Will You Nudge On Over?

Everyone is faced with choices. There are choices that you acknowledge such as deciding what food menu item you would like, or placing trash in the proper recycling bin. Both are the results of nudges in our surroundings. The book Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, define a nudge as a concept in behavioral science and economics which argues that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance can influence the motives, incentives, and decision making.

As I've stated before, I try to go to Yellowstone National Park about once a month to get away for the weekend and disconnect. However, there are still nudges throughout the park and neighboring cities. An example of a nudge can be donation boxes that are in the parks general stores to encourage visitors to donate to the park.

Bear Cub in Yellowstone 16'

Halfway through the semester a majority of the park closes due to cooler temperatures and the chance of premature snow. So, the past couple of times that I have went there is only a couple of routes that I can go, make it a quick trip in and out of the park.


I decided to pull over because I thought that I saw something. And being the first to spot something before a stampede of cars and buses is huge in Yellowstone. Sure enough there was two cubs and a sow (female bear) rustling in the bushes. I whip out my camera just in time to snap some photos of them before they ran across the then full street of spectators.

As I was walking back to my car, this huge charter bus decided to attempt to parallel park next to me. At this point this mass chaos has been unleashed at this little pull out due to the bear siting. We manage to pull out and continue driving down the road. The mess of cars in the rear view mirror and seeing open places to park made me wonder why this huge bus decided to park right next to us when the driver could have driven only 100 yards further to park properly and have the occupants walk.

The bus driver, being the choice architect in the situation, was nudged by the location of the pull out areas to were to park. Although I was a little frustrated with where the driver decided to park, due to the limited amount of pull out parking spots, the closest spot was a nudge.

This experience just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're in the wilderness with no services, nudges can still prevail to influence decisions.