Are Nudges Manipulative?

Is Nudging Sneaky?

Some people argue that mandates, bans, and taxes have a big advantage over nudges: people know where they stand, and no one is fooled. By contrast, they say, nudges are covert and in a sense manipulative, a form of trickery.10 They affect people without their knowledge.

For most nudges, this objection is hard to understand. Labels, warnings, and reminders are not exactly hidden; if they are, they will not work. Default rules should be, and usually are, entirely transparent. If people are automatically enrolled in green energy, they should be, and typically are, told that they have been automatically enrolled in green energy. When an employer automatically enrolls employees in a savings plan, subject to opt-out, nothing is hidden. If it is, we have a sludge problem; the steps to take to opt out should be clear, and preferably require just one click.

It is true that some nudges work even if those who are affected by them do not focus on them or even think about them. An example would be a cafeteria that puts the healthy foods in more salient and accessible locations, which could influence choices even though diners might be unaware that they have been nudged. In this situation the design itself is not hidden; it is in plain sight. But the reason for the design may not be apparent. This is true for many forms of influence. Beer commercials do not include a warning that the presence of scantily clad models is designed to attract the attention of viewers and make them more likely to buy the beer. When politicians give a speech, they do not disclose that the wording of their message has been created (via testing) to maximize the chance the viewer will support the candidate. But is there anyone so naive as not to realize that commercials are designed to sell products and political speeches are written to attract votes? True, a cafeteria is not a commercial, but it does have a design, which was of course chosen for reasons.

If a cafeteria has been designed to encourage healthy eating, or if people have been automatically enrolled in some program, private and (especially) public institutions should not hide that fact. All the better if the reasons for nudges are revealed as well.

A somewhat different claim is that nudges work only if the recipients of the nudge are unaware that they are being nudged. This claim has been investigated in several contexts and has repeatedly been shown to be false. Existing studies find that transparency about nudging does not reduce its impact.11 In fact, it can easily have the opposite effect. Telling people that they have been automatically enrolled in the retirement plan because the employer thinks it is a wise choice to take advantage of the employer match and tax break is likely to increase the number who enroll. Drawing attention to the healthy design of a cafeteria can actually magnify the effect of that design, because it will convey valuable information.12

Are nudges manipulative? To answer that question, we need a definition of manipulation. To make a (very) long and complex story short, philosophers and others have generally converged on the view that an action counts as manipulative if it does not adequately respect people’s capacity for rational deliberation.13 On this criterion, most nudges are not manipulative.14 If people are reminded that they have a doctor’s appointment next Thursday, no one is manipulating them. The same is true if people are given information about the caloric content of food or if they are warned that certain foods contain shellfish or nuts, or that if they take more than the recommended dosage of a medicine, something bad might happen. To be sure, we might be able to categorize a default rule as manipulative if people are not told about it, or if it is hard for them to opt out. We call this sludge—and sludge can be manipulative.