Dark Nudges and Sludge in Big Alcohol: Behavioral Economics, Cognitive Biases, and Alcohol Industry Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

r Nudges steer people toward certain options but also allow them to go their own way. "Dark nudges" aim to change consumer behavior against their best interests. "Sludge" uses cognitive biases to make behavior change more difficult. r We have identified dark nudges and sludge in alcohol industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) materials. These undermine the information on alcohol harms that they disseminate, and may normalize or encourage alcohol consumption. r Policymakers and practitioners should be aware of how dark nudges and sludge are used by the alcohol industry to promote misinformation about alcohol harms to the public. Context: "Nudges" and other behavioral economic approaches exploit common cognitive biases (systematic errors in thought processes) in order to influence behavior and decision-making. Nudges that encourage the consumption of harmful products (for example, by exploiting gamblers' cognitive biases) have been termed "dark nudges." The term "sludge" has also been used to describe strategies that utilize cognitive biases to make behavior change harder. This

Gaming the system: sub-optimal compliance with loot box probability disclosure regulations in China

“…For example, the alcohol (Petticrew et al, 2016), gambling (Newall et al, 2020), and tobacco industries (Hiilamo et al, 2012) have all taken various actions which likely reduce the effectiveness of their product warnings. The actions of most video game companies in this study appear to be more consistent with ideas of 'sludge' (Sunstein, 2020;Thaler, 2018) or 'dark nudges' (Newall et al, 2020;Petticrew et al, 2020) which inhibit consumer choice, than with the traditional conceptualisation of 'nudge' (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008) which improve consumer choice. Given these findings, legal regulation and/or self-regulation of RMM probability disclosures should require uniform and prominent disclosures.…”

“…However, companies may also take various actions which inhibit the consumers' abilities to make informed decisions: for example, by hiding important information within long legal documents, such as the terms and conditions (Bar-Gill, 2012). Actions which inhibit informed consumer choices have been contrastingly termed 'sludge' (Sunstein, 2020;Thaler, 2018), or 'dark nudges' (Newall et al, 2020;Petticrew et al, 2020).…”

Healthy eating: a matter of prioritisation by households or policymakers?

“…Without governmental regulations, it is likely that a complex adaptive system such as the food system will maintain an equilibrium that benefits large food companies rather than public health (35,37) . Shifting this equilibrium in such a way that it provides a solid basis for healthier food choices and creates new and sustainable business models for food industry actors will likely take fiscal policies such as taxes on sugary drinks and junk food, regulation of unhealthy food marketing, mandating front-of-pack food labelling and reducing commercial influences on food policies (24,30,35) . Of course, what this requires is bold prioritisation by policymakers, rather than by individual households.…”

“…However, policymakers are not the only actors trying to influence the food choice architecture; large food corporations may use 'dark nudges' to trick consumers into making food choices that are against their best interests (30) .…”

“…Similarly, the term 'sludge' refers to the practice of using individuals' cognitive biases to make health-promoting behavioural changes harder (30) . This is reflected by the fact that half of the calories consumed by Americans come from ultra-processed foods (31) despite its associated health risks (32) .…”