Behavioural Sludge: Where Have We Been, and Where Are We Going?

Dr Stuart Mills speaks at our seminar series about Behavioural Sludge.

Leeds University Business School would like to thank the speaker, Dr Stuart Mills, for taking the time to come and speak at our seminar series about Behavioural Sludge.

The term ‘Sludge’ coined by Nobel laureate Richard Thaler (2018) emphasises the various ways in which some choices can be made harder. Stuart’s presentation gave a wide-ranging tour of sludging, sludge auditing, cumulative sludge and de-sludging solutions. Stuart’s discussion of ‘good sludge’ and ‘bad sludge’ suggested that while too much friction may often be bad, too little friction may also, sometimes, be a bad thing - it may make more sense to talk about ‘optimal friction’ in choice architecture. Stuart told us of a computer tool he has developed with colleagues that uses AI to scan webpages and highlight potentially manipulative choice architecture (including sludge) in real-time.