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How Change Happens
The different ways that social change happens, from unleashing to nudging to social cascades.How does social change happen? When do social movements take off? Sexual harassment was once something that women had to endure; now a movement has risen up against it. White nationalist sentiments, on the other hand, were largely kept out of mainstream discourse; now there is no shortage of media outlets for them. In this book, with the help of behavioral economics, psychology, and other fields, Cass Sunstein casts a bright new light on how change happens.
Sunstein focuses on the crucial role of social norms--and on their frequent collapse. When norms lead people to silence themselves, even an unpopular status quo can persist. Then one day, someone challenges the norm--a child who exclaims that the emperor has no clothes; a woman who says "me too." Sometimes suppressed outrage is unleashed, and long-standing practices fall.
Sometimes change is more gradual, as "nudges" help produce new and different decisions--apps that count calories; texted reminders of deadlines; automatic enrollment in green energy or pension plans. Sunstein explores what kinds of nudges are effective and shows why nudges sometimes give way to bans and mandates. Finally, he considers social divisions, social cascades, and "partyism," when identification with a political party creates a strong bias against all members of an opposing party--which can both fuel and block social change.
Sunstein focuses on the crucial role of social norms--and on their frequent collapse. When norms lead people to silence themselves, even an unpopular status quo can persist. Then one day, someone challenges the norm--a child who exclaims that the emperor has no clothes; a woman who says "me too." Sometimes suppressed outrage is unleashed, and long-standing practices fall.
Sometimes change is more gradual, as "nudges" help produce new and different decisions--apps that count calories; texted reminders of deadlines; automatic enrollment in green energy or pension plans. Sunstein explores what kinds of nudges are effective and shows why nudges sometimes give way to bans and mandates. Finally, he considers social divisions, social cascades, and "partyism," when identification with a political party creates a strong bias against all members of an opposing party--which can both fuel and block social change.
344 pages, Hardcover
Published April 9, 2019
142 people are currently reading
1134 people want to read
About the author
Cass R. Sunstein
167 books732 followersCass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.
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August 16, 2023
✔️ در بند هنجارهای اجتماعی بودن رو به خوبی مورد نقد قرار میده و چه مثال خوبی آورده . موضوع سنت قیومیت (تصمیم نهایی کار کردن زنان خارج از خانه با شوهران ه) در عربستان که به واسطه ی اون زنان از کار کردن محروم هستند .
✔️ یک نکته ی خیلی مهم رو بیان میکنه : برای تغییر هنجارهایی که درراکثر مواقع به صورت قانون در اومده و خودمون رو مجبور به انجامشون میدونیم لازمه که نظراتی داده بشه که معمولا مجاز نیستن! به طور مثال وقتی یه دیکتاتور شروع به صحبت میکنه و شما موافق نیستید کافیه که در کف زدن با بقیه همراهی نکنید ...
✔️ در مورد اخلاقیات و تاثیر اون بر تغییرات صحبت های قابل قبولی داره .
✔️ توضیح موضوع قطبیت گروهی و تاثیرات اون بر تصمیمات مهم اجتماعی و سیاسی که شخصا فکر می کنم میخواد بگه که رها و آزاد فکر کن و نه وابسته به گروه و حزب .
📖 بریده ای از کتاب :
وقتی هنجارها مردم را به سکوت وادار میکنند, حتی وضعیت نامطلوب موجود هم میتواند ادامه یابد تا اينکه روزی کسی هنجارها را به چالش بکشد؛ کودکی فریاد میزند «پادشاه لخت است»» زنی میگوید «من هم مورد آزار جنسی قرار گرفتهام»؛ گاهی خشم سرکوبشده رها میشود و سنتها و روندهای بلندمدت منسوخ میشوند.
