Three guiding principles of ethical choice architecture #

Like many theories, choice architecture has its own guiding principles. According to Thaler and Sunstein, choice architecture “helps people make the choices that they would have made if they had paid full attention and possessed complete information, unlimited cognitive ability, and complete self-control.” Nudges, which are the product of choice architecture, are “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.”

The three guiding principles of a good nudge are:

• All nudging should be transparent and never misleading.
• It should be as easy as possible to opt out of the nudge, preferably with as little as one mouse click.
• There should be good reason to believe that the behavior being encouraged will improve the welfare of those being nudged.

The subjective nature of these principles (what is transparency, after all?) means that nudge exists in a space that requires ethical judgement. In fact, the authors admit this when they note that, when signing their own books, they implore others to “nudge for good!” Nudge, it seems, can be used for good or ill.

Choice architects -- typically a domain expert using the tools of choice architecture -- use these principles as well as a set of heuristics to influence human behavior. These heuristics are based on early research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on cognitive biases. Kahneman and Tversky claim that individuals make choices based on three kinds of biases: anchoring, availability, and representativeness -- terms we’ll revisit later.

Examined broadly, these three heuristics assert that the way we present information to an individual influences how they think. Since information can be presented in a manner that encourages people to make poor decisions, we should use our understanding of the mind to present it in a way that helps people make the best decisions for themselves.

The logical conclusion of choice architecture #

Another key assertion by Thaler and Sunstein is that “there is no such thing as a ‘neutral’ design.” Combined with their guiding principles, as well as their employ of heuristics to leverage cognitive biases, this leads to a line of logic that looks something like:

1. All objects -- people, boats, boxes of cereal, and grasshoppers alike -- influence other objects
2. Using data we can predict, with a reasonable degree of certainty, the outcomes and effects of those influences
3. Therefore, we can (and should) design systems that influence for the most positive effect

Continuing along this path, as choice architects are experts in their domain, they know what the best choices are. Because a choice architect can measure how people behave, and because they know what the best choices are, they’re able to connect an individual to a choice best suited for them.

Finally, because there are experts who understand the best way to navigate those influences, we should leave it up to those experts to design these systems for us.

Choice Architecture and Science #

Choice architecture expresses itself as a science first. Its roots are in cognitive and behavioral science, describing how people understand and act based on stimuli. Put another way, there are people, and there are the things that people interact with outside of themselves. This can be described as a subject-object ontology (Descartes’ I think, therefore I am is an example of such an ontology), wherein the outcome of an interaction between the two is the focal point.

As explained previously, much of Nudge’s inspiration comes from the work of Kahneman and Tversky in heuristics, which explain the generalizations we make in order to save energy when making decisions. The study of heuristics, in turn, is influenced by Kahneman’s own work in cognitive systems. Kahneman refers to these systems simply as System 1 and System 2, but for sake of ease, the authors of Nudge name them the automatic and reflective systems.

These systems, Kahneman says, explain the two kinds of thinking that humans engage in. Where the automatic system (also referred to in the book as the lizard inside) is more reflexive and uncontrolled, the reflective system is controlled and effortful. The automatic and reflective systems govern how we think, behave, and engage with the world around us. They are the world inside that governs how we experience the world without.

But reducing individual behavior down to a set of heuristics and cognitive systems -- like biases, genomics, or cognitive science -- does not explain all of the human qualities that emerge from the individual. Similarly, an IKEA dresser, when assembled incorrectly, is not a dresser even though it contains all of the components that a well-constructed dresser does. People are more than their biases and other reducible features -- there is something here that eludes science.

Graham Harman puts it another way when he says that while science “does allow us to predict [some things, that] is not even the point, since even if we could predict the features of all larger entities from their ultimate physical constituents, the ability to predict would not change the fact that the larger entity actually possesses emergent qualities not found in its components.” Here we begin to understand the issue with choice architecture: people contain multitudes, and multitudes elude scientific explanation.