Cass Sunstein

Nudging Behavioral Science and Policy Closer Together

PublishedMarch 14, 2021
CategoryPolitical Science · Psychology
Reading time11 min read
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Intro

It seems as though Cass Sunstein’s voice can be heard reverberating everywhere - from law and policy to behavioral science, from health and teaching to legal consulting. Sunstein’s ability to transmit complex ideas into simple examples- such as his suggestion that Star Wars reflects real-life issues - has gained him great popularity. He has published over 40 books on a range of topics, with his most popular being Nudge, co-authored with Richard Thaler.

Since his early days, Sunstein has been interested in where  behavioral science and policy intersect and how  policies can be used to improve people’s lives.

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Just as no building lacks an architecture, so no choice lacks a context.


– From Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s book, Nudge1

About the Authors

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Dan Pilat

Managing Director

Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.

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Dr. Sekoul Krastev

Managing Director & Co-Founder

Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.

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I was blown away with their application and translation of behavioral science into practice. They took a very complex ecosystem and created a series of interventions using an innovative mix of the latest research and creative client co-creation. I was so impressed at the final product they created, which was hugely comprehensive despite the large scope of the client being of the world's most far-reaching and best known consumer brands. I'm excited to see what we can create together in the future.

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