🗯 پ.ن :️ کتاب باید خیلی دقیق و با حوصله خونده بشه تا دلسردتون نکنه . در کل اطلاعات مفیدی داره و خوندنش خالی از لطف نیست . برای کسایی که دغدغه ی تغییر مثبت جامعه رو دارند میتونه بیشتر از بقیه مفید باشه .
🗓 02/05/24
✔️ یک نکته ی خیلی مهم رو بیان میکنه : برای تغییر هنجارهایی که درراکثر مواقع به صورت قانون در اومده و خودمون رو مجبور به انجامشون میدونیم لازمه که نظراتی داده بشه که معمولا مجاز نیستن! به طور مثال وقتی یه دیکتاتور شروع به صحبت میکنه و شما موافق نیستید کافیه که در کف زدن با بقیه همراهی نکنید ...
✔️ در مورد اخلاقیات و تاثیر اون بر تغییرات صحبت های قابل قبولی داره .
✔️ توضیح موضوع قطبیت گروهی و تاثیرات اون بر تصمیمات مهم اجتماعی و سیاسی که شخصا فکر می کنم میخواد بگه که رها و آزاد فکر کن و نه وابسته به گروه و حزب .
📖 بریده ای از کتاب :
وقتی هنجارها مردم را به سکوت وادار میکنند, حتی وضعیت نامطلوب موجود هم میتواند ادامه یابد تا اينکه روزی کسی هنجارها را به چالش بکشد؛ کودکی فریاد میزند «پادشاه لخت است»» زنی میگوید «من هم مورد آزار جنسی قرار گرفتهام»؛ گاهی خشم سرکوبشده رها میشود و سنتها و روندهای بلندمدت منسوخ میشوند.
🗯 پ.ن :️ کتاب باید خیلی دقیق و با حوصله خونده بشه تا دلسردتون نکنه . در کل اطلاعات مفیدی داره و خوندنش خالی از لطف نیست . برای کسایی که دغدغه ی تغییر مثبت جامعه رو دارند میتونه بیشتر از بقیه مفید باشه .
🗓 02/05/24
December 26, 2021
I haven't read any books on this subject since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, which was eye opening, maybe life changing, although I've read more about the subject. Didn't read Nudge. But this I read, after hearing it referenced in a lecture. A lot has changed: more researched, more known. The book went surprisingly fast. If there is a book using reason as it's supposed to be used, not to overpower or manipulate, but to get at the truth, this is it: exploring all sides. Not as much for proof of the right answer as to allow for whatever further discussion is needed -- again, in pursuit of truth.
Referenced in the lecture was the concept of norm entrepreneurship. Since people stick to certain norms out of the belief that everybody else holds them, change can happen rapidly when those people find out otherwise, for example, Saudi Arabian men who wouldn't mind their wives working but are under the belief their peers would mind. Bringing out those hidden norms can result in rapid change.
Examples of rapid change: support for same-sex marriage; the Me Too movement.
But not all change is what we would want. Former President Trump was a norm entrepreneur par excellence.
Even if we consider changes in norms to be desirable, the changes can be lacking in nuance. And that is an aspect of change that Prof. Sunstein did not bring up directly. But maybe he did when discussing the dangers of extreme polarization. He cited some of the dangers of direct democracy such as Plato might have feared.
For norms to change, the expression of latent opinions must be permitted. The lecture that inspired me to read this book recounted an incident that happened under Stalin. An audience was applauding either Stalin or an official under him -- that I can't remember -- and once they began applauding, no one was brave enough to stop. The applause went on and on: ten, fifteen minutes and more, until the older men in the audience were wearing out. Finally, a man, a business or industrial leader, initiated and led the end of the applause, to the general relief. But there were reprisals against him from the party. People who can undertake such initiatives are not welcome in a totalitarian regime. Norm entrepreneurship isn't universally appreciated.
At some point in this book, I was along for the ride, even when not connecting all the dots. Nevertheless, the author brought to the surface issues I hadn't thought about previously. He gave me insights.
