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Nudges use friction to guide behavior. Architectures of ease design for near-total compliance without enforcement. One manipulates; the other aligns.
Manipulate choice architecture to guide behavior. Add friction to bad choices, remove friction from good ones. Preserves formal choice while shaping actual behavior.
Design structures where desired behavior is genuinely easiest. Not manipulation—alignment. The structure naturally produces right action without enforcement.
| Dimension | Nudge | Architectures of Ease |
|---|---|---|
| Core mechanism | Add friction to undesired paths | Remove friction from desired paths |
| Relationship to choice | Manipulates choice architecture | Aligns structure with natural preference |
| Enforcement | Soft coercion through defaults | Near-zero enforcement needed |
| Ethical stance | Paternalistic (we know better) | Aligned (structures match purpose) |
| Origin | Thaler & Sunstein (2008) | IRSA (2024) |
Nudge theory, developed by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, uses choice architecture to guide behavior without restricting options. It adds friction to undesired choices and removes friction from desired ones—manipulating the path while preserving formal freedom.
Architectures of Ease design structures where desired behavior requires near-zero friction. Rather than manipulating choice, they align institutional architecture with natural preferences. Compliance happens not because alternatives are harder, but because the structure makes the right thing easiest.
Nudges work but have problems: they're paternalistic (someone decides what's 'better'), they can be gamed, and they require continuous maintenance. Architectures of Ease don't assume you know better—they create structures where purpose and process naturally align.