Esclusiva

Gennaio 28 2025
The new frontiers of behavioral science and logic

Professor Cass R. Sunstein speaks about the issues that influence the human decision making progress

“Some nudges are educative in the sense that they equipe people to make decisions that they otherwise wouldn’t make” says professor Cass R. Sunstein, co-author with Richard H. Thaler of the book Nudges, first published in 2008, during the conference Nudge, Present and Future host in the Aula Magna of Luiss.

Nudges examples The Coase theorem, a theory which won Nobel prize for science economics 1991, is the balance between demand and give. Facts of logic are issues explained with graceful and kindness by the professor Sunstein. He is tall and thin. His hands move above the lectern in an elegant and soft way. The speaker is lighted on the stage, the public is sitting in the shadow, there is an high attention between the listeners. 

 “How much would you demand to be out of Youtube, out of Facebook, out of Twitter for a month?” Studies demonstrate that people would demand 100 dollars to be out of social media platforms. Instead, asking the same subjects “How much would you pay for the use of them?” the answer was 5 dollars. Quite the same endeavors gave the same questions to young people about Instagram and Tik Tok. According to the Coase theorem, explains the Professor, willingness to pay and demand should be the same. But it isn’t. 

Different matters influence the decision making process, not only for single human beings but also in social and political statements. Empirical findings for behavior science shows there are goods hat people will buy, but which did not exist and the other is “an extraordinary difference between how much people will be willing to pay for goods and how much people would demand to give up goods.”

The four chapters 

Professor Sunstein’s speech last around sixty minutes and the lecture is about logic, empirical results and cognitive behavior assignments. 

The main core of his explanation consist in four main theme areas: Humanity, Nudges, FEAST and  the least Sludge and Scarcity. 

Humanity and Nudges 

The first, “the most ambitious” of the chapters, speaks about the heuristics matters that combined with bias, according with the studies, mark: “Human beings are really focused in short term”. The nudges, main issues of the second chapter could be educative in the meaning that: “They can help people to make decisions that, they otherwise wouldn’t make”. The Professor explains that also warnings could be nudges “in the sense that they preserves freedom of choice, but also steers you in a direction that might be a good thing”. 

FEAST

These composition of letters means fun, easy, attractive, social, timely. Fun, Amazon sells certain products with the so called “frustration-free packaging” in order to limit the stress of the consumers in opening the packaging. Easy, for same countries as Germany “we’ve referred to encouraging green energy just by making it super easy to stay.” While in UAE there have been systematic efforts to make “everything really easy for people, access to services, use of technologies”. S is for social it’s based on the idea that when people learn that most people are doing something “the likelihood that they will do it increases”. Timing, decision time and the capacity to take long terms actions in the pursuits of determinate objective are also for the Professor issues that influence the cognitive social science. 

Sludge and Scarcity

Sludge and Scarcity explains how people could have different cognitive problems depending on the situation they are living. For instance, someone who is lonely and wants to have some friends will trying constantly to make new friends “because that’s what they focus on”. This behavior will influence their endeavors because “if you’re desperate to find friends, you’re probably not gonna be that charming”. 

 Roundtable and main speakers 

Several are the factors which contribute to generate a loss of attention in the decision making process. Those could not only impact the normal life but have direct effect also on economic, politic and social framework. In attendance at the Honorary lectures, a roundtable with the main experts of the Luiss University as the Deputy Rector for research Stefano Manzocchi and the Professor Emeritus Massimo Egidi, moreover the Dutch professor of Tilburg University, Henriette Prast. The concluding remarks were hosted by Giuliano Amato former President of the  Constitutional Court.