Supervisors info:
Αριστείδης Χατζής, Καθηγητής, Φιλοσοφίας και Θεωρίας της Επιστήμης και της Τεχνολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Γιούλη Φωκά-Καβαλιεράκη, Μεταδιδακτορική ερευνήτρια, Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο
Σταύρος Δρακόπουλος, Καθηγητής, Ιστορία και Φιλοσοφία της Επιστήμης και της Τεχνολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
Nudge theory, according to its founders Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, is a kind of libertarian paternalism that helps people towards making choices that can improve their health, wealth and lives. The theory relies on the insights of behavioral economics, and to be more specific, in the assumption that people behave systematically in an irrational way, when asked to make choices, due to cognitive restrictions. Since its first presentation in 2008, the theory has been used in several cases by both government and private administrations, in an attempt to guide individuals towards making preferable decisions, always on the basis that these decisions would be better for them. In this master thesis, we review the relative literature of the theory’s applications in both the private and the public sectors, and also examine the effectiveness of its applications. Specifically, we examine examples where nudge theory was applied successfully, like in the UK's Behavioral Insights Team and in nudge units around the globe. In addition to that, we present the implementations of the theory in the private sector and in particular, we will discuss the concept of nudge management, that is now applied by many big organizations. Moreover, we will also present applications related to the controversial field of using nudges for commercial purposes. Finally, since nudging is considered to be by many scholars a controversial practice, we will also investigate the ethical concerns that often arise from the interventions related to the behavioral insights and we will present arguments against the theory, based on other behavioral models.
