The Elements of Choice
Why the Way We Decide Matters
-
- $18.99
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
‘Indispensable’ Daniel Kahneman
How do you get people to agree to donate their organs? What’s the trick to reading a wine list? What’s the perfect number of potential matches a dating site should offer?
Every time we make a choice, our minds go through an elaborate process most of us never even notice. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision and a bad one. To overcome the common faults in our decision-making and enable better choices in any situation involves conscious and intentional decision design.
Transcending the familiar concepts of nudges and defaults, The Elements of Choice offers a comprehensive, systematic guide to creating effective choice architectures, the environments in which we make decisions. The designers of decisions need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present those options, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, and much more. These levers are unappreciated, yet they impact our reasoning every day.
This book doesn’t simply analyse the mental fallacies that trip us up. It goes further to show us what good decision-making looks like – that it can be both moral and effective.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
People's choices are not entirely their own making advises Johnson (Decision Research), the director of Columbia Business School's Center for Decision Sciences, in this energetic survey. Dissatisfied with how decision research and behavioral economics usually focus on showing people as bad decision-makers, he takes aim instead at those who influence decisions in order to better guide consumers towards more informed choices. People will usually choose the "plausible path" that contains the most accessible credible information, Johnson writes, and presents a slew of stories about how these plausible paths are made. For example: before a computer program made it easier, doctors more often prescribed generic drugs because their names came to memory quicker; higher tip suggestions in cabs work; and a high number of people in America aren't organ donors simply because it's the default option on forms (and becoming a donor would require them to check a box). Ultimately, Johnson writes, choosers are often unaware of the systems that impact their decision-making, and the onus is on designers, engineers, and advertisers to take the high road and "design for others as you would like them to design for you." Readers will be fascinated—and crestfallen—by this persuasive exploration.
