Nudge Your Way to Better Results

WHEN YOU FIRST SEE THE FLIES, it’s a bit unsettling. Your first reaction is that the washroom you are in is unhygienic; but you soon realize that the flies in the urinals of the men’s room at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport aren’t real: They are only images etched into the porcelain. However, they are famous enough to be featured in the academic literature for both Economics and Psychology. As the New York Times reported, after the flies were added to the urinals, ‘spillage’ on the men’s room floor decreased by 80 per cent.

According to Nudge co-author , behavioural economist at the University of Chicago, the explanation is simple: Men like to aim at targets. Thaler says the flies are one of his favourite examples of a ‘nudge’ — a harmless bit of engineering that alters people’s behaviour in a positive way, without actually anyone to do anything: