The Problem With Behavioural Nudges

The concept of nudging has become popular in the past few years—using psychological tactics to subtly steer people toward making better decisions that are aligned with their own interests or societal goals.

Companies and governments are using nudges, for instance, by automatically enrolling people in retirement savings plans instead of having them opt in, or by placing healthier snacks at eye level in a cafeteria or by comparing people’s electricity consumption with their neighbours’.

But as nudges became increasingly popular, we wondered: Can they go the distance? Would they keep people on track beyond the initial push, like actually eating healthier foods or saving more money or reducing their energy use over the long term?

We found that, in many settings, they don’t. Lots of people simply don’t follow through on options they have been nudged to choose—making those nudges less effective than many people believe. As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

Other research has shown this effect. In 2012, a team from Cornell University published research showing that more people grabbed healthy snacks—like apples and carrots—when they were placed in contexts that made them more convenient, such as being put at eye level, among other things. The finding got wide attention and helped spread the idea of nudging.

But another aspect of the experiment didn’t get much attention at all. Those Cornell researchers didn’t just measure what went on at the cash register. They also stuck around to see what people did with the food. The nudged people ended up eating the same amount of healthy food as the ones who weren’t nudged—and the extra that was taken because of the nudge was thrown in the garbage. In the end, the effect on consumption of healthy foods was nil.

“For a long time we had always included language in these published studies lamenting the lack of long-term studies to see exactly how long the effects would last,” says one of the researchers, David R. Just, a professor of applied economics at Cornell.

Just adds: “It makes some sense that nudges would be much more effective in the short term than in the long term. Choices like food that are repeated often over time lead to learning, and eventually people are likely to recognise how the environment is interfering with their choices. This may say that nudges are most important in one-time or rare decisions like organ-donor status.”

In the long run

To be sure, sometimes a nudge is better than nothing. Let’s say somebody who wouldn’t otherwise join a gym is nudged into becoming a member. In the end, that person probably won’t use the membership regularly, but might use it occasionally—which is better than not exercising at all. And nudges may be beneficial when people don’t have to follow up on their initial choice, such as a plan that automatically puts a part of each paycheck into a 401(k).

That is only some cases, though. In others, no nudging might actually be better than a nudge. For instance, somebody might want to choose to join a gym, and plans to attend three days a week. But if nudged into the choice, this person might go there much less.

But even when nudges are better than no nudges, we have found that nudges don’t provide nearly as much benefit as initial results indicate—or as much as many nudge proponents are counting on.

We conducted studies on three of the most popular nudge strategies. In one, we gave the participants a chance to sign up with a website to get daily trivia. We described one as a way to have fun, the other as a way to get smarter every day. In reality, everybody was directed to the same site, no matter which option they picked.

When we gave participants one website as a default—in other words, we nudged them to choose it—70% opted for it, compared with 48% who chose the same one when it wasn’t preselected. That’s typically how default nudges work: People are much more inclined to pick the default, which presumably will be the one that is best for them or society.

Next came the important part. We waited. We tracked how often the study participants visited their website membership over eight months. Those who were nudged to choose the default plan visited the site 42% less often than people who chose an identical plan without nudging.

This was true for people nudged with a default option, as well as people nudged with what’s known as a decoy: a deliberate dud that makes another option really shine. In this case, the dud was an offering designed for children. So, in effect, the default and decoy strategies had a positive impact on choice, but not on long-term actions. When we nudged participants into the program, they used it less than they would have at all if they hadn’t been nudged.

Another study that we conducted threw cold water on a nudge known as the compromise effect. Think of Goldilocks choosing a bed: Nudgers know that people make choices in the same way, preferring to avoid extremes. Let’s say a store is trying to boost sales of a product that gets high ratings but is considered too expensive. The store might try to nudge customers by offering another version of the product at an even higher price—so the original looks like a better deal.

In this study, we gave people the option of choosing a plant, and steered some of them toward a compromise option (a plant that wasn’t too flashy or high maintenance). As with the trivia website, everyone ended up getting the same plant, no matter which option they chose. But people who ended up with the plant by way of the compromise effect let theirs die 16% sooner than those who chose without a compromise option. In other words, the people who were nudged into the “Goldilocks” choice weren’t as committed to caring for the plant over the long term.

