Boosts

Watch out, nudging: a hot new bombshell has entered the villa.

As a response to the popular nudge theory, a principle in behavioral economics which uses subtle environmental changes to privilege a certain choice, boosts are behavioral policy interventions that empower people to make informed decisions by strengthening knowledge and decision-making skills, also referred to as competences.^1,2 These can include risk assessment, financial literacy, or even meditation and meal planning. By targeting factors underlying immediate behavior, boosts are designed to create lasting impact and preserve agency—the ability to make our own choices. 

What do boosts actually look like? Most often, boosts will provide additional knowledge and new strategies to help us make more informed decisions.¹ For example, a patient deciding whether to undergo a medical screening might be nudged toward the procedure with framing that emphasizes potential benefits. On the other hand, a boost might include a fact sheet detailing key outcomes and risks for either choice. Crucially, the information in a boost enhances decision-making, rather than swaying it. By using absolute numbers, minimally deceptive statistics or graphics, and other tactics, boosts equip decision-makers with the necessary tools, leaving the final choice up to the individual. 

Both nudges and boosts are rooted in bounded rationality, a concept that describes how we often settle for a choice that is “good enough” because of our limited cognitive capacity.^2,3  Nudges don’t just exploit flaws in our thinking; they also work with heuristics in beneficial ways, leveraging predictable biases to sway our behavior subconsciously. But our decision-making might not be as faulty as nudging makes it out to be (yay for us). While there certainly are limits to our cognitive capacities, boosts emerged from the view that our decision-making processes, even our mental shortcuts, are strengths that can be harnessed and developed.³ 

Unlike nudges, boosts need the decision-maker’s buy-in; it’s ultimately up to the decision-maker whether they’ll use the targeted competences to influence their behavior.¹ Cheeky opening aside, nudges and boosts have distinct (and often opposing) strengths and limitations, but that doesn’t mean they’re incompatible. Today, policymakers and researchers continue to investigate how we can use boosts and nudges together to influence behavior while preserving individual agency. Boosts are a powerful tool in the behavioral policy toolkit—the key is knowing when to use them.