He went over at length the issues and ethics of nudges -- important, since whatever people hear on these topics, and no matter their stance, conservative to progressive, they think the subject of cognitive science (or behavioral economics, or whatever name), has to do with how to manipulate people.
My answer to that worry used to be that advertisers already know all this, so those concerned about our welfare should too. Now, after reading this book, I learned much more can be said. We are always being nudged. Nudging is inevitable. For government to do so is inevitable. The weather nudges us. We are already being nudged, so an assumption that new nudges somehow take our freedom while the former state of affairs did not is illogical. This book goes over the territory with a fine-toothed comb.
For example, those who think we should always choose and never be given default options do so on the grounds that default options are paternalistic. But forcing people into explicit decisions when they would prefer default options is itself paternalistic. Much ink is spent on the accusation of paternalism, and I enjoyed letting it flow over me.
Remember that some nudges are informational in nature. For example, a GPS tells you what to do via information. Information is the prime example of nudges that are not manipulative. You can override.
Information -- new information not previously available -- can be central to change.
A prime insight from this book has to do with information. Sunstein reminds us of the 1981 finding that there has never been a famine in a country with a free press and democratic elections. Even when food is scarce, freedom of information results in its being shared, so that no one starves. So, having a working democracy with freedom of information is not merely a preference of certain elite groups; those attributes actually have an effect on the real world. Note that the sharing of food is merely a single example and not the only area in which knowing the facts is crucial. Truth, we might say, "works." Generally speaking, then, when the government has accumulated information, it should share.
The author went into the difficulties of the "better safe than sorry" principles, and here I could see how my thinking might be off, for example, in my assumptions about organic produce, genetically modified seeds, and nuclear energy. I'm not saying my assumptions are off, but at least I'm thinking now of the bias we have in favor of "the mythical benevolence of nature."
Related is people's reluctance to vaccinate. Because of trust in nature and more attention to the risk of vaccines than to the risk of diseases, people expose their children to greater risks from "nature" than from vaccines. The problem is not that people are giving thought to their decisions, but that certain mental biases and shortcuts are leading to moral errors in those cases. (The concerns the author was writing up for this 2019 book have come through loud and clear in 2021.)
Near the end of the book, the author discusses whether there are moral heuristics, that is, moral rules of thumb we follow and that work most of the time but can lead to serious errors in judgment. We do follow such heuristics in solving complex tasks and making probabilistic judgments, but moral and political judgments are a different matter. Heuristics are associated with "fast," intuitive thinking, while slow thinking involve careful deliberation which we just don't have the time and energy to use for everything, so it's lucky we have the very useful fast mode. We just have to know when to turn it off -- another energy-consuming judgment. Yes, it seems we do have such moral heuristics, which get a good going-over here. At the end, though, Sunstein reminds us that the fact that a heuristic is in play does not mean the decision is wrong. The decision should stand on its merits, with everything depending on how it is articulated. "What is required is a moral argument."
Way back in Chapter 1, the author talks about Former President Trump and the fact that in "liberating isms," he changed norms. In the last chapter, Sunstein proposes a new ism: partyism. Partyism is on the rise in America, albeit not everywhere, for example, not in Great Britain., nor does it show any sign of abating. Unbelievably, given assumptions, you may be surprised to hear that research using the Implicit Association Test show people's political bias is much greater than their racial bias.
Sunstein says the stranglehold to legislation from polarization and partyism is best broken during a new president's honeymoon period, but was not necessarily the case this year (2021). He also emphases reliance on technocratic expertise, although under Former President Trump's regime, experts did not fare well.
As I write this somewhat cursory review of How Change Happens, I can see more clearly that despite all his reliance on research and reasoning, Prof. Sunstein is talking about us and our situation now -- our polarization and our being tied up in moral and political knots. Or at least I think so. In that sense the book is a subtle attempt to break us free.