A better way

Why don’t people follow through on nudged choices? When people are subtly steered toward options, it can feel as if a decision happens on autopilot. This lack of conscious effort might lead people to feel disconnected from their choices, potentially reducing their engagement with them.

This raises all sorts of questions about social programs designed to help people make better choices. Although nudges can be a powerful lever to increase sign-ups, program organisers shouldn’t conflate the popularity of a plan with the amount of people who actually use it. As our studies show, nudges can increase the latter, but decrease the former.

Encouraging individuals to save for retirement through nudges, for instance, may boost initial participation rates but may not translate into sustained engagement or prudent financial habits over time. A nudge might get people to enroll, but it doesn’t make them feel ownership, like the choice was really theirs, so they don’t follow through as much.

In designing nudges, the focus should shift toward helping individuals follow through with their decisions, complementing nudges with strategies that promote sustained engagement and behaviour change. For instance, people get more motivated for tasks when you turn the jobs into games and let them share their achievements on leaderboards. (Think of the popularity of Wordle.) It feels good to have a streak and see how you stack up to others. We might be able to transfer those competitive elements to nudged choices: If you nudge people into saving for retirement, for instance, you could show them how their savings stack up against other people’s each week.

In the end, though, the main takeaway from our research is that nudges may be a great first step. But that’s all they are: a first step. Much of the hard work is what comes next.

On Bastille Day, the scent of toasted bread, melting cheese, crêpes and velouté filled a heritage warehouse in Sydney’s Darlinghurst.

Inside Prim Haus, rooms had been transformed into an elegant interpretation of a contemporary French home. Cookware hung alongside market produce, appliances were placed within carefully composed domestic settings and live kitchens turned out French comfort food throughout the afternoon.

The occasion was La Maison de Tefal, an immersive celebration marking 70 years since a French engineer introduced an invention that would fundamentally change home cooking.

Tefal’s story began in 1956 with the commercial launch of what the company describes as the world’s first non-stick frying pan. Seven decades later, the business operates across cookware, kitchen appliances, garment care and floor care in more than 120 countries.

The scale of the modern brand is considerable, but its origins were remarkably domestic.

The invention that started in a French kitchen

In the early 1950s, French engineer Marc Grégoire began experimenting with polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as PTFE, after discovering its unusually effective non-stick properties.

The material was already known within industrial applications. Grégoire’s important contribution was developing a way to bond it securely to an aluminium disc.

According to the company’s history, a conversation with his wife inspired him to apply the process to cookware. The resulting pan allowed meat and eggs to be cooked using less fat, while making the surface considerably easier to clean.

Grégoire patented his non-stick frying-pan concept in 1954 and began selling the finished product in 1956. The new company’s name combined the French words for the two defining materials: Téflon and aluminium.

The attraction was immediate. This was innovation expressed through a simple, recognisable household problem. Food stuck to pans; the new Tefal pan was designed so it would not.

The idea quickly travelled beyond France. Tefal entered the United States in 1961, the same year the company established the production site at Rumilly, near the French Alps. Rumilly would become the centre of Tefal’s cookware expertise and develop an identity as the “frying pan capital of the world”.

The company says more than 35 million cookware items were manufactured at the Rumilly site in 2022. A local museum holds the 500 millionth pan produced by the factory, which came off the line in March 1994.

A Parisian home in the heart of Sydney

La Maison de Tefal translated that industrial history into a more intimate experience.

Held on 14 July, the anniversary used Bastille Day as both a cultural reference and a reminder that Tefal’s identity remains closely connected to French design and engineering.

Prim Haus was arranged as a sequence of domestic environments rather than a conventional product showroom. Guests moved through spaces devoted to cookware, kitchen appliances, garment care and floor care, with each collection presented within the rhythm of a modern home.

A French-market-inspired cooking area formed the social centre of the event. Live stations served croque-monsieur, crêpes and butternut velouté, demonstrating the products through food rather than static displays.

That distinction matters. Tefal’s most successful products have generally been those whose benefit can be understood almost immediately: a pan that releases food, a removable handle that saves cupboard space, an indicator showing when cookware has reached the correct temperature, or an appliance that automates part of a familiar cooking process.

Interactive demonstrations allowed guests to handle the products and see those functions in context. Heritage installations traced the brand’s development, while previews of newer releases connected its first frying pan with the much broader contemporary range.

