this book are not necessarily suggesting we limit liberty, yet their critics wasted no time decrying their liberal pedigrees and accusing them of promoting governmental intrusion into spheres of life that should remain private.

The authors are simply showing that when governments and companies help citizens and employees make better decision, when taxpayer dollars and corporate profits are channeled into such programs, everyone benefits, just as families do when parents present better choices to their children. I realize this statement will trigger another howl from libertarian and right-wingers about political elitists and do-gooders and the nanny state and the infantilization of our culture, but these generalizations are both selfish and cynical. Even good people need help at times, and we are morally bound to help them whether or not you may wish to.

The authors' detailed examples and reasoning provide excellent arguments for the kind of government we need. I hope everyone will read this useful, positive, and important book.

If you're curious about how to improve thorny problems like encouraging ("nudging") people to save for retirement, you will find many suggestions in this book. For examples, new employees would automatically be enrolled in a 401k plan--unless they opt out. Choices must always exist. But too many choices lead to an inability to act. Read about the awful roll-out of the Medicare prescription drug program under Pres. G. W. Bush. The problem? Too many choices!

If you've read Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, then skip this book. The content presented here is mostly a summary of the same content, but watered down significantly. On the flip side, if you want to read Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, but find it too long/dry/technical, then this is a great alternative.

This book provides insights to those who need to move people to make good decisions and if they cannot, then the default would do them the least harm. Many of the examples that they have provided are not new, e.g. Singapore has adopted the opt-out model for organ donation years ago. The idea on privatising marriage by the authors is an interesting one.

Richard Thaler, an economist at the University of Chicago School of Business, is one of the founders of modern behavioral economics, along with economists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and political science professor at the University of Chicago, and has been at the forefront of applying the results of experimental economics to social problems, especially in the field of law.

This book has one Big Idea, and it is a very important one. The idea is called "status quo bias," meaning that in many choice situations, people value the status quo (what they currently have), and will forgo the opportunity to switch to an alternative unless the alternative is significantly more attractive than the status quo. In situations where it is difficult to evaluate the exact benefits and costs of what one has over what one could only obtain with some conscious effort, people will tend to stick with what they have.

For example, in the United States, the default condition with respect to organ donation is "no donation," so if people want to donate their organs upon death, they must explicitly state this preference. In France, the default condition is "donation," and an individual who does not like this default condition must expressly indicate a desire not to donate. Consequently, the rate of organ donation is France is several times higher than it is in the United states.

The idea behind Nudge is that the choice of a default condition can both allow individuals to choose as they please in a democratic, market society, while at the same time improving social outcomes by providing default conditions that lead to socially useful choices. Thaler and Sunstein call this "libertarian paternalism." While one might think that this minimal sort of market intervention can have only a limited impact on social outcomes, the organ donation example suggests otherwise. Perhaps the most important policy of this type would be a mandate that employers make contributions to retirement savings, in the form of 401(k) and other plans be the default, so that individuals who do not wish to save would have to register the desire to opt out of the plans. A related ideas developed in the book is that employees commit to saving a certain fraction of future raises they are awarded by employers, the idea being that it people do not want to reduce their "status quo" income in order to save, but they may be willing to accept a lower new "status quo" when the status quo changes. This is a very sensible idea.

A second sort of libertarian paternalism takes the form of having the government require firms reveal with clarity and salience the full terms of contractual agreement with consumers. For instance, the nutritional content of restaurant food might be required on the menu, or the precise interest rate on a mortgage might be required to be posted, or all the charges of a broker might be required to be itemized on a monthly statement. These measures are "paternalistic," because if consumers were fully aware of the situation, they might demand this information from firms, and market competition would then lead to compliance. The role of the government in this situation would then be the more traditional one of enforcing "truth in advertizing"---firms are not allowed to misrepresent their offerings.

Libertarian paternalism, of course, is not a panacea, and will not replace the price system as the central mechanism for allocating goods and services, and will not obviate the need for legislation that corrects market failures, such as the tendency for excessive energy use to undermine the natural environment, and perhaps even partially offsets such "human frailties" as the tendency towards undersaving and abusing illegal substances. However, libertarian paternalism is attractive as a first line of attack on even these problems, and should be part of the policy-maker's toolkit.

