Nudge

Have any of you experienced a nudge? Not someone physically pushing you but the psychological nudge? Before I started reading the book Nudge by Cass Sunstein, I had no idea what a nudge was. It is very similar to the verb of nudging someone, but instead of the physical act, it is something where you are pushed to do something that someone wants you to do. I know this may sound kin of confusing but I have an example of a nudge that many of you have probably seen. 

The example that I want to use can be seen in the picture above. At first sight it just looks like an escalator running along side steps that look like a piano. While the piano steps are very arty, they serve a different purpose. Not only do they look like piano keys, but they also sound like piano keys when stepped on. This is an example of a nudge where the purpose is to get people to not go right to the escalator and instead  use the steps. As you can see in the video below, most everyone walked right to the escalator, but as soon as they installed the piano steps, the "nudged" people to take the steps. 

There are nudges all around us where ever we go. Colorful recycle bins nudge us to recycle. Smaller plates at a buffet or restaurant nudges us to eat less. Before reading this book and discussing this topic in my consumer behavior class, I had no idea that all of these things are nudges and that others can almost control what we do by strategically placing nudges in different aspects of our everyday life.