Beyond nudges: Tools of a choice architecture

The way a choice is presented influences what a decision-maker chooses. This paper outlines the tools available to choice architects, that is anyone who present people with choices. We divide these tools into two categories: those used in structuring the choice task and those used in describing the choice options. Tools for structuring the choice task address the idea of what to present to decision-makers, Mark Lett (2012) 23:487–504 DOI 10.1007/s11002-012-9186-1 Preparation of this article has been supported by NIA Grant 5R01AG027934 to the first author. E. J. Johnson (*) : E. U. Weber Center for Decision Science, Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. B. Shu : C. Fox Anderson School of Management, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA B. G. C. Dellaert Department of Business Economics, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands D. G. Goldstein Yahoo! Research and London Business School, London, UK G. Häubl School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada R. P. Larrick : J. W. Payne The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA E. Peters Psychology Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA D. Schkade Rady School of Management, UCSD, San Diego, CA, USA B. Wansink Applied Economics and Management Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA and tools for describing the choice options address the idea of how to present it. We discuss implementation issues in using choice architecture tools, including individual differences and errors in evaluation of choice outcomes. Finally, this paper presents a few applications that illustrate the positive effect choice architecture can have on realworld decisions.