Final answer:
The cookie jar effect is about controlling the environment to nudge towards productive behavior and prevent procrastination, similar to behavioral economic strategies such as automatic enrollment in retirement savings.
Step-by-step explanation:
The cookie jar effect refers to the concept of making sure the environment is conducive to avoid procrastination and to foster self-regulation. It involves using environmental cues to nudge you towards more productive behavior. This can be related to the practice of behavioral economists setting up ways to nudge people towards rational behavior, such as automatically enrolling employees into retirement savings plans to prevent procrastination. The concept is that by controlling our environment, we can protect ourselves from our worst temptations and encourage better habits, akin to putting locks on our refrigerators or buying cigarettes by the pack to limit consumption.