Defaults versus framing: Revisiting Default Effect and Framing Effect with replications and extensions of Johnson and Goldstein (2003) and Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse (2002)

People tend to stick with a default option instead of switching to another option. For instance, Johnson and Goldstein (2003) found a default effect in an organ donation scenario: if organ donation is the default option, people are more inclined to consent to it. Johnson et al. (2002) found a similar default effect in a health-survey scenarios: if receiving more information about your health is the default, people are more inclined to consent to it. Much of the highly cited, impactful work on these default effects, however, has not been replicated in well-powered samples. In two well-powered samples (N = 1920), we conducted a close replication of the default effect in Johnson and Goldstein (2003) and in Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse (2002). We successfully replicated Johnson and Goldstein (2003). In an extension of the original findings, we also show that default effects are unaffected by the permanence of these selections. We, however, failed to replicate the findings of Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse’s (2002) study; we did not find evidence for a default effect. We did, however, find a framing effect: participants who read a positively-framed scenario consented to receive health-related information at a higher rate than participants who read a negatively framed scenario. We also conducted a conceptual replication of Johnson et al. (2002) that was based on an organ-donation scenario, but this attempt failed to find a default effect. Our results suggest that default effects depend on framing and context. Materials, data, and code are available on: https://osf.io/8wd2b/.

Revising the Language of the New Zealand Youth Rights Caution to Support Understanding Among Young People

<p>Many young people in New Zealand will engage in antisocial behaviour during their teenage years. Consequently, many young people will interact with the police. When young people speak to police, they are read the Child/Young Persons Rights Caution (the Youth Caution) which informs them of the rights they are entitled to (legal rights), such as choosing to stay silent and speaking with a lawyer. However, many young people have an incomplete understanding of their rights as the Youth Caution does not support complete understanding. An explanation for this incomplete understanding is the language within the Youth Caution is too complex for young people. The current study sought to address this issue by creating and piloting a revised youth caution which aimed to be simpler and easier for young people to understand. Three research questions were addressed in this study: 1) What was young people’s level of understanding of their legal rights? 2) Would the revised youth caution improve the level of legal rights understanding? 3) Would understanding of legal rights increase with age? To answer these questions, young people (aged 10-18 years) were recruited from schools and the community (n = 101). Their legal rights understanding levels were then assessed, based on hearing either the standard or the revised youth caution. The results in relation to the research questions showed participants’ legal rights understanding was incomplete, the revised youth caution did not improve understanding across any aspects of legal rights understanding and understanding increased with age. These results suggest simplifying the language within the Youth Caution is not sufficient to support young people’s understanding, and legislation could offer further support, such as requiring a lawyer to be present as the default option when young people are speaking to the police.</p>

Revising the Language of the New Zealand Youth Rights Caution to Support Understanding Among Young People

<p>Many young people in New Zealand will engage in antisocial behaviour during their teenage years. Consequently, many young people will interact with the police. When young people speak to police, they are read the Child/Young Persons Rights Caution (the Youth Caution) which informs them of the rights they are entitled to (legal rights), such as choosing to stay silent and speaking with a lawyer. However, many young people have an incomplete understanding of their rights as the Youth Caution does not support complete understanding. An explanation for this incomplete understanding is the language within the Youth Caution is too complex for young people. The current study sought to address this issue by creating and piloting a revised youth caution which aimed to be simpler and easier for young people to understand. Three research questions were addressed in this study: 1) What was young people’s level of understanding of their legal rights? 2) Would the revised youth caution improve the level of legal rights understanding? 3) Would understanding of legal rights increase with age? To answer these questions, young people (aged 10-18 years) were recruited from schools and the community (n = 101). Their legal rights understanding levels were then assessed, based on hearing either the standard or the revised youth caution. The results in relation to the research questions showed participants’ legal rights understanding was incomplete, the revised youth caution did not improve understanding across any aspects of legal rights understanding and understanding increased with age. These results suggest simplifying the language within the Youth Caution is not sufficient to support young people’s understanding, and legislation could offer further support, such as requiring a lawyer to be present as the default option when young people are speaking to the police.</p>

Differential object marking in Modern Romanian

Chapter 4 focuses on DOM in Modern Romanian, for both direct and indirect objects. The data are organized according to the type of DOM mechanisms, with separate sections for CD, DOM-p, and CD+DOM-p. The pragmatic effects noticed for Old Romanian DOM are re-assessed, considering that the contrasting interpretation of CD versus DOM-p is neutralized. The major changes concern the loss of CD with direct objects and its recycling in conjunction with DOM-p. While DOM-p declines and becomes more specialized for the end of the specificity scale, CD+DOM-p turns into the default option for DOM with direct objects, as opposed to CD, which becomes the default option for DOM with indirect objects. Increased productivity for CD+DOM-p coincides with the parallel expansion of Clitic Left Dislocation in the language, which completely replaces the constituent fronting through Topicalization.

Nudges in SRI: The Power of the Default Option

We introduce nudges in order to incite investors to choose Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds instead of traditional funds. We have set up two online experiments with a total of 713 US retail investors, using three types of nudges to elicit their effects on investors’ SRI investments level: making SRI the default investment, introducing a SRI explanation message, and priming ethical values by displaying shocking images. Making SRI the default option is the most efficient nudge to influence investors towards SRI. Its effect is twofold. First, around 50% of investors do not opt-out of the default allocation. Second, even investors who opt-out of the default allocation invest more in SRI than those in the control group, an effect that appears driven by anchoring. Although investors subjected to both priming and message content marginally increase their SRI investment, priming or message content in isolation appears to have a non-significant influence. For choice architects who want to steer retail investors towards SRI funds, making them the default option appears to be the most powerful nudge.

Partial recall: differences between actual and self-reported annuitization decisions in Sweden

This paper reports the results from a large telephone survey of 1,000 retiring white-collar workers in Sweden. Shortly before the interview, the participants at age 65 had a choice of receiving a life annuity by default or opting for a fixed-term payout, with a minimum payout length of 5 years. Large monetary amounts were at stake in the payout decision of the survey participants; the average monthly pension payment under the life annuity amounted to US $280. Comparing the survey responses with administrative records on actual payout choices, I find that a majority of retiring white-collar workers fail to recall their payout decision. The recollection rate is much lower among annuitants (those who chose the default option); only 40% of the annuitants accurately recalled their payout decision compared to 77% of those who opted for a fixed-term payout. Beyond payout choice, few individual characteristics predict successful recollection.

Ambivalent Beginnings

This chapter explains how vicarious warfare has iteratively emerged and evolved in an American context. In doing so, the chapter brings the analysis into view across episodes and events that traditional narratives or popular accounts often leave out. It analyzes the diverse 'alternative' history of US warfare, noting [Antulio Joseph] Echevarria, for instance, has pushed back against the notion that the application of overwhelming force has always been the default option for decision-makers in confronting adversaries. The chapter also outlines the number of reasons following the absence of vicarious warfare within the orthodox telling of the story of US force. It then reviews the military practices of the early republic, and discusses the tensions that run through the whole history of US warfare until today.