de Ridder, Feitsma, van den Hoven, et al. (2020) on Simple, Not Easy, Nudges

Denise de Ridder, Joram Feitsma, Mariëtte van den Hoven, et al., “Simple Nudges That Are Not So Easy.” Behavioural Public Policy, 1-19, 2020.

• This article draws upon a Dutch research program (2014-2018) with the acronym WINK: “Welfare Improvement through Nudging Knowledge [p. 3].” WINK "examines nudging from the perspective of three core disciplines: ethics, public administration and psychology [p. 3]."

• The authors posit that there are three common yet false assumptions made concerning nudges: (1) nudges threaten autonomy; (2) nudges are easy to implement; and (3) nudges are simple and effective.

• Autonomy might mean unfettered choice, but it also could refer to agency (capacity to choose) and self-constitution (identity and living the life one desires). Perhaps people who criticize nudges for threatening autonomy (even though by definition nudges do not preclude any choice options) do so because they have adopted a definition of autonomy in which maintenance of freedom of choice does not end the debate.

• Is it enervating to possess too many choices? Should we welcome nudges to reduce the burden of choice?

• The explanation of nudges can alter judgments about the extent to which they threaten autonomy.

• In general, the authors are fairly hostile to claims that nudges threaten autonomy, and tend to believe that nudges are more likely to enhance autonomy, by overcoming common gaps between  intentions and actions.

• The rush to set up nudge units is one piece of evidence that shows that many policymakers view nudges as both effective and cheap to implement. "In reality, however, the process of designing, testing and implementing nudge interventions is far more complicated, which questions the supposed ‘efficiency’ of nudges [p. 8]."

• Persuasion via information provision is hard… so it is not surprising that many policymakers view nudging as a promising, quick-acting alternative (p. 10). But in general, the effects of nudges tend to be fairly modest. This limited effectiveness might be considered an advantage, as it defuses the argument that nudges are overly manipulative. 

• When folks are unsure of their preferences, nudging works pretty well, and promotes autonomy in both the self-constitution sense and in the agency sense.

de Ridder, Kroese, and van Gestel (2022) on Nudgeability

Denise de Ridder, Floor Kroese, and Laurens van Gestel, “Nudgeability: Mapping Conditions of Susceptibility to Nudge Influence.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 17(2): 346–359, 2022.

• What conditions might influence the extent to which people are susceptible to a nudge? The authors look (primarily) at three issues: (1) awareness of the nudge and/or its purpose; (2) pre-existing preferences; and, (3) are the subjects employing System 1 or System 2 thinking?

• In this article, transparency involves making subjects aware of the presence and purpose of a nudge; this is a stricter condition than Thaler and Sunstein’s publicity principle, that asks if nudges, were they publicly known, would garner public support.

• Default nudges tend to maintain their effectiveness under transparent conditions; further, when nudged opaquely, people informed after the fact don’t seem to view those nudges as an affront to their autonomy. (Though when an ex ante inquiry is made, people often indicate that they will feel their autonomy threatened by an opaque nudge; that is, they forecast a higher level of concern than they will actually experience.) 

• Nudges will be “ineffective” at altering choices if the nudge counsels behavior to which they hold a negative view, or if the nudge counsels behavior to which they already are strongly attached! That is, we needn't be too concerned with nudging people into behaviors that their pre-existing preferences do not endorse.

• If people lack clear preferences, a nudge might “impose” preferences – though starting with a request that people discuss their preferences (a plus!) might undermine any perceived manipulation.

• There is not much evidence suggesting that people are nudged more when they are employing System 1 thinking (through ego depletion, say). That is, the effectiveness of a nudge is not tied to the extent that it prompts unthinking responses.

• People with lower cognitive capacity do not appear to be more susceptible to nudges.

• The final sentence of the text succinctly summarizes the article: "Nudges do allow people to act in line with their overall preferences, nudges allow for making autonomous decisions insofar as nudge effects do not depend on being in a System 1 mode of thinking, and making the nudge transparent does not compromise nudge effects [p. 355]."

Krekel et al. (2021) Have a Course that Raises Wellbeing

Christian Krekel, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Daisy Fancourt, and Richard Layard, “A Local Community Course that Raises Wellbeing and Pro-Sociality: Evidence from a Randomised Controlled Trial.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 188: 322–336, 2021.

