ABSTRACT
This chapter examines nudge theory considering not just the work of the authors, Thaler and Sunstein, who were primarily responsible for bringing it to the attention of governments around the world but also the important founding work of cognitive psychologists/behavioural economists, Tversky and Kahneman and their students. Concepts such as the availability heuristic, loss/benefit calculations and heuristic modelling of persuasion are explained with research examples. The application of nudging, in more recent work, is also examined. This approach to behaviour control is shown to have effectiveness in some contexts. Yet, there are other persuasion settings where additional psychological concepts, such as internalised beliefs about behaviour, subjective norms and internal behaviour control, need to be considered. Nudge theory did provide some useful insights about behavioural change that could be applied during the pandemic and was an approach some governments (such as in the United Kingdom) applied initially when framing their early approaches to tackling the spread of the novel coronavirus.
