...consumers have better incentives to overcome errors than government decisionmakers, consumers have stronger incentives to choose well when they are purchasing than when they are voting and it is more costly to change the beliefs of millions of consumers than a handful of bureaucrats. As such, recognizing the limits of human cognition may strengthen the case for limited government. INTRODUCTION An increasingly large body of evidence documenting bounded rationality and non-standard preferences has led many scholars to question eco1 nomics’ traditional hostility towards paternalism. After all, if individuals have so many cognitive difficulties then it is surely possible that government intervention can improve welfare. As Christine Jolls, Cass Sunstein, and Richard Thaler write: “bounded rationality pushes toward a sort of antiantipaternalism—a skepticism about antipaternalism, but not an affirmative 2 defense of paternalism.” Even if these authors stop short of endorsing traditional hard paternalism, such as sin taxes and prohibitions,...
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...Dennis 1 Synopsis Decisions are made every day. The choices people make are often swayed one way or another by outside forces or by those that frame decisions and their choices. Nudge focuses on decisions and how they are made. Half of Nudge covers decisions and how their choices are framed and how we as people can better understand why choices are set up the way they are, how to make an optimal decision, and how to nudge others toward making optimal decisions. The second half of Nudge illustrates how the same concepts and principles can be used, are being used, should be used, and how to better utilize them to nudge public policy. Thaler and Sunstein (2009, p. 6) detail two terms that must be explained in order to understand the points made throughout the book. The first, ‘nudge’ is “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.” They go on to say “To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates.” The second term used throughout Nudge is ‘choice architect’ (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009, p. 3), defined by the authors as someone that “has the responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions.” Choice architects arrange choices for other people and nudge others toward making decisions that will be at the optimum benefit. A choice architect will favor one option over another and take...
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...Paternalism, as defined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, is an act that attempts to influence the choices of others in such a way that those others will be better off, and that these others would agree that they are better off. A less coercive form of paternalism is known as libertarian paternalism. Libertarian paternalism is when policies are designed to influence people to make certain choices without limiting their liberty or options. The means by which people are to be influenced to make these decisions are known as nudges. Nudges are factors in a choice that will change individuals’ behaviors in a way that the person nudging has anticipated. Thaler and Sunstein are advocates of nudges and see libertarian paternalism as a nice medium between outright coercion and complete free choice. They make the claim that libertarian paternalism can help anticipate and correct certain instances in which a person does not make decisions in their best interests. Daniel Hausman and Brynn Welch of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, contend that the definition of paternalism put forth by Thaler and Sunstein is wrong and that nudges are, in fact, paternalistic. I will first outline the claims of Thaler and Sunstein and then the criticism of the policies as put forth by Hausman and Welch. Finally, I will argue that libertarian paternalism is essentially the same concept as the paternalism defined by Hausman and Welch. As already stated, according to Thaler and Sunstein, paternalism...
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...The Cafeteria A friend of yours, Carolyn, is the director of food services for a large city school system. She is in charge of hundreds of schools, and hun- dreds of thousands of kids eat in her cafeterias every day. Carolyn has for- mal training in nutrition (a master’s degree from the state university), and she is a creative type who likes to think about things in nontraditional ways. One evening, over a good bottle of wine, she and her friend Adam, a sta- tistically oriented management consultant who has worked with super- market chains, hatched an interesting idea. Without changing any menus, they would run some experiments in her schools to determine whether the way the food is displayed and arranged might influence the choices kids make. Carolyn gave the directors of dozens of school cafeterias specific in- structions on how to display the food choices. In some schools the desserts were placed first, in others last, in still others in a separate line. The location of various food items was varied from one school to another. In some schools the French fries, but in others the carrot sticks, were at eye level. From his experience in designing supermarket floor plans, Adam sus- pected that the results would be dramatic. He was right. Simply by re- arranging the cafeteria, Carolyn was able to increase or decrease the con- sumption of many food items by as much as 25 percent. Carolyn learned a big lesson: school children, like adults, can be greatly influenced by small 1 ...
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...Effective Organizations Dr. Karen Lawson December 6th, 2012 Quotation review “People may doubt what you say, but they believe what you do.” Lewis Cass, American military officer and politician. According to Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T. (2004), Lewis Cass was an American military officer and politician. During his long political career, Cass served as a governor of the Michigan Territory, an American ambassador, and a U.S. Senator representing Michigan. He was the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States in 1848 and a leading supporter of the Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which would have allowed individual states to determine whether to make slavery legal instead of entirely restricting its expansion. "People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do” means that actions count for more than just talk. Leadership analysis To a large extent, Lewis Cass is a successful leader because his strong personality in the Big Five, the traits of effective leaders. First, he has a strong need for surgency that help him become the third Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio on January 4, 1808. Later he went on to co-found the Grand Lodge of Michigan being elected as its first Grand Master on July 21, 1826. (Conover, Jefferson S. 1896) Further evidence of him being powerful follows: Cass represented Michigan in the United States Senate from 1845 to 1848. He served as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the 30th Congress...