I had it on audio, where the narrator (not the author) gives a sensible and serviceable read, mispronouncing just one word but repeatedly ("contribute" -- accent on wrong syllable). I had a inexpensive used hardback in perfect condition from Amazon Marketplace for my check marks, stars, and notes.
Referenced in the lecture was the concept of norm entrepreneurship. Since people stick to certain norms out of the belief that everybody else holds them, change can happen rapidly when those people find out otherwise, for example, Saudi Arabian men who wouldn't mind their wives working but are under the belief their peers would mind. Bringing out those hidden norms can result in rapid change.
Examples of rapid change: support for same-sex marriage; the Me Too movement.
But not all change is what we would want. Former President Trump was a norm entrepreneur par excellence.
Even if we consider changes in norms to be desirable, the changes can be lacking in nuance. And that is an aspect of change that Prof. Sunstein did not bring up directly. But maybe he did when discussing the dangers of extreme polarization. He cited some of the dangers of direct democracy such as Plato might have feared.
For norms to change, the expression of latent opinions must be permitted. The lecture that inspired me to read this book recounted an incident that happened under Stalin. An audience was applauding either Stalin or an official under him -- that I can't remember -- and once they began applauding, no one was brave enough to stop. The applause went on and on: ten, fifteen minutes and more, until the older men in the audience were wearing out. Finally, a man, a business or industrial leader, initiated and led the end of the applause, to the general relief. But there were reprisals against him from the party. People who can undertake such initiatives are not welcome in a totalitarian regime. Norm entrepreneurship isn't universally appreciated.
At some point in this book, I was along for the ride, even when not connecting all the dots. Nevertheless, the author brought to the surface issues I hadn't thought about previously. He gave me insights.
He went over at length the issues and ethics of nudges -- important, since whatever people hear on these topics, and no matter their stance, conservative to progressive, they think the subject of cognitive science (or behavioral economics, or whatever name), has to do with how to manipulate people.
My answer to that worry used to be that advertisers already know all this, so those concerned about our welfare should too. Now, after reading this book, I learned much more can be said. We are always being nudged. Nudging is inevitable. For government to do so is inevitable. The weather nudges us. We are already being nudged, so an assumption that new nudges somehow take our freedom while the former state of affairs did not is illogical. This book goes over the territory with a fine-toothed comb.
For example, those who think we should always choose and never be given default options do so on the grounds that default options are paternalistic. But forcing people into explicit decisions when they would prefer default options is itself paternalistic. Much ink is spent on the accusation of paternalism, and I enjoyed letting it flow over me.
Remember that some nudges are informational in nature. For example, a GPS tells you what to do via information. Information is the prime example of nudges that are not manipulative. You can override.
Information -- new information not previously available -- can be central to change.
A prime insight from this book has to do with information. Sunstein reminds us of the 1981 finding that there has never been a famine in a country with a free press and democratic elections. Even when food is scarce, freedom of information results in its being shared, so that no one starves. So, having a working democracy with freedom of information is not merely a preference of certain elite groups; those attributes actually have an effect on the real world. Note that the sharing of food is merely a single example and not the only area in which knowing the facts is crucial. Truth, we might say, "works." Generally speaking, then, when the government has accumulated information, it should share.
The author went into the difficulties of the "better safe than sorry" principles, and here I could see how my thinking might be off, for example, in my assumptions about organic produce, genetically modified seeds, and nuclear energy. I'm not saying my assumptions are off, but at least I'm thinking now of the bias we have in favor of "the mythical benevolence of nature."
Related is people's reluctance to vaccinate. Because of trust in nature and more attention to the risk of vaccines than to the risk of diseases, people expose their children to greater risks from "nature" than from vaccines. The problem is not that people are giving thought to their decisions, but that certain mental biases and shortcuts are leading to moral errors in those cases. (The concerns the author was writing up for this 2019 book have come through loud and clear in 2021.)