Very interesting how small things can make big changes. Though implementation requires more careful consideration (to be conducted by a professional) as what may seem like a simple straight forward message may have an opposite effect.

Nudge, by Richard H. Thaler Cass R. Sustein is both a technical analysis of choice within an economic disciplinary tradition and an expression of libertarian political theory. It breaks humanity into two groups: humans and econs. Humans act like real people with full dimensionality. Econs act like the reductionist "rational man" who populates the fundamental assumptions of much of conventional economic theory. The first three chapters develop the concept of "choice architecture," based on how humans actually respond in situations of choice. So long as it keeps empirical focus as a balance to liberatarian perspectives the work is excellent. This initial conceptual section and the following two sections on applications in areas of Money and Health provide insights that usefully correct absolutist extremes of libertarian political theory and assumptions of conventional economics into a kind of 'libertarianism lite' or 'libertarian paternalism' in the expression of the authors. Beginning with the discussion of "Saving the Planet," the remaining applications lose the empirical focus of the initial chapters and lean more and more on libertarian theory. Rising through the two final sections ("Freedom" and "Extensions and Objections") the text morphs into an exposition of libertarian political theory. The first third to one-half of this book make it very much worth purchasing for anyone involved in practical work that involves structuring programs for customer choice. Overall, this is an excellent book though it would have been better to have ended in the Health applications with the section on "How to Increase Organ Donations," and not relaxed into the world of libertarian political theory in the remainder. Still, you have to like the book. It is a significant contribution to knowledge in the area of choice.

Interesting ideas, but unfortunately the authors fail to delineate the limits to "paternalistic libertarianism". They stop short of defining when choice can be exercised properly and when it cannot. As a result, they drag themselves into arguments that make you cringe at times (e.g. markets for organs).
They should instead define the qualities necessary for well functioning free markets where people can reasonably exercise choice.

This book was a requirement for an honors English class, but I was only required to read about half of it. I read the other half because it really is an informative, eye-opening book! Highly recommended for those interested in psychology, marketing, or those just curious about what factors influence decision making and how this effects the public.

This book is co-authored by Cass Sunstein, Obama's appointee as "Regulatory Czar". Surprisingly I found myself accepting some of his ideas until one of the later chapters on marriage. His "nudge" ideas with regard to this topic are absurd. He talks a lot about maintaining "freedom of choice" in nudging throughout the book but his arguments for privatizing marriage did not correspond to this assertion. I did not agree with his nudges regarding global warming either since it is written from the assumption that we all agree that there is global warming related to "Humans". There is no choice presented for debate on this topic. The information about being a "choice architect" and default choices, along with his explanations are very informative. His reasoning that we need to protect "Humans" because of human frailties is not something I agree with because the majority of us learn from our mistakes. When you are overprotective it really minimizes the learning opportunities. There needs to be a serious discussion about the limit to what type of nudging, and how much nudging, is appropriate. Approaching the topic of nudging because defaults are practical and can be useful make more sense to me. Overall I would recommend reading this book for the information alone.

Many of the concepts presented in this book about human behavior are explained and illustrated in a way to entice action. I found my self gravitating to subject areas of which I already have great interest (financial planning, health, conscious choosing, etc) and skimming sections about subjects I deem uninteresting. Bottom line: I practice choice architecture in nearly all aspects of daily life and find myself trying to better understand myself and others.

I loved the concept of `libertarian paternalism' that this book introduces and I hope that this material will enter prominent discussions on policy for our government. From social security and healthcare to that pesky "tinkle" on the urinals because of men with bad aim, this book provides a new way of thinking about solving problems. How do we keep our government limited in a country where access to good education to make informed decisions is limited? There are issues where helping consumers make good choices for themselves is to the benefit of society and thus 'libertarian paterialism' is a concept worth reading about. I strongly recommend this book! I will admit that after you get the principles laid out and read a couple of examples of how to apply them, the book starts to feel redundant unless it is a topic of particular interest to you. So I recommend you read the first few chapters that introduce 'libertarian paterialism' and then skip to the chapters that matter the most to you to see how they would apply their principles to that topic.