• Many correlates of wellbeing have been identified, but can we teach people, in an economical manner, how to be happier? Adaptation might preclude any sort of long lasting benefit, even if we could figure out ow to teach people to be happier.

• On the other hand, not all domains of wellbeing are subject to rapid adaptation. Social connections and pro-social behaviors are among those elements of wellbeing that are adaptation-resistant.

• Introducing... “Exploring What Matters”: An eight-week course aimed at the adult population in general; the course is coordinated by lay people (great expertise not required) and “manualised," that is, it is easy to become an effective coordinator.  

• Hundreds of Exploring What Matters courses have been conducted (by August 2020), with a total of more than 5000 participants. The courses have been in 25 countries, though most of them have been in the UK. "'Exploring What Matters' is run by Action for Happiness, a registered charity in England, which was launched in 2011. Its patron is the Dalai Lama, who helped to launch the course in London in 2015 [p. 323]."

• The course material includes mindfulness, gratitude, building good habits, social connections…

• Krekel et al. undertake a randomised control trial (RCT) for six Exploring What Matters courses conducted in London, 2016-2017, n=146. The people who were randomly chosen to be controls were not abandoned, but rather, were placed in a later course. The initial data were collected before people knew whether they were in the treatment group or the control group.

• When participants sign up for the free course, they are asked (but not required) to make a donation to cover the course costs of about 90 pounds. The course meets once a week for eight weeks, with each individual session lasting 2 to 2.5 hours.

• "The course aims at building (i) autonomy .. using a weekly mindfulness exercise, gratitude exercise, and personal reflection, supported by... scientific evidence on that week’s theme; (ii) relatedness by facilitating interpersonal connections and social trust...; and (iii) competence by enabling participants to experience for themselves how behavioural changes to daily routines can make differences to their and other people’s wellbeing, using goal-setting and social commitment tools to help translate motivation into action."

• The researchers look at 15 outcome measures (four on subjective wellbeing (SWB), two on mental health, three on pro-sociality, and six biomarkers collected via saliva samples, such as cortisol levels).

• The course brought about a large increase in SWB on average, like a point higher on a ten-point scale. Mental health improved, but not to the same extent that cognitive behavioral therapy brings. Compassion and social trust rose, too. [These findings have been replicated in a broader sample.] There were no significant change in biomarkers.

• These improvements are highly cost-effective, and scalable!

• Since this course evaluation was undertaken, the course has been revamped (now 6 weeks, recommended donation reduced to 60 pounds) and renamed: Happiness Habits.

• Action for Happiness is great, you should check out their website. Here's their monthly action calendar. 

Banerjee and John (2021) on Nudge Plus

Sanchayan Banerjee and Peter John, “Nudge Plus: Incorporating Reflection into Behavioral Public Policy.” Behavioural Public Policy, 1-16, 2021, available at https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.6.

• Should we embed a prod for people “to reflect” into System 1 nudges? Such a prod is the “plus.” [The authors themselves seem to equate nudges (or perhaps "classic nudges" with System 1 nudges; the "plus" activates a System 2 element in conjunction with a System 1 nudge.]

• Bundling a nudge with a plus makes nudges more salient.

• People need actual reflection, not just “the potential for reflection [p. 2].”

• Thaler and Sunstein consider that a legitimate nudge must be one that would receive wide assent if everyone were informed about its aim and operation. This restriction would rule out manipulating people in ways that harm them. Nonetheless, such a legitimate nudge might, when it is affecting choice, remain hidden, invoking an automatic, System 1 response.

• Nudge plus wants to extend the transparency, so that just about everyone understands what is going on in the choice moment. Actors maintain their autonomy, though without being required to pay extremely close attention or to engage in strenuous cognitive processing. 

• Commitment devices are a nudge plus, because the need to consider whether to sign up for the device spurs the requisite reflection; likewise with cooling-off periods.

• People often choose not to use GPS on familiar routes – they are thinking, they are not being “tricked into using the device heuristically once again [p. 7].” For them, GPS is a nudge plus.

• Adding a regular prompt to set a future fitness goal turns an otherwise ordinary fitness tracker into a nudge plus.

• But… do people really desire this “experiential learning environment [p. 10],” this near necessity to reflect regularly, at least to some extent?

Duckworth and Gross (2020), "Behavior Change"

Angela L. Duckworth and James J. Gross, “Behavior Change.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 161: 39-49, 2020.

