Choice architecture autonomy. The choice architecture term was originally coined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness". Thaler and Sunstein have endorsed thoughtful design of choice architecture as a means to improve consumer decision-making by minimizing biases and errors that arise as the result of bounded rationality. This approach is an example of "libertarian paternalism", a philosophy endorsed by Thaler and Sunstein that aims to "nudge" individuals toward choices that are in their best interest without limiting choice. Libertarian paternalism may also be described as soft paternalism. Behavioral scientists have grouped
Thaler (modern: ) is German for "valley", and a "thaler" is a person or a thing "from the valley". The Czech spelling was ; many varieties of the term are used in different languages. In the 1902 spelling reform, the German spelling was changed from "Thal" and "Thaler" to "Tal" and "Taler", which however did not affect the English spelling of "thaler". The later Dutch also carried the picture of a lion, which gave them the name ("lion thaler"). From an abbreviation of "leeuwendaalder" come the names of three present-day Balkan currencies, the Romanian and Moldovan Leu and the Bulgarian Lev.