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Can tiny nudges dramatically change our behaviour? In this episode, Eva van den Broek and Tim den Heijer explore the subtle yet powerful psychological tools that influence daily decisions, often without us realising it.

You’ll learn:

Why doubling the size of a plate made kids eat 41% more (feat. the Delboeuf illusion).

Why Schiphol Airport painted a fly in the urinals (“The Housefly Effect”).

The role of defaults in organ donation, student loans, and fast food orders.

How loss aversion turned teachers into top performers, improving student grades by 10%.

Why IKEA sell cheap ice cream (feat. the peak-end rule).

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Get the book: https://bedfordsquarepublishers.co.uk/book/the-housefly-effect

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Watch Nudge on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nudgepodcast/

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Sources:

Carmon, Z., & Kahneman, D. (1996). The experienced utility of queuing: Experience profiles and retrospective evaluations of simulated queues.

Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., Hofmann, D. A., & Staats, B. R. (2015). The impact of time at work and time off from work on rule compliance: The case of hand hygiene in health care. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(3).

Holden, S. S., Zlatevska, N., & Dubelaar, C. (2016). Whether smaller plates reduce consumption depends on who’s serving and who’s looking: A meta-analysis. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 1(1), 134.

Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B. L., Schreiber, C. A., & Redelmeier, D. A. (1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4(6), 401–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00589.x

Kaur, S., Kremer, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2015). Self-control at work. Journal of Political Economy, 123(6), 1227–1277.

Levitt, S. D., List, J. A., Neckermann, S., & Sadoff, S. (2016). The behavioralist goes to school: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve educational performance. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8(4), 183–219.

van den Broek, E., & den Heijer, T. (2024). The Housefly Effect. Bedford Square Publishers.

Speak Better English with Harry | Episode 367