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• Editorial | Harvard Business Review (website) | November 15, 2019

  Getting Your Team to Do More Than Meet Deadlines

  Charlotte Blank, Laura M. Giurge, Laurel Newman and A.V. Whillans

  When it comes to our to-do lists, many of us prioritize checking off tasks that are easiest to complete or are due first, regardless of importance – a phenomenon that scholars describe as the “mere urgency” effect. This tendency becomes stronger the busier we are. But constantly prioritizing urgent tasks means that important tasks that have no urgent deadline (such as updating your resume or doing creative work) get pushed aside for later and later. Some just never get done. When we fail to do what’s important, often what matters most to us, we feel stressed, overwhelmed, and unmotivated— and firms are less productive. Research suggests managers can help employees combat the tendency to put off for tomorrow what isn’t due today: have employees set aside proactive time for work that is important but not urgent.

  Citation:

  Blank, Charlotte, Laura M. Giurge, Laurel Newman, and A.V. Whillans. "Getting Your Team to Do More Than Meet Deadlines." Harvard Business Review (website) (November 15, 2019).  View Details

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• Article | Behavioural Public Policy | November 2019

  When and Why Defaults Influence Decisions: A Meta-analysis of Default Effects

  Jon M. Jachimowicz, Shannon Duncan, Elke U. Weber and Eric J. Johnson

  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.

  Keywords: choice architecture; defaults; default effects; Decision Making; Behavior; Analysis;

  Citation:

  Jachimowicz, Jon M., Shannon Duncan, Elke U. Weber, and Eric J. Johnson. "When and Why Defaults Influence Decisions: A Meta-analysis of Default Effects." Behavioural Public Policy 3, no. 2 (November 2019): 159–186.  View Details

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• Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

  Income Inequality Affects Donations Only for High-Income People Who Feel Financially Insecure and Distrust Others

  Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans

  There is a growing debate about whether high-income individuals are more or less generous when income inequality is high. We advance this ongoing conversation by analysing a large and comprehensive data set with approximately one million respondents from 140 countries. In this data set, higher-income individuals who live in countries with greater income inequality are less likely to donate money to charity and are more likely to volunteer than their lower-income counterparts. Higher-income individuals who feel financially insecure or show distrust of others are especially unlikely to donate money to charity under high income inequality. These moderators do not influence rates of volunteering. Together, these results advance the debate regarding whether and when inequality shapes prosocial behaviour.

  Keywords: income inequality; prosocial behavior; financial insecurity; Income; Equality and Inequality; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior; Trust;

  Citation:

  Macchia, Lucia, and Ashley V. Whillans. "Income Inequality Affects Donations Only for High-Income People Who Feel Financially Insecure and Distrust Others." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-052, October 2019.  View Details

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