Near the end of the book, the author discusses whether there are moral heuristics, that is, moral rules of thumb we follow and that work most of the time but can lead to serious errors in judgment. We do follow such heuristics in solving complex tasks and making probabilistic judgments, but moral and political judgments are a different matter. Heuristics are associated with "fast," intuitive thinking, while slow thinking involve careful deliberation which we just don't have the time and energy to use for everything, so it's lucky we have the very useful fast mode. We just have to know when to turn it off -- another energy-consuming judgment. Yes, it seems we do have such moral heuristics, which get a good going-over here. At the end, though, Sunstein reminds us that the fact that a heuristic is in play does not mean the decision is wrong. The decision should stand on its merits, with everything depending on how it is articulated. "What is required is a moral argument."
Way back in Chapter 1, the author talks about Former President Trump and the fact that in "liberating isms," he changed norms. In the last chapter, Sunstein proposes a new ism: partyism. Partyism is on the rise in America, albeit not everywhere, for example, not in Great Britain., nor does it show any sign of abating. Unbelievably, given assumptions, you may be surprised to hear that research using the Implicit Association Test show people's political bias is much greater than their racial bias.
Sunstein says the stranglehold to legislation from polarization and partyism is best broken during a new president's honeymoon period, but was not necessarily the case this year (2021). He also emphases reliance on technocratic expertise, although under Former President Trump's regime, experts did not fare well.
As I write this somewhat cursory review of How Change Happens, I can see more clearly that despite all his reliance on research and reasoning, Prof. Sunstein is talking about us and our situation now -- our polarization and our being tied up in moral and political knots. Or at least I think so. In that sense the book is a subtle attempt to break us free.
I had it on audio, where the narrator (not the author) gives a sensible and serviceable read, mispronouncing just one word but repeatedly ("contribute" -- accent on wrong syllable). I had a inexpensive used hardback in perfect condition from Amazon Marketplace for my check marks, stars, and notes.
October 1, 2022
I had wanted to like How Change Happens. In fact, I was very excited by its first several chapters, which filled in some of the gaps that his very readable book with Richard Thaler,
Nudge
had left. Perhaps I just hadn't heard some of the missing pieces the first time; nonetheless, I found them here.
So, as I started How Change Happens, I was excited, the kind of excited that one gets when you've found the key to a locked room and discovered that it's chock full of decadent chocolate. (Yes, I'm a chocolate lover.) But then I discovered that the chocolate was only a façade, and what was left was less tasty.
Cass Sunstein lost me in two ways: (a) How Change Happens is very wonky. I like wonkiness and have read a number of the primary sources referenced here; nonetheless, it could have profited from more examples and diagrams; and (b) I thought I knew what direction the book was going (see the title), but then it seemed to be about governmental change and then just interesting stuff. I would have found How Change Happens much more useful with section headers and a clear organization that kept reminding me where we were going. I enjoyed the pieces, but missed the overall theme. Even if How Change Happens had been identified as a series of loosely-related essays, I would have been happier.
To be clear, I spent almost two months reading How Change Happens, so I may have lost my direction because of this timeframe. I don't think so or at least not completely.
So, as I started How Change Happens, I was excited, the kind of excited that one gets when you've found the key to a locked room and discovered that it's chock full of decadent chocolate. (Yes, I'm a chocolate lover.) But then I discovered that the chocolate was only a façade, and what was left was less tasty.
Cass Sunstein lost me in two ways: (a) How Change Happens is very wonky. I like wonkiness and have read a number of the primary sources referenced here; nonetheless, it could have profited from more examples and diagrams; and (b) I thought I knew what direction the book was going (see the title), but then it seemed to be about governmental change and then just interesting stuff. I would have found How Change Happens much more useful with section headers and a clear organization that kept reminding me where we were going. I enjoyed the pieces, but missed the overall theme. Even if How Change Happens had been identified as a series of loosely-related essays, I would have been happier.
