Science journalists don’t use the science of ‘nudge’

The “nudge” may have been formalized in a 2008 book, but I’d bet that the core concept — simple strategies for influencing other people’s decisions — dates back at least to the rise of human language. It wouldn’t surprise me if early hunter-gatherers on African savannas relied on some strategies of persuasion to convince, for example, other members of the group to help hunt for food. These hunter-gatherers weren’t analyzing what text message to send and when, questions that can concern today’s “choice architects,” as described by behavioral sciences writer Bruce Bower in "Nudge backlash." But the most astute communicators might have realized that