Inciting Instead of Coercing: “Nudges” Prove Their Effectiveness in Changing People’s Behavior

"Despite the growing popularity of nudges, their performances had not yet been studied in their entirety. By performing a meta-analysis (a statistical approach aimed at synthesizing the results of numerous studies), a research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has succeeded in demonstrating the effectiveness of “nudges” and identifying the areas in which they are most relevant. “We have collected more than 200 scientific articles published over the last 15 years on the subject, which represent more than 450 ‘nudge’ strategies,” says Stéphanie Mertens, the study’s first author and a researcher at the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Laboratory of the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the UNIGE.

To carry out this study, the researchers classified the nudges described in this scientific literature into three groups: “information,” “structure” and “assistance.” In the first set, they grouped interventions whose objective is to inform individuals in order to motivate them to make certain choices, such as the “nutri-score” labels found on certain food products. In the second set, they grouped techniques that deal with the structure of an environment. This is the example (cited above) of highlighting certain meals in a cafeteria menu.

In the third set, they classified nudges involving a form of commitment, as in the case of a person who stops smoking and informs those around him or her. When informed, the people around him or her take on the function of a “safeguard” in the choice architecture of the abstinent smoker."