To be clear, I spent almost two months reading How Change Happens, so I may have lost my direction because of this timeframe. I don't think so or at least not completely.
May 4, 2019
My family love me and think highly of me, but they also tend to think I’m a fake and a fence-sitter. For example, my libertarian brother-in-law believes I hedge too much when I tell him I like government and finds it so frustrating to talk to me that he prefers to give me books to read. (Thanks, Tom, I do read your books!) Bottom line, they think I don’t really hold any true views and just love to pontificate. Equally, I get frustrated with their insistence that there must be a simple answer for everything and their tendency to think in black and white.
“How Change Happens” has treated me to a large dose of my own medicine!
Cass Sunstein has basically stringed together sixteen (count’em) chapters on the multiple facets of the landscape where morals meet needs, paternalism confronts freedom, ethics brush with welfare, transparency with privacy etc.
Cool stuff. It’s like “Freakonomics,” but much more authoritative, in ten times better English, on weightier subjects, better thought-out, and backed with the results of research often conducted by the author himself.
If you’ve ever grappled with any of these questions, “How Change Happens” will, at the very least, equip you with the necessary language to better express your thoughts. For me, that moment came with the distinction between what the author calls “utilitarianism” and what he calls “deontology,” namely the struggle we often face between doing what will work out best and doing what our conscience tells us is “the right thing.”
Halfway through the book, however, you come to realize that his answer to any moral dilemma, invariably, will turn out to be “it depends.”
Except that’s not true either. Toward the end of the book he moves on to the even less satisfactory “it is actually impossible to tell.”
So this is a list of sixteen issues where either the author cannot give you a good answer or, alternatively, the author asserts there isn’t one.
And then, in a TWO PAGE summary, the author wraps up! All along, it turns out, you have been reading the sixteen lemmas of a mathematical theorem.
The theorem says “we have no idea how change happens and it’s impossible to know.”
Oh, and it’s not stated, the statement of the theorem is left to the reader.
You know, professor, that’s very cute. But when I buy a book that’s entitled “How Change Happens” I expect to read a book on how change happens, not a mathematical proof that we don’t know and most certainly not 100+ pages of rebuttal on various criticisms of your nudge theory, OK?
That was my time I just spent reading your musings.
“How Change Happens” has treated me to a large dose of my own medicine!
Cass Sunstein has basically stringed together sixteen (count’em) chapters on the multiple facets of the landscape where morals meet needs, paternalism confronts freedom, ethics brush with welfare, transparency with privacy etc.
Cool stuff. It’s like “Freakonomics,” but much more authoritative, in ten times better English, on weightier subjects, better thought-out, and backed with the results of research often conducted by the author himself.
If you’ve ever grappled with any of these questions, “How Change Happens” will, at the very least, equip you with the necessary language to better express your thoughts. For me, that moment came with the distinction between what the author calls “utilitarianism” and what he calls “deontology,” namely the struggle we often face between doing what will work out best and doing what our conscience tells us is “the right thing.”
Halfway through the book, however, you come to realize that his answer to any moral dilemma, invariably, will turn out to be “it depends.”
Except that’s not true either. Toward the end of the book he moves on to the even less satisfactory “it is actually impossible to tell.”
So this is a list of sixteen issues where either the author cannot give you a good answer or, alternatively, the author asserts there isn’t one.
And then, in a TWO PAGE summary, the author wraps up! All along, it turns out, you have been reading the sixteen lemmas of a mathematical theorem.
The theorem says “we have no idea how change happens and it’s impossible to know.”
Oh, and it’s not stated, the statement of the theorem is left to the reader.
You know, professor, that’s very cute. But when I buy a book that’s entitled “How Change Happens” I expect to read a book on how change happens, not a mathematical proof that we don’t know and most certainly not 100+ pages of rebuttal on various criticisms of your nudge theory, OK?
That was my time I just spent reading your musings.
May 6, 2019
Bit of a mis-sell, really.
