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  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Default Neglect in Attempts at Social Influence

By: Julian Zlatev, David P. Daniels, Hajin Kim and Margaret A. Neale
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Abstract

Current theories suggest that people understand how to exploit common biases to influence others. However, these predictions have received little empirical attention. We consider a widely studied bias with special policy relevance: the default effect, which is the tendency to choose whichever option is the status quo. We asked participants (including managers, law/business/medical students, and US adults) to nudge others toward selecting a target option by choosing whether to present that target option as the default. In contrast to theoretical predictions, we find that people often fail to understand and/or use defaults to influence others, i.e., they show “default neglect.” First, in one-shot default-setting games, we find that only 50.8% of participants set the target option as the default across 11 samples (n = 2,844), consistent with people not systematically using defaults at all. Second, when participants have multiple opportunities for experience and feedback, they still do not systematically use defaults. Third, we investigate beliefs related to the default effect. People seem to anticipate some mechanisms that drive default effects, yet most people do not believe in the default effect on average, even in cases where they do use defaults. We discuss implications of default neglect for decision making, social influence, and evidence-based policy.

Keywords

Social Influence; Default Effect; Nudges; Choice Architecture; Decision Making; Behavior

Citation

Zlatev, Julian, David P. Daniels, Hajin Kim, and Margaret A. Neale. "Default Neglect in Attempts at Social Influence." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 52 (December 26, 2017).
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About The Author

Julian J. Zlatev

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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More from the Authors
  • A 680,000-Person Megastudy of Nudges to Encourage Vaccination in Pharmacies By: Katherine L. Milkman, Linnea Gandhi, Mitesh S. Patel, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Jake Rothschild, Jonathan E. Bogard, Ilana Brody, Christopher F. Chabris, Edward Chang, Gretchen B. Chapman, Jennifer E. Dannals, Noah J. Goldstein, Amir Goren, Hal Hershfield, Alex Hirsch, Jillian Hmurovic, Samantha Horn, Dean Karlan, Ariella S. Kristal, Cait Lamberton, Michael N. Meyer, Allison H. Oakes, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Maheen Shermohammed, Jaochim H. Talloen, Caleb Warren, Ashley Whillans, Kuldeep N. Yadav, Julian J. Zlatev, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, Nina Mazar, Sendhil Mullainathan, Christopher K. Snider, Jann Spiess, Eli Tsukayama, Lyle Ungar, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
  • Going Beyond the ‘Self’ in Self-Control: Interpersonal Consequences of Commitment Strategy Use By: Ariella Kristal and Julian Zlatev
  • The Dynamics of Gender and Alternatives in Negotiation By: Jennifer E. Dannals, Julian J. Zlatev, Nir Halevy and Margaret A. Neale
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