No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias, Maier et al, 2022

PNAS Letter: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Maier, Bartos, Stanley, Wagenmakers, 2022

First para:

Thaler and Sunstein’s “nudge” (1) has spawned a revolution in behavioral science research. Despite its popularity, the “nudge approach” has been criticized for having a “limited evidence base” (e.g., ref. 2). Mertens et al. (3) seek to address that limitation with a timely and comprehensive metaanalysis. Mertens et al.’s headline finding is that “choice architecture [nudging] is an effective and widely applicable behavior change tool” (p. 8). We propose their finding of “moderate publication bias” (p. 1) is the real headline; when this publication bias is appropriately corrected for, no evidence for the effectiveness of nudges remains (Fig. 1).

full letter: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2200300119

 

The 'nudge' concept has parallels with CBT, has appeared in Government policy “Nudge Unit” including in the area of welfare benefits: Nudging conformity and benefit sanctions: a state experiment in behaviour modification