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...A 24-year-old psychologist working for the British government, Mr. Gyani was supposed to come up with new ways to help people find work. He was intrigued by an obscure 1994 study that tracked a group of unemployed engineers in Texas. One group of engineers, who wrote about how it felt to lose their jobs, were twice as likely to find work as the ones who didn’t. Mr. Gyani took the study to a job center in Essex, northeast of London, where he was assigned for several months. Sure, it seemed crazy, but would it hurt to give it a shot? Hayley Carney, one of the center’s managers, was willing to try. Ms. Carney walked up to a man slumped in a plastic chair in the waiting area as Mr. Gyani watched from across the room. The man — 28, recently separated and unemployed for most of his adult life — was “our most difficult case,” Ms. Carney said later. “How would you like to write about your feelings” about being out of a job? she asked the man. Write for 20 minutes. Once a week. Whatever pops into your head. An awkward silence followed. Maybe this was a bad idea, Mr. Gyani remembers thinking. But then the man shrugged. Why not? And so, every week, after seeing a job adviser, he would stay and write. He wrote about applying for dozens of jobs and rarely hearing back, about not having anything to get up for in the morning, about his wife who had left him. He would reread what he had written the week before, and then write again. Over several weeks, his words became less jumbled. He started...
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...On September 21, 1645, Louis Joliet was born then, soon after birth, was baptized. Louis Joliet succeeded in his earlier life, his North American traveling, and his later years. To start with, Louis Joliet started his life in a great way, being baptized after birth. Born around the 17th Century, Louis entered school ,at a young age, to study on philosophy and religious statements to advance in his goal of reaching priesthood. Also studying in music, Louis advanced in becoming a skilled harpsichordist and church organist. Leaving the seminary as an young adult, he decided to go into fur trading instead. Secondly, in 1673, Louis went on a private expedition to canoe on the, what would be called, Mississippi River. After a month of traveling...
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...Historiography It is the study of the history and methodology of the discipline of history. The term historiography also denotes a body of historical work on a specialized topic. Scholars discuss historiography topically – such as the “historiography of Catholicism,” the “historiography of early Islam,” or the “historiography of China" – as well as specific approaches such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, at the ascent of academic history, a corpus of historiography literature developed. Furay and Salevouris (1988) define historiography as "the study of the way history has been and is written — the history of historical writing... When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians." Questions studied Some of the common questions of historiography are: 1. Reliability of the sources used, in terms of authorship, credibility of the author, and the authenticity or corruption of the text. (See also source criticism). 2. Historiographical tradition or framework. Every historian uses one (or more) historiographical traditions, for example Marxist, Annales School, "total history", or political history. The historiography of early Islam refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary source materials and the organization of these sources into...
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...() from other countries. Therefore in terms of America’s identity historically, politically, economically and socially, these should be understood differently because America was created differently. Hence why the idea of American exceptionalism’ stems from the principle of America being unique. Furthermore, In addition to this the idea that “American exceptionalism” implies superiority is a key concept to embrace and identify through out America history, contemporary politics, foreign policy and social culture. However, due to the essay title I will be analyzing and examining to what extent is “American exceptionalism’ identified as U.S superiority. Although due to the wide context of the theoretical term ‘American exceptionalism’’ and word limit. I will focus on the significant impacts that has led to the idea of ‘American exceptionalism’ to be implied as U.S superiority such as American history, foreign policy, economic and social culture. History Explaination The significant impact of America’s revolutionary history sparked an inspirational movement of independency to pervious colonized nations although on a later stages for them. This highlights America as exceptional historically in being “the first new nation” () to become independent and also being the ideology for independency for previous colonies nations. To an extent on this note “American exceptionalism” in terms of it’s revolutionary independency can be amplified as a model to other nations than...
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...Analyse the way in which history and memory generate compelling and unexpected insights. – Jake Cronin The interaction between history and memory is a complex and dialectic process through which perceptions of the past are negotiated, reinforced or challenged. Despite official history’s dependency on validating its claims through documented evidence, it must be acknowledged that it is not objective and remains vulnerable to distortion of those with political power or hegemony. Similarly, the subjective nature of memory allows for official history to be vulnerable to the bias of personal experience and differing perspectives. Furthermore, although official history and subjective memory both provide adequate insights into the past, it is through the consideration and combination of the two that compelling and unexpected insights into the past are generated. Paul Keating’s ‘The Redfern Address’ offers a reasonable challenge to the dominant historical narrative surrounding the European colonisation of Australia and their acts of social injustice in regards to Indigenous Australians. Similarly, Shaun Tan’s ‘Memorial’ explores Australia’s wartime history through the medium of a community’s personal experiences, perspectives and memories converging to form history, and illuminates the way in which history is dictated by those with political power. Through the dialectic interplay of history and meaning, compelling and unanticipated comprehensions of the past are generated and are...
