Dataset Information

When in Doubt, Follow the Crowd? Responsiveness to Social Proof Nudges in the Absence of Clear Preferences.

ABSTRACT: Nudges have gained popularity as a behavioral change tool that aims to facilitate the selection of the sensible choice option by altering the way choice options are presented. Although nudges are designed to facilitate these choices without interfering with people's prior preferences, both the relation between individuals' prior preferences and nudge effectiveness, as well as the notion that nudges 'facilitate' decision-making have received little empirical scrutiny. Two studies examine the hypothesis that a social proof nudge is particularly effective when people have no clear prior preference, either because people are indifferent (in a color-categorization task; Study 1, N = 255) or because people experience a choice conflict (making shopping decisions about meat products; Study 2, N = 97). Both studies employed a social proof nudge to steer participants' choices. The potential facilitating effect of the nudge was tested using a mouse-tracker paradigm that implicitly assessed experienced uncertainty during decision-making. Results showed that the nudge was effective in steering participants' decisions; the facilitation effect (i.e., reduced uncertainty regarding the decision) was only observed for conflicting preferences, but not under indifference. A better understanding of when and how nudges can influence individuals' behavior may help in deciding whether nudges are an appropriate policy tool for changing particular undesirable behavior.

SUBMITTER: Venema TAG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7325907 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

When in Doubt, Follow the Crowd? Responsiveness to Social Proof Nudges in the Absence of Clear Preferences.

Venema Tina A G TAG Kroese Floor M FM Benjamins Jeroen S JS de Ridder Denise T D DTD

Frontiers in psychology 20200618

Nudges have gained popularity as a behavioral change tool that aims to facilitate the selection of the sensible choice option by altering the way choice options are presented. Although nudges are designed to facilitate these choices without interfering with people's prior preferences, both the relation between individuals' prior preferences and nudge effectiveness, as well as the notion that nudges 'facilitate' decision-making have received little empirical scrutiny. Two studies examine the hypo ...[more]

PMID: 32655456

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Project description:Despite limited information and knowledge, we personally form beliefs about certain properties of objects encountered in our daily life-popularity of a newly released movie, for example. Since such beliefs are prone to error, we often revise our initial beliefs according to the beliefs of others to improve accuracy. Optimal revision requires modulating the degree of accepting others' beliefs based on various cues for accuracy-number of opinions, for example-such that the more accurate others' beliefs are, the more we accept them. Although previous studies have shown that such accuracy cues can influence the degree of acceptance during social revision, they primarily investigated problems with 'factually correct' answers, and rarely problems with 'socially correct' answers. Here we examined which accuracy cues are objectively useful (utility of cues), and how those cues are used (use of cues), in the social revision of people's beliefs about problems with 'socially correct' answers. We asked people to estimate the 'shared preferences (SPs)' for sociocultural items, the answers to which are determined by socially aggregated beliefs-how popular an abstract painting will be among a large crowd, for example-and then to revise their initial estimates after being exposed to other people's estimates about the same items. We considered 'confidence', 'agreement among estimates', and 'number of estimates' as accuracy cues. We found that, while all three cues validly signaled the accuracy of SP estimates, only the 'number' cue has a significant utility, but the other cues are much less useful for optimal revision. Nevertheless, people used the cues of 'agreement' and their own 'confidence' to the extent comparable to that of the 'number' cue. Our findings suggest that the utility and use of accuracy cues for problems with 'socially correct' answers differ from those with 'factually correct' answers, as follows: (i) confidence does not have a significant utility and (ii) but people use their own confidence while ignoring others' confidence.

Dataset Information

When in Doubt, Follow the Crowd? Responsiveness to Social Proof Nudges in the Absence of Clear Preferences.

Publications

When in Doubt, Follow the Crowd? Responsiveness to Social Proof Nudges in the Absence of Clear Preferences.

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