Not much to say about this book, although I think it is a very interesting and smart way to do some things in life. It is all about "choice architecture" and "libertarian paternalism", all presented with examples that help people to make better choices without forcing them to a solution. My objection is that I don't think you can do that in all cases and societies, for instance to make people save money for their future, the pension fund, that in the Chilean case oblige the worker and the employees to contribute money for the future of that worker, which I think is an optimal solution to the problem, considering all factors.

As someone who has taken microeconomics courses and is currently in a public policy program, I have been taught a few things about how people respond to different kinds of incentives and how programs can be designed to maximize the amount of cooperation and benefits.

So far, I have been sourly disappointed by how little behavioral economics findings have been in my curriculum. The authors of Nudge don't give you idealized theories of how humans act and how perfectly rational we are claimed to be by all the economics textbooks. Real studies are used to show how even the smallest details in our environments can drastically change our behavior. The Nudge principles have been thoroughly covered by the behavioral literature and we are finding more and more about how humans actually are in everyday situations, not idealized textbooks examples.

If you are even remotely interested in being thoroughly surprised at the sheer amount of irrationality that people exhibit then I highly recommend reading this book. Nudge is VERY readable and free of academic and technical jargon. The authors keep it simple and present their extremely relevant and interesting ideas in the most readable way possible. Great book to read if you are interested in the general topic of "actual" human behavior and irrationality.

I like the way the book started especially the concept of design as never neutral and being choice architects but the book is quite a bore. Not a pleasure to read past 1/3 of the book.

A lot of its other concepts are also in other books. It would have been better if examples were organized in better format. There were parts of the book that read like a university textbook.

Read, Skim or Pass: SKIM

It will definitely nudge you off to sleep. Was unable to complete it, but the gist is nothing is what it seems and someone is nearly always driving your decisions. Hoping to have a serious case of insomnia and finish it one day. I certainly like to know all the tricks marketers are using though I've been on to their games for years.

First some quick comments, then some longer ones:

1) Anyone interested in the Social Sciences should get this. Parts of it are written as if the book were a guide to finance, but that was probably just a marketing ploy of some sort. The main thesis is really interesting and very refreshing for those interested in the somewhat stale and oversimplified "big vs. small government" debate.

2) I read this right after Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow." Both are extremely similar, but Nudge is more to the point and more organized. "Thinking Fast and Slow" was still brilliant though.

3) All those reviewers who call this "manipulation" or some other "Big Government!!!" charge, I must say, probably didn't read the book. The authors address libertarian concerns multiple times, and with great consideration, throughout the entire book. Understanding what makes "libertarian paternalism" libertarian is an extremely important step in getting the authors' main point. Honestly, if anything, it made my political views MORE libertarian rather than less, so it's difficult for me to think of Nudge as a "defense of Big Brother" or some other right-wing nonsense.

4) The only inconsistency I came across (and I mention this below) is that when they talk about being "anti-mandate," they really mean being against public or consumer mandates. However, many of their proposals do implicitly involve mandates on businesses though, such as requiring that air conditioner manufacturers install a light that would tell the user when the filter needs replacement (which would save a good amount of energy). I am not opposed to this whatsoever, but it's important to acknowledge that it's still a government mandate, so it's not as libertarian as it first seems. However, it's still more libertarian than other conceivable alternative mandates that could be placed on the public to use less energy.

5) My take-away from the book: The authors spend a good amount of time describing ECONS and HUMANS, but not so much time describing why ECONS are so important for right-wing economists. This is also partly because authors' main objective, it seemed, was political. They describe their philosophy as "libertarian paternalism." They are libertarian in the sense that they (ostensibly) don't generally like the idea of the government "banning," "mandating," and "outlawing" economic choices, or making some economic choices extremely difficult for the consumer (for example if the government made all vehicles which get less than 20 MPG twice as expensive via taxes, and mandated that a consumer must wait 90 days before being able to register a low-MPG vehicle, whereas high-MPG vehicles could be registered immediately). However, the other part of their philosophy involves "paternalism"--a very dirty word to libertarians. The basic normative argument for paternalism is that the government has some role to play in guiding people toward better choices. In talking about "libertarian paternalism," they are saying that whatever the government does, it is going to have some effects upon the population, even if it is not explicitly trying to manipulate or persuade the public. So, instead, adopt smart policies (with predictable results) that guide the public toward a "good" direction, but allow individuals to opt-out if they wish. An interesting example they brought up involved organ donors. Turns out that there are some massive inter-country differences when it comes to the desire to donate organs. But is this because the people in each country have such massively different attitudes about it? No--the main variable is a simple one: Is the default option to donate, or not to donate? In the U.S., on our licenses, we have to check a box that confirms we want to be organ donors and, therefore, our default is that we are not donors. In other countries, the default option is that citizens are donors--but of course they are free to opt-out at any time.

