Nudging: You have to understand behaviour in order to change it

Since its inception in 2008 Nudge has emerged as a prominent and effective strategy for policy development and generated new avenues for working with and understanding behaviour. Building on old insights and new research Nudge provides an intuitive framework, and new tools to those whose job it is to change public and private behaviour. But it has also sparked new debates about public and private organisations use of psychology for manipulatory and self-serving means.

If you ever happen to browse through and academic journal dealing with politics and policy you would immediately notice that most, if not all, of the articles would be written by economists or legal scholars. If, on the other hand, you open a Marketing journal you would mostly find articles from psychologists.

This academic divide between marketing and policy is odd, since they both work with understanding and changing behaviour. Although marketing and policy has different goals, one is to optimise sales and the other welfare, they often face the same types of problems such as: how do we get people to do something, whether it’s signing up for a certain data plan or