Nudge book - interesting parallels with SF

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Comment by Hans-Peter Korn on December 19, 2008 at 23:16

Interesting!
Concerning this:
"Another aspect is the importance of feedback and frequency in making decisions. People make better decisions if they make such decisions often, and if the feedback is quick."
we have a parallelism in "agility":
The "Scrum"-framework in example encourages to have a high frequency of (short!!) meetings, especially the "daily scrum" making decisions and giving feedback. Please have a look here: http://www.scrumalliance.org/pages/what_is_scrum

Comment by Paolo Terni on December 19, 2008 at 20:23

HI Michael!!
I was sure you would post a comment on this thread!! :)
We talked about nudge, didn't we? Though mainly about the concept of libertarian paternalism.
BTW, Gilbert has a new lecture up on TED, check it out, engaging and informative as usual.

Comment by Michael Hjerth on December 19, 2008 at 17:45

ah, books I like. I'd like to add Don Airley's Predictably Irrational too. Also , the father of behavioral economics, Daniel Kahneman is now into happines. Gilbert has pointed out elsewhere (on his TED lecture from 2005) that one important point for "big decisions" with little or no feedback until a long time (marrige, retirement-funds, etc) is to make the future picture as detailed and concrete as possible. In my view, this results in a "virtual feedback", that is reinforcing and helps decisions. I'd think, though I'd need a fMRI to show it, that imagining a prefered future would actually activate nucleus accumbens and the reward system.

Comment by Paolo Terni on December 19, 2008 at 15:30

Re the paper, you should ask Peter, he is the project leader.

That reference about the tetanus injections is something that you can find in other books about psychology (I remember finding it in Wilson's "strangers to ourselves", but it was not new to me).
I also included it in my book "coaching leaders", published in 2007 - unfortunately the book is in Italian :(
The whole point was to find a rationale for specific SF techniques, and in the case in point why imagining the future (i.e. asking about the preferred future) is useful - and the more detailed and specific, the better.
That study seems to support this SF practice.
Gilbert ("Stumbling upon happiness") kind of makes the same point, but starting from the flip side of this very same coin: we make mistakes in judging what we will like because we fail to take details into consideration when making a choice.
Just a quick note, I have to split now, talk to you later!

Comment by Mark McKergow on December 19, 2008 at 15:11

Thanks - your page has lots more information about the book, well worth looking at. Here is it with a link: http://www.briefcoachingsolutions.com/choice-architecture/. What is the paper - where will it be published and when?

Comment by Coert Visser on December 19, 2008 at 15:10

Hi Mark and Paolo, I had seen the book but hadn't ordered it. This is a good reason for me to and buy it

Comment by Paolo Terni on December 19, 2008 at 14:42

Hi Mark!!
Yeah, that is a great book!!
I noticed a lot of parallels with SF, too.
I posted about it on my website: http://www.briefcoachingsolutions.com/choice-architecture/
Thanks for contacting Thaler, I am very curious to see what this connection might bring!!
Ciao,
Paolo

PS: and that part re experiments about tetanus injections is included in the article I am writing with Peter and Michael