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...language and reason in history. History as the area of knowledge is virtually indivisible from language and reasoning. Language is one of the most potent means of interpreting and reporting historical information that is derived from the sources pertinent to the events and occurrences. The sources themselves, in their turn, are frequently presented by the written documents, recorded anecdotal experiences, and works of art, archeology, anthropology and photography which, yet again, are interpreted through the language in conjunction with the context of a historical event. It appears to be an endless loop, where language is the alpha and omega, the main vehicle of conveying history. However, to arrive to the valid interpretation of a certain historical event or development, historians frequently use reasoning to connect the factual data of the tangible sources since the latter ones often come in the form of fragments, related to a particular aspect of the happening. Ideally, reasoning, applied to the interpretation of historical data, should be impersonal, unaffected by predominant views and opinions and completely untainted by political agenda. Yet, it is hard to imagine that throughout the centuries those who held power would willingly allow the contemporary historians relate to the masses the adequate information on the details of their governing techniques and actions. As Winston Churchill pointed out, “History will be kind to me for...
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...your parents raise your babies. Even news outlets that are supposed to be legitimate and unbiased are telling only one side of the news to fill a political agenda. Politics are sugar coated and ignored on some networks, or completely farfetched from reality for political gain and control from one party or another. Media writers can put their own agenda and emotion into any piece they report on to give a one sided view of any subject. It is hard to know what is fact or opinion anymore with so many resources out there. Many things on the internet are also untrue, for example history books in public schools are being rewritten with “facts” that were never taught to us, a rewriting of history to fill some modern liberal agenda. I believe that the media is biased and hates anyone or organization that represents morality and especially if Christianity is in any way linked with it. You have to know your history,...
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...the three holocausts, including historical racial problems, historical religion problems and totalitarian. As a modern man, I can not image the scene that tens of thousands of people are killed in these slaughters, and even can not find some reasonable reasons to explain why these killers are so cold and bloody that a lot of women and children are killed by them? Suddenly, I realize that I can not to find some right word s to describe these crazy killers’ behavior, just think they lose human nature at that moment, even can not compare with wild animals. All human history is just from wild animals to human nature, which is a developing history from barbarity to civilization. But in the process, the moment that human nature is veiled often present. In the moment that human beings have highly civilized, but the holocaust appears again and again, which is worthy of all people to ponder! One two three do not cry, history is the silent tell and defense, which also is the miserable...
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...History, Memory, and Monuments: An Overview of the Scholarly Literature on Commemoration Kirk Savage, University of Pittsburgh (…) The first key question might be, what is commemoration? Dictionary definitions tell us that to commemorate is to “call to remembrance,” to mark an event or a person or a group by a ceremony or an observance or a monument of some kind. Commemorations might be ephemeral or permanent; the key point is that they prod collective memory in some conspicuous way. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs ushered in the modern academic study of collective memory with his book The Social Frameworks of Memory (1925) in which he argued that all memory – even personal memory – is a social process, shaped by the various groups (family, religious, geographical, etc.) to which individuals belong. In an even more influential posthumous essay, “Historical Memory and Collective Memory” (1950), published after his death in a Nazi concentration camp, Halbwachs insisted on a distinction between history and collective memory: history aims for a universal, objective truth severed from the psychology of social groups while “every collective memory requires the support of a group delimited in space and time.” Thus our view of the past does not come primarily from professional historical scholarship but from a much more complicated and interwoven set of relationships to mass media, tourist sites, family tradition, and the spaces of our upbringing with all their regional...
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...acquired / practiced when studying History? Make a list of as many of these skills as you can. (If you are not sure, think about what historians do when examining or writing a historical work, when evaluating and critiquing the works of other historians, and when teaching people about history – at any level of the educational system. After making a detailed list of skills that are involved in the study of History as an academic discipline, briefly discuss the potential usefulness of these skills for other professions and/or in our everyday lives. This will help you to see how the academic study of History is useful as part of our general education.) Investigative Research Communication Patience Writing Commitment History is the ultimate puzzle. Mastering the skills developed through studying history gives you the ability to discern fact from fiction and reality from myth. It makes you more able to document an event with better accuracy. In Science, this can help you reach a desired solution or result by depicting the outcome of trials and tests with better understanding. In everyday life you will be more critical of events as they are told or received initially by you. You will look for ways to justify or corroborate facts/ events presented to you. I think you will become less likely to fill in the spaces and more likely to pursue proof to validate the event and to better separate fact from fiction for yourself. 2. What can you do with History in a practical sense? (Think...
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