Sticking with 'nudge' - behaviour and economics ...

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group - population

psychological realism cognition

neoclassical model "The most well-known critique of behavioural economics comes from a psychologist, Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Gigerenzer argues that it is pointless to keep adding frills to a mathematical account of human behaviour that, in the end, has nothing to do with real cognitive processes. ... He [Laibson] concedes that Gigerenzer has a point but adds: 'Gerd's models of heuristic decision-making are great in the specific domains for which they are designed but they are not general models of behaviour.'" "There is a tendency to propose some new theory to explain each new fact. The world doesn't need a thousand different theories to explain a thousand different facts. At some point there needs to be a discipline of trying to explain many facts with one theory." [David K Levine, Is Behavioural Economics Doomed?, 2012]

social proof Source: Financial Times

behavioural  economics "The challenge for behavioural economics is to elaborate on the neoclassical model to deliver psychological realism without collapsing into a mess of special cases. Some say that the most successful special case comes from Harvard's David Laibson. It is a mathematical tweak designed to represent the particular brand of short-termism that leads us to sign up for the gym yet somehow never quite get around to exercising. It's called "hyperbolic discounting", a name that refers to a mathematical curve, and which says much about the way behavioural economists represent human psychology."

Harford, T. (2014) Nudge or fudge? Life&Arts, Financial Times, 22-23 March. pp.1-2.

Clearly indoors, clearing papers ...