Somewhere under there is a collection of short pieces on some of the more technical aspects of choice architecture / behavioural economics and social norms - probably hotly debated by academics but not terrifically exciting for the rest of us. All mildly interesting enough, but without much of a thread.
The title itself is borderline misrepresentation: this isn't about how change happens - it's a repotted set of articles, some very dry and super-niche (I mean, how much time do you want to spend thinking about the ethics of default choices?).
If you're looking for 'behaviour change', as I was - it ain't here. Still, terrific nudging on the book title choice and cover.
Somewhere under there is a collection of short pieces on some of the more technical aspects of choice architecture / behavioural economics and social norms - probably hotly debated by academics but not terrifically exciting for the rest of us. All mildly interesting enough, but without much of a thread.
The title itself is borderline misrepresentation: this isn't about how change happens - it's a repotted set of articles, some very dry and super-niche (I mean, how much time do you want to spend thinking about the ethics of default choices?).
If you're looking for 'behaviour change', as I was - it ain't here. Still, terrific nudging on the book title choice and cover.
June 2, 2019
This was effectively “Nudge” rehashed with more nuance and some additional reference to Psychology and many references to Kahneman and Tversky.
January 31, 2020
Not quite what I was expecting. I was thinking it would be more about persona change, but this is an extension on Nudge theory and other societal behaviours and traits that can be manipulated by policy makers or business to affect change both positive and negative. For that it was quite good, although it did feel like a patched together bundle of concepts rather than a cohesive whole.
February 21, 2021
Interesting essays on several aspects of potential behaviour change mechanisms in the public sector. It sort of underdelivers though, as it is rather a set of randomly put together articles, without actually going into the mechanisms of behaviour change on the systemic level. It is definitely not a bedtime read, requires full attention and also quite a bit of Googling if you're not familiar with philosophy, law and some concepts of economics. It is very US-centric, which I wasn't a fan of.
October 3, 2021
A detailed and dense book with an ambitious scope covering organisational change to social movements and ethics.
Some good insight particularly around nudges but felt like it tried to capture too much.
Some good insight particularly around nudges but felt like it tried to capture too much.
April 12, 2022
pretty solid, nothing profound, but gave a lot of interesting information that makes social movements and governments make more sense
April 6, 2021
loads of good info and interesting thoughts to get out regarding Behavioral Science and how it works on a societal level. In fact, this book took me ages because I made the effort of writing a lot of notes.
But ignoring that, the book still goes to some lengths on topics that might have been cut short (albeit the book is factually not that long, I just feel that the pages are so unusually long, but maybe that is just me).
My favorite chapters were those on ethics and moral heuristics, but Sunstein addresses normative questions and challenges for behavioral science in societies today at numerous instances throughout the book and overall provides a lot of good examples and references to other studies. Those, who have read Kahnemann, Ariely, etc. will recognize several of the examples used.
Good, easy read nonetheless, I will def. have a look at "Ethics of Influences" - another one of his books - as well.
But ignoring that, the book still goes to some lengths on topics that might have been cut short (albeit the book is factually not that long, I just feel that the pages are so unusually long, but maybe that is just me).
My favorite chapters were those on ethics and moral heuristics, but Sunstein addresses normative questions and challenges for behavioral science in societies today at numerous instances throughout the book and overall provides a lot of good examples and references to other studies. Those, who have read Kahnemann, Ariely, etc. will recognize several of the examples used.
Good, easy read nonetheless, I will def. have a look at "Ethics of Influences" - another one of his books - as well.
October 13, 2019
Title is misleading. There are good chapters but no unifying line. Social change is discussed only in the beginning. Sunstein’s arguments against the precautionary principle lack a proper understanding of complexity science. His reliance on the outdated systems 1/2 taxonomy ignores the great advancements on the subject made by Keith Stanovich. The chapter on partyism could be stronger if he got wind of the work of Peter Turchin (Ages of Discord). Overall, I was expecting a strong work on social change. Disappointing.