• Suppression of impulses is a mug’s game. But changing the environment and adopting strategies concerning how we react hold promise.

• The requisite changes might be self-initiated, or initiated by others, such as employers or the government. Notice that self-deployed strategies require that people be sophisticated about their self-control shortcomings.

• Please put aside problems that arise from lack of knowledge or skill. This article is devoted to looking at situations where "we know what we should do and how to do it [p. 40]." 

• How to overcome the fact that  (temporarily) tempting options might get chosen over alternatives that are preferred by our more considered selves? The authors outline the "process model of behavior change" to point to methods where the "larger later" option is not sacrificed to the temporarily appealing "smaller sooner" choice. Here's their Figure 2 (p. 40) that outlines the process model: 

• 

• Habits or self-adopted strategies might allow you to skip the appraisal stage, leading to an automatic response when a familiar situation enters awareness. Giving into temptation, then, is not the done thing, it doesn't present itself as a viable alternative. 

• But sometimes you both want to take the stairs (for exercise) and want to take the elevator (because you are tired). What can be done to encourage stair-taking or other types of physical exercise?

• The process model suggests that you could try to alter the situation, alter where you put your attention, and/or alter your response strategy – or try to inculcate one of those automatic responses that skips the appraisal stage.

• You could begin the day by putting on comfy shoes; you could do things that would make the lazy alternative less available, like not bringing your car keys or bus pass. 

• You could keep track of your steps and adopt a so-many steps per day goal.

• You could reframe the time-consuming walk as “an energy break.”

• You could adopt (and possibly publicize) a rule that you always walk.

• Others can help. For instance, employers can make the stairwells more inviting, or promote the social norm/company culture of  stair use. 

Zlatev and Rogers (2020) on Returnable Reciprocity

Julian J. Zlatev and Todd Rogers, "Returnable Reciprocity: When Optional Gifts Increase Compliance.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 161(S): 74-84, November 2020.

• Sometimes a charity, say, will send potential contributors a small gift along with a request for a donation. They presumably are trying to take advantage of a human propensity to reciprocate gifts, which might in part derive from an aversion of feeling indebted. 

• "Returnable reciprocity" is when the gift that is first sent is explicitly made returnable. The return of the gift by non-contributors is not required, it is perfectly OK to keep the gift and not contribute. Is it possible that by including the option to return the gift, people are more likely to contribute or to otherwise reciprocate?

• Note that with a return option, one has a new channel to avoid the guilt of not reciprocating the gift, beyond contributing – namely, returning the gift.

• The authors conduct six experiments looking at returnable reciprocity in the context of trying to incentivize people to participate in rather virtuous behavior, behavior they would think it admirable to do – like signing up for their employer's wellness program. 

• The first experiment involves a hypothetical choice, of whether you would sign up for a wellness program, if you were first gifted $5. In one condition, you keep the money and either join or not, but in the second condition, you can keep the money and join or not, or return the money (and presumably not join). The returnable condition yields a higher percentage of folks saying they will join. 

• The second experiment, this one a field experiment,  concerns returning a filled-out survey, and being gifted $5 in advance. Once again, the returnable variant increases compliance (returning the completed survey). "Study 2 found that the addition of a single line mentioning the possibility of returning the gift led to a 26% increase in compliance over a traditional reciprocity request [p. 80]."

• Other experiments find that people in the returnable reciprocity condition anticipate feeling more guilty for a failure to comply, and that when given the choice between a standard reciprocity condition and a reciprocal reciprocity condition, people prefer standard reciprocity. Nudging via reciprocal reciprocity might increase compliance, but it might not be a nudge "for good." 

Garcia-Rada, Mann, Hornuf, et al. (2018) on Adaptive Liars

Ximena Garcia-Rada, Heather Mann, Lars Hornuf, Matthias Sohn, Juan Tafurt, Edwin Severin Iversen, and Dan Ariely, “The Adaptive Liar: An Interactionist Approach of Multiple Dishonesty Domains.” CESifo Working Paper No. 7215, 2018.  

• Is “honesty” a stable trait of individuals that is displayed evenhandedly at work, in relationships, and in other life domains?

• The authors posit that honesty is domain-specific, that a person who tends to behave honestly in a work setting might nevertheless behave dishonestly in relationships. Dishonesty is about bad barrels, not bad apples.

