The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. There is a version of this essay that ends with a policy prescription. This is not that version; the mechanism is interesting enough on its own. We describe the departure from the model as an error. We might equally describe the model as a hopeful guess about us. It is tempting to call this irrational. It is more useful to ask what it is for.
Where it overreaches
Understanding people turns out to be a more urgent task than changing them, and a great deal harder. Institutions know all this, of course, which is why the apology is so rarely left to chance. Every one of us runs the same shortcut, and every one of us believes we are the exception. Nobody sets out to be governed by the apology, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day.