October 16, 2021
Being a great mind, but most likely too proud to admit and state this explicitly, this book felt like Sunstein's need to qualify and justify the ideas put forward in Nudge, whose dangerous and possibly disastrous consequences are slowly staring to dawn on people.
So, if you are interested in social change and how it happens, you will most likely be disappointed. Still, the last third of the book - particularly the parts dealing with moral heuristics and rights - are worth reading, consequential and worthy of Sunstein's intellectual.
So, if you are interested in social change and how it happens, you will most likely be disappointed. Still, the last third of the book - particularly the parts dealing with moral heuristics and rights - are worth reading, consequential and worthy of Sunstein's intellectual.
August 8, 2024
I wish I was able to enjoy this book more. It is a fairly dry work that adds little to what was already said in Nudge, a work Sunstein co-authored with Richard Thaler. In fact, I would almost call this book Nudge Lite... except it is an incredibly dense and heavy read. Clearly, Thaler was both the bigger brains and the better pen in that collab.
July 18, 2019
I particularly enjoyed the sections on morality and philosophy. Sunstein's presentation is thought provoking and encouraged me to think about issues from the System I and System II perspective. It does take some concentration to do justice to the content but it is definitely worth it.
October 19, 2019
This book is an amalgam of Nudge and Conformity. I don't think I came across anything new or worth spending +100 pages to lead up to.
I had to put it down... so these two stars are for what may possibly be interesting in the last couple of chapters.
I had to put it down... so these two stars are for what may possibly be interesting in the last couple of chapters.
December 4, 2019
The book was not bad, and it was a deep and nuanced analysis of nudge theory and various ethical frameworks to guide libertarian paternalism. Yet, I feel like I didn't want away from any major insights of even studies that were not mentioned his Sunstein's other books...
May 13, 2021
I'm not sure that this is truly how change happens, but it does give people a good set of frameworks for creating change in smaller systems like corporate/business environments. I think if you are looking at this for societal change, you might want to go a little deeper if you are looking for that.
June 11, 2019
Misleading title with no cohesive theme. Dense and uninteresting, a rehash of many of the concepts from his prior works on the concept of “nudges”.
July 15, 2019
A lot of studies combined into one book. The book is a failed attempt to formulate a general theory. Some sections where quite interesting, but most sections weren't.
October 13, 2019
A number of interesting insights that would be better if they were connected in a more coherent story.
December 5, 2019
Free choice, paternalism, norms, nudges & defaults. Written by a lawyer & excessively attornalistic for my taste. Won't finish, reading has become a chore.
December 22, 2019
Good and interesting book on nudging, social norms and behavioural economics. It does require a fair bit of concentration due to how disjointed it is but genuinely enjoyed it.
December 29, 2020
The title is misleading and it is not an easy read, but this is still a great recap of how change happens on different levels and why choice architecture is a suitable measure for driving societal change.
March 8, 2022
助推2.0 （美）卡斯·R.桑斯坦。
有几段很符合看这本书时遇到的事情。
有几段很符合看这本书时遇到的事情。
January 15, 2023
I enjoy reading Sunstein at all times, but I felt like this book maybe didn't need to be written / was already covered in a bunch of his other stuff.
January 14, 2024
Solid book by one of my favorite authors. Very comprehensively covers heuristics and human thought and sociology. The Narrator was pretty boring and kind of ruined it.
May 12, 2024
Sunstein confuses classification and conceptualisation with explication. A book that befuddles rather than enlightens. Avoid.
August 17, 2024
Questo libro è uno dei pilastri dell'economia comportamentale. Il libro tocca numerose situazioni, principalmente pubblico/governative, ma i concetti posso essere applicati anche altrove.
November 17, 2025
I like the work of Cass Sunstein, but this one just didn't feel new. In fact it seemed like another summary of behavioral economics, broadly.
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