The anniversary concluded with a champagne toast — an appropriately French punctuation mark for a company whose products have found their way into kitchens around the world.

Seventy years of practical invention

The non-stick frying pan established the operating principle Tefal continues to follow: find an everyday source of friction and develop a practical way to reduce it.

In 1996, the company introduced Ingenio, a modular cookware system built around removable handles. Pans could be stacked more efficiently and moved from cooktop to oven, table and refrigerator without the fixed handle of conventional cookware.

The concept anticipated the pressures that would reshape urban kitchens. As apartments became more compact and storage more valuable, cookware needed to occupy less room and serve more than one function.

Around the beginning of the following decade, Tefal introduced its heat-indicator technology, now known as Thermo-Signal. The circular marker changes appearance when the pan reaches its recommended cooking temperature, turning a technical question into a visual prompt.

In 2006, Tefal expanded the possibilities of countertop cooking with ActiFry. The appliance circulated hot air around food and used little or no added oil, helping establish a product category that would eventually become one of the most competitive areas of the global appliance market.

Innovation also moved beyond cooking. The Freemove cordless steam iron arrived in 2012, removing the cord from the active ironing movement while retaining a powered base.

The company’s current portfolio now extends across multicookers, grills, air fryers, blenders, ice-cream makers, garment steamers, irons and floor-care products. Although the categories are diverse, the common proposition remains convenience grounded in engineering.

The next generation of non-stick cookware

For its 70th year, Tefal has returned to the product that created the brand.

The new Excellence+ cookware range introduces what the company calls FusionCore technology. Tefal describes it as its most durable non-stick coating to date, designed to withstand intensive use and scratching.

As with any durability claim, consumers should follow the manufacturer’s care instructions and consider the applicable warranty rather than interpreting promotional language as a guarantee against every form of damage. But the focus on longer-lasting coatings reflects an important change in buyer expectations.

Convenience is no longer enough on its own. Modern households are increasingly concerned with how long products remain useful, whether they can be repaired and what happens when they reach the end of their working life.

Tefal has responded in several ways. Its Renew cookware uses recycled aluminium and a ceramic non-stick coating, while Groupe SEB has expanded cookware recycling initiatives in international markets. For many small domestic appliances, the group also promotes a 15-year repairability commitment based on parts availability and access to authorised repairers.

The details and warranty periods vary by product and country, so Australian buyers should check the conditions attached to an individual appliance. Nevertheless, repairability represents a meaningful shift from the assumption that a failed countertop appliance should simply be discarded.

From French manufacturer to global household group

Tefal joined Groupe SEB in 1968, giving the company greater international distribution and the resources to expand beyond cookware.

Founded in 1857 and headquartered in France, Groupe SEB has grown into a global small-appliance and cookware business with more than 30 brands. Its portfolio includes All-Clad, Krups, Moulinex, Rowenta, Lagostina and WMF, with operations extending across more than 150 countries.

Within that group, Tefal remains one of the flagship names — and one of the clearest examples of how a single invention can become the foundation for an international consumer brand.

Its longevity has not come from making everyday objects more complicated. The strongest Tefal products do the opposite. They take a small uncertainty, inconvenience or frustration and design it out of the task.

That was the value of Marc Grégoire’s original frying pan. It did not ask people to change what they cooked. It made the existing process easier, more predictable and less difficult to clean afterwards.

Seventy years later, that deceptively modest principle continues to guide the company.

La Maison de Tefal celebrated the products, the French heritage and the anniversary itself. Yet the larger story was visible at every cooking station and demonstration: innovation becomes lasting only when people can use it without having to think about the technology underneath.

For Tefal, the next 70 years will be shaped by new materials, smarter appliances, changing homes and greater expectations around durability. Its challenge will be to keep evolving without losing sight of the insight that started everything — that the most valuable household inventions often solve the most ordinary problems.

Tefal at a glance

Founded: France, 1956
Founder: Engineer Marc Grégoire
Original innovation: Commercialisation of the first non-stick frying pan
Manufacturing heritage: Rumilly, France
Notable innovations: Ingenio, Thermo-Signal, ActiFry and Freemove
Latest cookware development: Excellence+ with FusionCore technology
Parent company: Groupe SEB
International presence: More than 120 countries
Australian website: Tefal Australia