Choice Architecture Quotes

“The key to behavioral change is to pass behavioral control to the environment.”
― Paul Gibbons, The Science of Successful Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture

“A choice architect has the responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions. [T]here are many parallels between choice architecture and more traditional forms of architecture. A crucial parallel is that there is no such thing as a “neutral” design. [A]s good architects know, seemingly arbitrary decisions, such as where to locate the bathrooms, will have subtle influences on how the people who use the building interact. [S]mall and apparently insignificant details can have major impacts on people’s behavior. [I]n many cases, the power of these small details comes from focusing the attention of users in a particular direction. Good architects realize that although they can’t build the perfect building, they can make some design choices that will have beneficial effects. And just as a building architect must eventually build some particular building, a choice architect must [for example] choose a particular arrangement of food options at lunch, and by so doing she can influence what people eat. She can nudge.”
― Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein

“Behaviorism was a busted flush, but neo-behaviorist theories, especially choice architecture, achieve behavioral change without coercion or the downsides of carrots and sticks.”
― Paul Gibbons, The Science of Successful Organizational Change: How Leaders Set Strategy, Change Behavior, and Create an Agile Culture