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ABSTRACT
Default options have been successfully utilized in influencing behavior across multiple domains. Recent empirical evidence advocated the induction of transparency to default interventions as an effective tool for increasing policy compliance. However, the roles of the different transparency components in achieving the effect remain unexplored. In an experimental study, we measured the effects of three different transparency disclosures on default effectiveness. The default’s target behavior, the default’s purpose, and the way defaults work were disclosed in separate conditions. Our results show that transparency significantly increases compliance to the default nudge. In addition, we provide an insight as to which transparency components are most effective in boosting the default effect.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Moritz Ingendahl for his assistance in the online implementation of the research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [Y.P.], upon reasonable request.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here
Notes
1. In addition to the analysis on binary compliance decisions, we also ran an ordinary least squared regression with time spent as the criterion variable. For this purpose, the time categories were transformed to a continuous timescale ('<3 min' = 2, ‘3 to 5 min’ = 4; ‘5 to 7 min’ = 6; ‘7 to 9 min’ = 8; and ‘more than 9 min’ = 10), and regressed on the two Helmert contrasts. Besides the significant intercept, b = 5.00, SE = .11, t = 44.52, p < .001, the first coefficient was significant, b = 2.07, SE = .45, t = 4.64, p < .001, indicating that people in the default condition were willing to spend more time on research than people in the free-choice condition. The second coefficient, b = .92, SE = .43, t = 2.13, p = .034, was significant, too. Thus, participants accepted to spent more time when the default was made transparent than when it was not. Further pairwise comparisons revealed that disclosing the default’s general effect, M = 4.75, SD = 1.93, yielded similar donations as the mere default, M = 4.80, SD = 2.09, t(106) = .12, p = .91. However, clarifying the target behavior, M = 5.56, SD = 1.42), t(108) = 2.24, p = .027, and disclosing the default’s purpose, M = 5.95, SD = 1.27), t(101) = 3.33, p = .001, both significantly increased the amount of time spent on research as compared to the mere-default condition. Overall, the findings from the continuous regression model complement the main analysis, showing that transparency does not only increase default compliance, but also increases donation quantity. However, this interpretation has to be met with certain caution, since the transformation of a categorical dependent measure to a continuous one assumes equidistance of the categories.