• Previous research has shown that individual characteristics influence honesty, as do seemingly minor environmental factors: better lighting, for instance, might reduce cheating.

• One theory: there is a trade-off between personal gains from dishonesty and the maintenance of a positive self-image. (See also here, and then here.)

• Positive interpersonal feedback could arise from dishonest behavior; for instance, honesty is some settings might conflict with a social norm.

• Garcia-Rada et al. propose (as mentioned above) that life domains affect dishonesty – but the influence of domains is nation-specific.

• A survey was given to ten participant groups in each of five countries: China, Colombia, Germany, Portugal, and the US. The overall sample size for the survey was a bit over 1000. Questions concerned honesty in eight "domains": work, government, business, relationships, friends, religion, strangers, and academics.

• The results are that indeed, honesty varies among countries and domains. "Results revealed an interaction effect between country and domain as well as intraindividual variation by domains [p. 21]."

Steffel, Williams, and Tannenbaum (2019) on Presumed Consent for Organ Donations

Mary Steffel, Elanor F. Williams, and David Tannenbaum, “Does Changing Defaults Save Lives? Effects of Presumed Consent Organ Donation Policies.” Behavioral Science and Policy 5(1): 69–88, 2019 [pdf here].

• The chief source of kidneys for transplants come from deceased (cadaveric) donors – approximately one-quarter of kidney transplants involve a living donor. (A cadaveric donor, of course, is often able to donate two kidneys.) 

• There is a kidney shortage. More than 90,000 Americans are on the waiting list for kidney transplants, and thousands of them die from conditions that a timely transplant would have averted.

• Many people who survive the wait list nevertheless wait for years (often more than five years) for their new kidney. During their wait, they are maintained (to some extent) by dialysis. 

• Most Americans, it seems, favor a presumed consent system – an opt-out system – for cadaveric organ donations. [FWIW, I do not, nor do nudgers Thaler and Sunstein.]

• No US state uses a presumed consent system; rather, opt-in (explicit consent) or active choice mechanisms are employed.

• Presumed consent does, at least, “make it easy” for (what is apparently) the majority of the population that wants to be on the organ donor list. Nonetheless, presumed consent can seem, well, presumptuous.

• With presumed consent, family members (next of kin) of potential donors might be unsure of their deceased relative’s wishes, given that there is likely not to be an explicit indicator of those wishes.

• Donor lists tend to grow (markedly) when presumed consent becomes the rule – although many of the new additions to the donor roster did not get there through an active choice.

• The procurement of organs for transplant, and the number of transplants, also seem to be enhanced (though not so markedly) by a presumed consent system.

• Active choice is where people are encouraged to explicitly say yes or no (or perhaps yes or later) to a query about whether they would like to be an organ donor.

• Mandated choice is where the encouragement to answer is somewhat more forceful.

• An active choice system where the choice easily can be postponed or avoided does not seem to enhance donor lists.

• Surviving family members generally get to make the call on donations, even when the deceased opted into the donor list. It might be sensible to nudge family members, if the goal is more donations. 

Kirgios, Mandel, Park, et al. (2020) on Temptation Bundling

Erika L. Kirgios, Graelin H. Mandel, Yeji Park, et al., “Teaching Temptation Bundling to Boost Exercise: A Field Experiment.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 161: 20-35, 2020.

• Temptation bundling came to the world's attention (er, my attention) in a 2014 article by Milkman, Minson, and Volpp. Temptation bundling is when you pair a "should" behavior –exercise, for instance – with a "want" behavior, an indulgence such as listening to a captivating, somewhat trashy novel. The idea is that the pairing makes it more likely that you actually will engage in the "should" activity, and it will be more enjoyable than it would be without the tied "want," while you also will reduce the guilt feelings associated without giving in to an indulgence. Hmm, I might have some (vegan, of course) chocolate while blogging...

• The 2014 article had a pretty small sample size (226) and findings that suggested temptation bundling did provide, in the short-term, a boost to engagement with the "should" behavior.

• The 2020 article (which involves as a co-author Katherine Milkman, part of the original temptation bundling team) works with a commercial fitness company to test temptation bundling on a much larger sample. The experiment sticks with the audio books/exercise pairing, but with about 15 times the previous number of participants.

