Читать книгу Sustainable Management for Managers and Engineers - Группа авторов - Страница 38

Nudging can also come in the form of reducing sludging, that is, eliminating the barriers that make otherwise good decisions difficult. Nudging and sludging are the good and evil sides, respectively, to the architecture of choice and use the same behavioral insights.

Legislation has been issued to reduce the risk of misleading information and enhance the consistency and comparability of the information provided. However, the same behavioral insights that are used in nudging can also be used to make judgments based on disadvantage. In March 2020, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, some UK patients with life-limiting conditions (such as heart disease, cystic fibrosis, terminal cancer and neurological conditions) received letters from their local doctors requesting them to complete “do not resuscitate” forms in case they contracted COVID-19 and their health deteriorated. They were also advised not to call emergency services if they had symptoms or contracted COVID-19 and were urged to leave scarce health resources such as ventilators and hospital services to care for younger and fitter patients who are more likely to survive. The National Health Service apologized after a viral reaction on social media called the letter cruel and criticized the idea that some lives are not worth saving. This is just one example of how sludging uses the same insights as nudging. In this case, local doctors facilitated certain behaviors in an attempt to establish a social norm that favored others’ interests over the individual’s self-interest. While nudging can be pro-society, it must primarily be pro-individual.