When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects

By J. Jachimowicz, Shannon M. Duncan, Elke U. Weber, Eric J. Johnson. Behavioural Public Policy, 2019

423 citations recorded by the source corpus.

When people make decisions with a pre-selected choice option – a ‘default’ – they are more likely to select that option. Because defaults are easy to implement, they constitute one of the most widely employed tools in the choice architecture toolbox. However, to decide when defaults should be used instead of other choice architecture tools, policy-makers must know how effective defaults are and when and why their effectiveness varies. To answer these questions, we conduct a literature search and meta-analysis of the 58 default studies (pooled n = 73,675) that fit our criteria. While our analysis reveals a considerable influence of defaults (d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval = 0.53–0.83), we also discover substantial variation: the majority of default studies find positive effects, but several do not find a significant effect, and two even demonstrate negative effects. To explain this variability, we draw on existing theoretical frameworks to examine the drivers of disparity in effectiveness. Our analysis reveals two factors that partially account for the variability in defaults’ effectiveness. First, we find that defaults in consumer domains are more effective and in environmental domains are less effective. Second, we find that defaults are more effective when they operate through endorsement (defaults that are seen as conveying what the choice architect thinks the decision-maker should do) or endowment (defaults that are seen as reflecting the status quo). We end with a discussion of possible directions for a future research program on defaults, including potential additional moderators, and implications for policy-makers interested in the implementation and evaluation of defaults.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3bdf5a89809e61e67e5f8a4a43b6680cbba9053d

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Citations in the corpus

RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence from Two Nudge Units (2020, background): “that make their RCTs less likely to have characteristics typically associated with larger impacts, such as default changes (Jachimowicz et al., 2019).”
Citizens Versus the Internet: Confronting Digital Challenges With Cognitive Tools (2019, background): “People are more likely to accept a preselected option than to select a different one ( Jachimowicz et al., 2019); this is due to the mechanism of endorsement (defaults are seen as signaling what the choice architect wants the decision maker to do) or endowment (defaults are perceived to reflect the ”
A Review of Nudges: Definitions, Justifications, Effectiveness (2020, neutral): “…through social comparison, such as when tax debtors are told that their peers pay their taxes on time (Behavioural Insights Team, 2016; John & Blume, 2018; Kettle et al., 2016) or households receive feedback on the lower energy consumption of their eco-friendly neighbors (Allcott, 2011;…”