Nudge

Last month, Washington State implemented the Plastic Bag Ban which prohibits single-use bags and charges a fee for bags if you fail to bring your own. During the pandemic, when bringing your own bag into the store was prohibited, I got lazy. But the prospect of paying 8 cents per bag was enough of an incentive for me to start bringing my own bags into stores again. Am I just cheap or is this a case for behavioral economics? I started with this list to try and find some answers.  

I ended up with Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein mainly because my library app had it available. It turned out to be a good pick.

As with any book of this genre, I’m most taken with the real-world examples. I was fascinated by the choice architects chapter which focuses on how design meshes or messes with our human tendencies in decision making. Ever pull on a door that opens out? Ever turn on the wrong burner on your stove? I’m also amazed at how simple changes in things like metro maps or boarding passes can make big differences in efficiency and outcome. The authors also bring up our tendency to make big decisions through elimination by aspects. I recently saw this at play when I, I mean, my daughter was curating her college list.

Ultimately, I’m not sure how legislators decided on 8 cents as a tipping point. But for me, it was the nudge I needed.