Strange findings about voting for primary day
In celebration of primary day in Kentucky and Oregon, the Nudge blog offers five strange findings about voting that are not explained by the usual – individually rational – factors driving voter...
View ArticleAnother voter turnout finding
This one is perhaps less strange than the five posted earlier today. People who register to vote later are more likely to vote. James Gimpel, Daron Shaw, and Joshua Dyck looked at 2000 data from six...
View ArticleBlame it on the polling location
Back in May, we blogged about some strange voting findings, and referenced a study showing that the polling place exerts a strange influence on the voting decision. People who vote in schools are more...
View ArticleThe bottom line on getting people to vote
DANIEL KAHNEMAN:You call and ask people ahead of time, “Will you vote?”. That’s all. “Do you intend to vote?”. That increases voting participation substantially, and you can measure it. It’s a...
View ArticleOdd polling locations
We have evidence that there are strange polling effects when voters cast ballots in schools and churches. What about gymnasiums, art museums, pizza parlors, and laundromats? See here for a slide show...
View ArticleTwo nudging conversations with Richard Thaler
1) Richard Thaler talked with NPR’s Morning Edition about whether government messages about the economy affect consumer behavior? Does economic cheerleading make a difference? (The clip runs about 4...
View ArticleWho/what nags better: Your cell phone or your mother?
A study by four Ivy League economists—Dean Karlan of Yale, Sendhil Mullainathan and Margaret McConnell of Harvard, and Jonathan Zinman of Dartmouth—has shown that gentle text-based nagging can induce...
View ArticleAt the Los Angeles city council, "yea" is the default rule
As final chapter of the book points out, nudges really are everywhere. Smart nudges on the other hand… It’s called the automatic “yes” vote, and the Los Angeles Times reports that half of the City’s...
View ArticleApparently the Navy likes default yea votes, too
A Nudge reader sends along word that the Naval Academy is updating its honor system, which must be voted on by the Midshipmen. To make sure the new code passes, the Academy’s Honor Congress is using...
View ArticleBehavioral science on the campaign trail
The modern-day field experiment movement in political science, now almost ten years old, gets more coverage in the NYT Magazine: Shortly before Pennsylvania’s April 2008 presidential primary, (Todd)...
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