Options to design more ethical and still successful default nudges: a review and recommendations

Dominic Lemken

Behavioural Public Policy, 2024, vol. 8, issue 2, 349-381

Abstract: On the one hand, default nudges are proven to strongly influence behavior. On the other hand, a number of consumer autonomy and welfare concerns have been raised that hinder public policy applications. Both nudge success and ethical concerns depend heavily on the design of defaults. We identify six taxonomic characteristics that matter to the ethical and the nudge success dimension. We review the default nudge literature (N = 61) and review ethical studies to assess both dimensions concerning the taxonomy. When designing a default, a choice architect inevitably makes a decision concerning the characteristics. Among others, the results show three main findings. (1) The initial choice architecture regularly imposes welfare losses and impedes consumer autonomy. Forced active choosing can mitigate both issues. (2) Empirical evidence suggests that transparent defaults are similarly effective as the non-transparent counterparts. (3) The framing of the choice in combination with a choice structuring default leads to greater nudge success and tends to involve the reflective decision-making patterns. Choice architects can trade-off nudge success for legitimacy but a design change may also benefit one without harming the other. We discuss further options of choice architects to legitimize a default.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:bpubpo:v:8:y:2024:i:2:p:349-381_8

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Behavioural Public Policy from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().