Defaults determine outcomes. When tired or unprepared, you fall back on defaults — the meals you make without thinking. Thaler and Sunstein’s choice-architecture framework — their book’s case rather than an experiment — treats defaults as powerfully shaping behavior. If your defaults are healthy (eggs and vegetables, rotisserie chicken and salad), unplanned eating is fine. Designing good defaults is high-leverage change.
This companion covers why defaults matter, auditing yours, what good defaults look like, and building better ones. (3 min read)
Known defects on this page:
- willpower may not work like a tank that empties Willpower described as a tank that empties, where the research now calls the effect unsettled
- We overuse the em dash in our prose. We use the em dash more often than easy reading allows, and we are changing how we punctuate.
Written by AI, directed and approved by me. How this is made →