Episode 43: The Nature of Nudges

Dave and Tamler talk about a recent study that seems to support the view that "justice is what the judge had for breakfast" (or at least how long ago the parole board had breakfast), and that makes Tamler question his position on widening judicial discretion in criminal justice.  In the second segment David tries to work out his guilt about manipulating consumers into buying stuff for whatever shadowy organization employs him (BEWorks!), and we discuss the ethics of nudges in government and consumer marketing. Should the government frame issues like organ donation in ways that will benefit society? How much of a threat are nudges to our autonomy? Should Apple take steps to ensure that people can control themselves when making in-app purchases? Tamler even comes up with a "theory," which means that there must have been something wrong with him. Please note that portions of the audio during the second segment are little spotty, likely due to a hex or poltergeist in one of the microphones.  We'll have that worked out for the next episode.  Enjoy!     

(For the handful who have asked--if you like the music David makes for the podcast, you can listen/download to your heart's content at www.soundcloud.com/peezismyname).

Links

• Danziger, S., Levav, J., & Avnaim-Pesso, L. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(17), 6889-6892. [pnas.org]
• "Prisoners of our own resources" by Jonathan Levav, TEDx Rio de la Plata [youtube.com]
• Capestany, B. H., & Harris, L. T. (2014). Disgust and biological descriptions bias logical reasoning during legal decision-making. Social neuroscience, 1-13. [tandfonline.com]
• Asymmetric Dominance (Decoy Effect) [wikipedia.org]
• Opting-in vs Opting-out of organ donations [nytimes.com]
• The evil stuff people do with in app purchases and games [ibtimes.com]

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