University of Chicago professor Richard Thaler was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in economics for "for his work on behavioral economics, which tries to understand how humans make decisions, especially bad ones." Source: American professor wins Nobel Prize in economics for trying to understand bad human behavior. More:
Thaler, an American, is one of the leading experts in the relatively new field that combines psychology and economics. He has made a career of studying people's poor choices — everything from why people save so little for retirement to why National Football League teams that go early in the annual draft typically do a poor job of selecting new players. He's even looked at how to make bathroom floors cleaner.
The hook for getting those of us with short attention spans to read about it was the part about the "nudge." To wit:
The committee praised Thaler for trying to “nudge” people and companies to make better decisions. ... “My mantra is if you want to get people to do something, make it easy," Thaler said Monday in an interview from his home posted by the University of Chicago.
So did I get "nudged" into reading about this? You bet your sweet bippy I did. Here's the nudge right here: What’s a urinal fly, and what does it have to with winning a Nobel Prize?
Spoiler alert! Turns out that the tactic was used at an airport in Amsterdam to encourage men to take better aim when using urinals with the addition of flies painted in them to provide a target.
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