The more people understand how and why “nudges” are put in place, the more they accept their use, according to research in Behavioral Public Policy. Researchers presented 1,715 participants with examples of behavioral interventions used by the government and the private sector and asked them to assess their acceptability on several dimensions, including their effectiveness, how easy it was to identify how the intervention works and the party implementing the intervention. They found that judging whether a nudge is acceptable, people weigh effectiveness and knowing how an intervention works as more important than who is implementing it. Further, participants found nudges related to health to be more acceptable than those related to personal finance. (Monitor on Psychology)

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