Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Nudges and Fun

If you check my links over on the right --> you may notice a site called nudges.org. If you haven't checked it out already, it's a fantastic blog written by two prominent behaviouralist economist/authors by the names of Thaler and Sunstein. Their central concept is the nudge.

A perfect exemplification of the nudge is the urinal with a fake fly inked into the bowl.

Why add the fly, you may ask? Trademarking? Fun?

Studies have shown that, across different washrooms in different states, urinals with targets like the fly are less spilly... Guys want to hit they fly! These washrooms smell better, need less maintenance and are not as wet on the floor!

A little 'nudge' like this can cause drastic changes in peoples behaviour. There are tonnes more examples, and great discussion about behaviouralist economics at their blog.

Even better examples, and certainly more fun ones, come from the people at thefuntheory.com.

This one is my favourite:



Can you think of a lil' nudge to change people for the better?

ht: Marc Goss

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