Coercion

Sometimes people can be convinced to do something with a show of force or threats. This is often accompanied by playing on people’s fears and stoking hatred. Our current administration seems to like this approach.

If a “strongman” incites a riot, our society suffers.

When choosing between the carrot and the stick, I often prefer to rely on positive incentives. The book Nudge, by Richard Thaler, describes how incentives can be used to change the behavior of many people.

One example is to require people to opt-out of 401k programs instead of asking them to opt-in. It’s so easy for us to avoid taking action, even when we know that doing so would be good for us. The opt-out approach makes doing the right thing easier for us, which leads to significant change for the better.

I probably need a stronger incentive to get me to be consistent with strength training. While I know that strength training is good for me, so are a lot of other activities — like writing this blog post, for example!

If I had to pay a charity an uncomfortably large amount of money for each day I failed to do strength training, I expect my behavior would change. But why would I want someone to force me to do that?

I’m very much in favor of using nudges to make it easier for people to act in their own self-interest. I’m not as thrilled with the idea of using nudges to make people behave in destructive ways. Advertising companies are very good at getting us to buy alcohol, cigarettes, and lots of stuff we really don’t need.

The use of coercion is even worse!