Bringing it back to the ECONS vs. HUMANS debate is what makes a simple example like this so mind-blowing (for me, at least). The crucial key to understand is that, to the ECON, it makes no difference what the default is. The ECON always knows what s/he wants--if s/he wants to be a donor, and the default is "No," the ECON would instantly change it to "Yes," and vice versa. Simple as that. But HUMANS, on the other hand, don't do this. HUMANS have a massive, statistically proven bias toward the default option and, as a result, which route the government decides to go ends up making a massive difference. If the government decides that it's probably a "good" thing if most citizens are willing to donate vital organs, the authors argue, then it should keep the default at "Yes" and allow people to opt-out. (Notice that if the government simply mandated that everyone donate their organs, it would be paternalism outright, not libertarian paternalism.) The book is essentially a collection of examples like this, where the authors wish to enact policies that result in a better society/economy while staying true to the libertarian paternalist ethic. (One place where I think they slip a bit, though, is that they are more inclined to support "regulations" on businesses--but these regulations are of course mandates, however much they don't want to call them mandates. When they say they are against mandates, they seem to be more against regulating average citizens and consumers than regulating businesses.)

As I see it, the die-hard libertarian still has a valid argument to make. Basically, they can object to the nudge argument on purely political grounds, which would sound like this, "I don't give a crap if libertarian paternalism would result in a better economy or better society. The government has no right to--i.e., shouldn't--participate in manipulative policymaking." It's a fair political argument, but it doesn't cohere with the free-market argument, which states that free-market policies will actually result in a better economy. Nudge shows how free-market policies actually won't result in a better economy, in large part because the actors receiving, evaluating, and acting upon economic signals are HUMANS, not ECONS.

For those interested, I wrote an article about this type of stuff (and long before reading Nudge or much else in the way of behavioral economics) called "Unmasking the GOP's Faith-Based Economics" available @Truthout.org

Several other reviewers said something much in the same vein, but it's worth mentioning again how exciting your first couple hours with this book are. The philosophy of libertarian paternalism Thaler and Sunstein identify in the first 100 pages or so certainly justifies purchasing this book. Yet, along with many other readers I found myself dragging from the repetition as they plug along through every anecdote -- many of which feel the same.

My advice: Savor the first third of the book and pick a few chapters from the rest that interest you. You'll get the gist but won't feel the drag others experienced. In particular, the chapter on the Swedish Retirement System is a must read.

Excellent and very readable treatment of important social/economic issues. "Libertarian paternalism" is a cognitively dissonant phase, but it captures the tension of competing values that can coexist. The question is "how to avoid progressivism and the carnage of unbridled free markets for the greater good, in a world dominated by flawed decision-makers subject to heuristic limits and rules of thumb?"

Cognitive bias presents a real challenge to political philosophy - a challenge that has not yet been seriously dealt with by anyone. Economics has wrestled seriously over the question of whether people are "rational," and some would count "behavioral" economics as a criticism of neoclassical economics. Less fruitfully, critical theory has fumbled around with the literature of bias, citing it as yet another reason that "it's all subjective."

But nobody has looked seriously at what a legal regime that systematically corrected for bias would look like. The notion of epistemological "planning" scares me to death. But in this easily-readable masterwork Sunstein and Thaler take a different, more modest, tack. They assume that individuals seeking to accomplish common goals will inevitably organize themselves into institutions (families, firms, governments - doesn't matter) and that cognitive psychology can sometimes predict how humans will react to them. This means that bureaucrats (or, for that matter, advertisers) may succesfully shape our behavior by chosing certain organizational forms (the placement of sugary cereal near the floor of the supermarket). The authors' crucial insight is that we, too, can shape our own behavior through legislation. And in this way, they argue, we can make ourselves more free.

It will be objected (by me for instance) that "we" (the group) have no right to conduct this sort of liberation on the individual. The authors anticipate this objection with the additional proviso of "no coercion." This is not unlike Randy Barnett's argument that, since rule by consent is a myth, the only legitimate governmental actions are those to which no one could possibly object (see Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty). On Thaler and Sunstein's account, government may legitimately correct for the cognitive bias of individual citizens, so long as the citizen can, upon reflection, opt out and do the "irrational" thing anyway. They recognize that, for their argument to hold together, the cost of exercising personal choice must be zero. But they point out that this is frequently the case, since most social institutions require default rules anyway. One must choose whether to save or spend a dollar - a default rule that allocates your paycheck to your bank account is no more "costly" in principle than one which places the money in your hand. The check must be cashed either way, but the saving rule may better serve your rational self-interest.

Where it is limited to these sorts of "no cost/no coercion" maneuvers, this kind of social engineering is extremely difficult to object to on moral grounds. After all, when we are rational or willfully irrational, this "libertarian paternalism" is no paternalism at all. But this book is haunted by the specter of passive irrationality. Not all nudges are benign. The authors are mapping (if not paving) the road to the most subtle and effective totalitarianism in history. Indeed, it may already be here.

Although I enjoyed reading this book, ultimately I found it not to have that much new material, relative to the collection of (libertarian) blogs I read, which have covered the authors' work in some detail.

However, I did really like the framing of "libertarian paternalism"--constructing default choices to be helpful, but still giving people choices--which is that there is no neutral choice architecture. That is, people buy stuff on the higher shelf more...but something has to go on the higher shelf. So there is no way to be completely neutral, which addressed one of my concerns about paternalism (which I generally oppose).

The authors have some good ideas, such as "Save More Tomorrow" (promising to increase 401(k) contribution percentages when you get a raise, so you never take a hit on your take-home pay) to improve savings rates, and taking into account seniors' drug usage when electing a Medicare Part D plan (I was shocked at how poorly constructed this system is currently).

I found the book's "characters" of Humans and Econs a little bit...childish? Just seemed kind of a patronizing way to describe people's inability to weigh long-term benefits versus short-term gains. Paternalistic, even.

This is a good introductory book, if you're really interested in the next high frontier in business - the area of applied behavioral research. There are lots of more in-depth books on this subject available, but this is a good short, literary work that will give you an idea of whether you want to delve into this topic in greater detail. Well written and with good practical examples that lend themselves to easy adaptation.

My husband really enjoyed this book. He is very interested in theories such as this, and he was excited to tell me all about this book once he finished it. I am planning on reading it myself now because it sounds so intriguing.

Good book. The first two chapters are the ones that explain their theory. Good content and can be applied in mostly any aspect of one's life. The remaining chapters provide examples on how you could apply those principles in different industries, mostly public sector: healthcare, insurance and so on.

It's pretty US centric in it's approach which doesn't take anything away from it's content. There are some aspects leaning heavily to a Republican pov (explicitly).

Despite all the experiments and insights, he fails to address the greatest marketing fraud of all time: taxes being made invisible and automatic. He mentions that consumers may pay twice with credit cards than cash but he takes the opposite stance with income tax: he proposes to make the process automatic. Milton Friedman used to say that the best taxes are those that are not hidden, and apologized for having devised the income tax withholding mechanism. The concept of Fiscal Illusion has been around for centuries, but he does not even mention it. Maybe it is the fear of appearing to be too rightwing

Well, humans are not as intelligent as we think. The first segment of this charming book is about experiments that make it clear we just don't think lots of the time. Of course, there are times when we can't have all the information necessary to make a good choice. So the point of the book is how "choice architects" can "nudge" people to make choices that are in their best interest. The book is very readable, it has a casual style that makes economics much less intimidating than it usually is. But it certainly provides a dose of self-awareness most of us probably will be embarrassed about - a smiley face can affect adult behavior!