• A new question that is looked at is whether would-be exercisers actually have to be told about temptation bundling, or can an exercise gym company, by giving people an audiobook in the context of encouraging exercise, induce their customers to temptation bundle on their own? The term of art the authors employ is "information leakage." That is, even without being told or advised to bundle, maybe just being given access to an audio book by your gym induces temptation bundling.

• A chain of gyms introduced a 28-day long StepUp Program for their millions of members, with some rewards for participating. The Program was described as “a habit-building, science-based workout program [p. 23].” StepUp served as the locus for tons of research: "Our study was one of 20 preregistered studies embedded in the StepUp Program... [p. 23]." 

• Within the framework of the StepUp Program, more than 2,300 people participated in a temptation bundling experiment. About half of the participants were informed they had been gifted a free audiobook, and they received a code allowing them to choose and download a book. The other half received the same audiobook gift and were encouraged to use the book in a temptation bundle with exercise; this encouragement continued throughout the month.

• Most people (some 86%) didn’t bother to collect their free audiobook. Now I am sad. In some sense, we are back to a small sample: less than 200 subjects in each of the conditions downloaded their free audiobook. 

• Gym attendance is the main variable of interest. The free audiobook offer, whether paired with temptation bundling encouragement or not, increases workouts by something like 10 to 14%, both during the Program and up to 17 weeks later. (This result comes from a variation of the experiment that includes a third control group of participants who are not offered a free audiobook.)

• The marginal impact of the temptation bundling is pretty small (effectively zero during the 28-day treatment period), perhaps inducing some people to go to the gym (in the long run) who would not otherwise have gone. 

• A follow-up lab experiment establishes that information leakage might be what drives the very similar results for the audiobook treatments, with and without the temptation bundling encouragement. (As the lab experiment was not part of the original pre-registration, presumably its utility was understood only after the  original experiment showed near identical results for the two conditions.)

• In my view, this experiment removes a bit of the luster from temptation bundling. I'm a bit disappointed, really – not in the experiment itself, which is superb, but by the meh, alas, results. 

Ainslie (2021) on Willpower

George Ainslie, “Willpower With and Without Effort.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44, e30: 1–16, 2021, pdf here. [This "target" article attracted 26 commentaries, which can be found here. Ainslie's response to the commentaries is here.]

• The basic framework: a Smaller, Sooner (SS) option versus a Larger, Later (LL) option. 

• The SS option is tempting in the moment, even if the LL option is valued more highly at other points of time. 

• Why is SS tempting? Perhaps visceral factors take over, or hyperbolic discounting does its thing. “Preference for the [SS] option is often temporary…[p. 2].” 

• Two different mechanisms, suppression and resolve, are commonly associated with willpower. Habit is a third willpower-adjacent mechanism that can be distinguished from resolve (or from a lack of resolve). 

• Suppression involves avoiding (or blocking or ignoring) the re-evaluation of the two alternatives while waiting for the LL. (Cue the marshmallow test!) Suppression “is necessarily unstable [p. 1],” a “game of keep away [p. 5].” Suppression requires attention, and thus precludes other uses of mental resources that might themselves be rewarding. 

• Resolve refers to sticking with the original valuations by cognitively changing the stakes. “Recursive self-prediction” seems to be a leading approach to resolve, and underlies personal rules. Resolve “is intent that is maintained by an enforcement mechanism [p. 5].” One resolve mechanism is to raise the stakes by viewing giving into temptation not as a one-time deviation, but as the start or continuation of a long series of lapses. (Suppression can be one device for building resolve.) 

• Hyperbolic discounting can be a basis for why people choose the LL alternatives when making category-wide choices, and why they try to bundle individual choices into those larger categories. 

• Scale mismatch makes it hard to overcome current temptations – what would be the harm of eating this tempting dessert? (p.5) The harm lies in undermining the credibility of your weight-control plan. So, there is value in viewing your current choice as a test case. 

• Three can be significant value in (legalistic?) distinctions to permit occasional deviations, so that you can give in to temptation to a degree without destroying the credibility of your long-term plan. (What happens in Vegas...)

• "Resolve becomes effortless to the extent that you are confident of maintaining it [p. 8]."

• Habit is a “routine simplification of action [p. 2]” which is not the same as resolve. With habit, the issue is moved out of the choice domain, behavior becomes arational. Ainslie distinguishes routine habits (like showering in the morning) from good habits ("preserved by resolve" and put at risk by unexcused lapses) and bad habits (repeated impulsive behaviors).