A nudge, like a reminder, is an aid or signal that provides information to help people make good decisions. To stay efficient, our brains rely on these mental shortcuts to help us make fast decisions with little information. Although the term may be new, the concept of nudging is not. Nudges are aids we experience all the time without thinking much about them. Some nudges are designed to initiate new behaviors, such as reminders and alerts used to spur action. Other nudges can be designed to shape existing behaviors, like checklists, used to provide information or guide thinking. Since nudges are generally inexpensive and can boost employee productivity and well being, organizations are rapidly embracing nudge research to guide people to make better decisions. For example, it has been used to help invest for retirement. Organizations auto-enroll employees in default investment funds known to perform well, while giving them the option to opt-out (rather than requiring them to do the initial work of opting in).
escaped British imprisonment), and he attempted to find a place for Governor Phillip and his officers in the complicated Aboriginal kinship system. He even, as Watkin Tench wrote, “as a mark of affection and respect to the governor, he conferred on him [his own name] and sometimes called him Been-èn-a (father), adopting to himself the name of the governor. This interchange of names, we found is a constant symbol of friendship among them” (13). In 1872, Bennelong became the third Pacific Islander to be taken to Europe (after Ahu-toru, who Bougainville took to Paris in 1768, and Omai, who visited London in 1774, having met Cook on his second voyage). He would sail 10,000 miles to England and back to his homeland, wear fashionable Georgian clothing, possibly meet King George at the theatre and indulge in tourism, visiting St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.
Bennelong’s importance in Australian history is immeasurable, extending beyond his capacity as an interpreter and mediator, linking modern Australia with the Aboriginal world that existed before 1788. He serves as a reminder of Sydney’s Aboriginal past. Bennelong himself had seen the best and worst of what Europe had to offer, and chose his own civilisation. When the Frenchman Pierre Bernard Milius invited Bennelong to France in 1802, Bennelong replied that ‘there was no better country than his own and that he did not wish to leave it’.
Religion and spirituality were extremely important to almost all 18th century societies, and those of the South Pacific were no exception. The Polynesians had many gods, with many different names and attributes, to whom the practise of making human sacrifices was not uncommon. Religion was similar across most of Polynesia, and centred around the sacred site of Marae Taputapuatea on Raiatea. Everything changed with the arrival of the arrival of Europeans, who brought with them Christianity. From a Western perspective, the adoption of Christianity in the Pacific can be seen as positive, as it encouraged peace amongst warring villages.
