Research

Abstract: In the months before the 2020 U.S. election, several political campaign websites added prechecked boxes (defaults), automatically making all donations into recurring weekly contributions unless donors unchecked them. Since these changes occurred at different times for different campaigns, we use a staggered difference-in-differences design to measure the causal effects of defaults on donors’ behavior. We estimate that defaults increased campaign donations by over $43 million while increasing requested refunds by almost $3 million. The weekly default only impacted weekly recurring donations, and not other donations, suggesting that donors may not have intended to make weekly donations. The longer defaults were displayed, the more money campaigns raised through weekly donations. Donors did not compensate by changing the amount they donated. We found that the default had a larger impact on smaller donors and on donors who had no prior experience with defaults, causing them to start more chains and donate a larger proportion of their money through weekly recurring donations.

Abstract: How can firms encourage consumers to adopt smartphone apps? The authors show that several inexpensive choice architecture techniques can make users more likely to enable important app features and complete app onboarding. Across six pre-registered experiments (n=5,968) and a field experiment (n=594,997), choice architecture interventions manipulating choice sequence, color, and wording of app adoption decisions dramatically increased app adoption. Across experiments, integrating multiple feature decisions into a single choice increased adoption. This integration effect emerges because it decreases decision noise and reduces the prominence of individual features, consistent with support theory. Changing colors to match habitual patterns commonly found in current digital interfaces appears to increase adoption by accelerating consumers’ decisions. Finally, wording options as if enabling the app was the default response (even without changing the actual default) also increases adoption. These defaultless defaults may be particularly relevant in heavily regulated consumer domains, such as finance or healthcare. The effects generalized across different types of apps and were robust across subsamples varying in demographics, attitudes towards the apps, and political affiliation. These results suggest simple tools that marketing managers and app developers can use to increase app adoption.

Abstract: Choice architecture tools, commonly known as nudges, powerfully impact decisions and can improve welfare. Yet it is unclear who is most impacted by nudges. If nudge effects are moderated by socioeconomic status (SES), these differential effects could increase or decrease disparities across consumers. Using field data and several preregistered studies, the authors demonstrate that consumers with lower SES, domain knowledge, and numerical ability are impacted more by a wide variety of nudges. As a result, “good nudges” designed to increase selection of superior options reduced choice disparities, improving choices more among consumers with lower SES, lower financial literacy, and lower numeracy than among those with higher levels of these variables. Compared with “good nudges,” “bad nudges” designed to facilitate selection of inferior options exacerbated choice disparities. These results generalized across real retirement decisions, different nudges, and different decision domains. Across studies, the authors tested different explanations of why SES, domain knowledge, and numeracy moderate nudges. The results suggest that nudges are a useful tool for those who wish to reduce disparities. The research concludes with a discussion of implications for marketing firms and segmentation.