Book Review: "Nudge" by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

This book is mentioned in another book I was reading as something you should probably read in order to have a greater understanding of certain concepts. I'm not telling you what the other book is because it's kind of a surprise for 2026. Nudge is a great book and tells the story of choice architecture and the way in which we make decisions. It is a pretty good book considering the fact that I picked it up for the cheapest possible price (I'm not saying cheap books are bad, if you read this blog then you will know how great cheap books are). Let's take a look that the book Nudge and what I thought of the ideas being presented within...

The authors introduce the idea of “choice architecture” and how it shapes human decisions without restricting freedom. Therefore we also see that every environment in which a decision is made such as: cafeterias, forms, apps and legal procedures, contain implicit structures that influence behaviour. The authors argue that since choice architecture cannot be avoided, it should be designed responsibly. They call this approach libertarian paternalism: preserving choice while gently steering, or rather nudging, people toward better long-term outcomes. This is easy enough to understand and honestly, I hadn't thought about it this much until reading the book.

The authors also use behavioural economics to explain why humans often make poor decisions. I'm getting more and more interested in behavioural economics and this part of the book (well, parts, as it is covered in more than one capacity) was intriguing. Drawing on heuristics and cognitive biases (these include but aren't limited to: status quo bias, loss aversion, anchoring, framing effects), the authors conclude that humans are "humans" - or rather fallible. We aren't rational agents. Nudges thus, compensate for predictable human mental errors and often help people make choices aligned with their true interests. My problem is that if we aren't rational agents then how can we assume the people who design the 'nudges' are? That's for another time, you'll see me come back to that in 2026. But for now, let's move on to the next point...

The authors explore the power of default options as one of the strongest nudges. Most people stick with whatever option is pre-selected, due to inertia or cognitive overload. For example, these can include things like: pension enrolment, organ donation consent and data privacy settings. Data privacy settings... Changing defaults dramatically shifts outcomes without eliminating freedom and thus, we can see how default options play out in the real world. To be honest, this point seemed a bit obvious. We have all experienced it, but whether we are aware that we have is an entirely different conversation. Most people don't analyse themselves like this, but are usually aware if...nudged. I'm so sorry, I had to do it.

The researchers also analyse how framing and presentation of information influences decision outcomes. For example: the same choice can elicit different responses depending on wording, order, or visual presentation. There's a whole analysis of positive vs. negative frames (e.g: “90% survival rate” vs “10% mortality rate”). And they argue that clarity and transparency should be used to promote welfare-enhancing choices. But we all know that's not really what they do. The idea that choices and statistics are framed in particular ways takes me back to ideas presented in two separate books that you should probably read if you're into statistics: May Contain Lies by Alex Edmans and How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff.

They seem to apply nudging to public health as well. These include things like: diet, exercise, smoking, compliance and medical decisions. For example, there's the idea that placing healthier foods at eye-level in cafeterias increases healthy choices. We can also observe that simplifying medical information improves patient decision quality and, public health campaigns work better when designed around behavioural insights rather than rational appeals. I think this is an interesting point because even though this is the case, we have also been witnessing the 'dumbing down' of public information whilst simultaneously watching people make the worst health decisions possible. It's worth investigating whether these two things are correlated because that could pose some questions for this point of research. But there is a time difference between the publication of this book and our own year, so that's a thing as well.

Other points include the investigation of ethics and morality, societal norms and more. The authors go into depth and make it also an entertaining read, which is sometimes difficult to do with a topic like this. As I have said, in 2026 I'll be revealing exactly why I read this book because you'll probably be able to tell that this piece of reading is way out of my comfort zone.