Default options: a powerful behavioral tool to increase COVID-19 contact tracing app acceptance in Latin America?

Given the rates of transmission of COVID-19, relying only on manual contact tracing might be infeasible to control the epidemic without sustained costly lockdowns or rapid vaccination efforts. In the first study of its kind in Latin America, we find through a phone survey of a nationally representative sample of ten countries that an opt-out regime (automatic installation) increases self-reported intention to accept a contact tracing app with exposure notification by 22 percentage points compared to an opt-in regime (voluntary installation). This effect is triple the size and of opposite sign of the effect found in Europe and the United States, potentially due to lower concerns regarding privacy and lower levels of interpersonal trust. We see that an opt-out regime is more effective in increasing willingness to accept for those who do not trust the government or do not use their smartphones for financial transactions. The local severity of the pandemic does not affect our results, but feeling personally at risk increases intent to accept such apps in general. These results can shed light on the use of default options not only for contact tracing apps but in public health overall in the context of a pandemic in Latin America.

The Appearance of Nothingness

Unexceptional by definition, the natural appearance of everyday life is not a matter of conscious awareness, let alone deliberate calculation, but an uneventful background against which, ordinarily, nothing special seems to happen. This feeling that nothing is going on, however, may be intentionally elicited (i.e., preserved) and used for instrumental purposes, through strategic actions that dissemble themselves to better affect their target. In this view, this chapter elaborates the concept of concealed strategic actions (CSA), actions that are not experienced as such by the observer and are designed to be so. Somewhat oversuspicious, this idea can be traced back to the work of Goffman on fabrications, normal appearances, and the difference between expressed versus transmitted information. CSA’s current relevance, more practically speaking, is shown by the extensive use in policy making of default options, which are interpreted here as a consequential form of interventions that do not feel as interventions at all. Though CSAs can backfire and are, indeed, inherently obsolescent, their ambition to deploy a reactance-proof strategy seems intriguing from an interactionist perspective, highlighting the nexus among intentions, actions, and reactions—something to eagerly inspect for an expansive symbolic interactionism.

EXPRESS: Beautiful and Confident: How Boosting Self-Perceived Attractiveness Reduces Preference Uncertainty in Context-Dependent Choices

Despite marketers' efforts to make consumers feel attractive in many sales and advertising contexts, little is known about how consumers' self-perceived physical attractiveness influences their decision-making. The authors examine whether a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness influences subsequent choices in domains unrelated to beauty. Across six studies, the authors find converging evidence that a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness enhances their general self-confidence and reduces preference uncertainty, resulting in less reliance on the choice context and thus fewer choices of compromise, all-average, and default options. Our findings further show that consumers use self-confidence as metacognitive information for inferring preference uncertainty in subsequent decisions. This process is a misattribution that can be attenuated when consumers attribute their self-confidence to the self-perceived attractiveness. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

Systematic review of clinician-directed nudges in healthcare contexts

ObjectiveNudges are interventions that alter the way options are presented, enabling individuals to more easily select the best option. Health systems and researchers have tested nudges to shape clinician decision-making with the aim of improving healthcare service delivery. We aimed to systematically study the use and effectiveness of nudges designed to improve clinicians’ decisions in healthcare settings.DesignA systematic review was conducted to collect and consolidate results from studies testing nudges and to determine whether nudges directed at improving clinical decisions in healthcare settings across clinician types were effective. We systematically searched seven databases (EBSCO MegaFILE, EconLit, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) and used a snowball sampling technique to identify peer-reviewed published studies available between 1 January 1984 and 22 April 2020. Eligible studies were critically appraised and narratively synthesised. We categorised nudges according to a taxonomy derived from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Included studies were appraised using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment Tool.ResultsWe screened 3608 studies and 39 studies met our criteria. The majority of the studies (90%) were conducted in the USA and 36% were randomised controlled trials. The most commonly studied nudge intervention (46%) framed information for clinicians, often through peer comparison feedback. Nudges that guided clinical decisions through default options or by enabling choice were also frequently studied (31%). Information framing, default and enabling choice nudges showed promise, whereas the effectiveness of other nudge types was mixed. Given the inclusion of non-experimental designs, only a small portion of studies were at minimal risk of bias (33%) across all Cochrane criteria.ConclusionsNudges that frame information, change default options or enable choice are frequently studied and show promise in improving clinical decision-making. Future work should examine how nudges compare to non-nudge interventions (eg, policy interventions) in improving healthcare.

Reinventing health promotion for healthy default beverage laws in the face of COVID-19

Shortly after a healthy default beverage (HDB) law took effect in Hawai‘i, requiring restaurants that serve children’s meals to offer healthy beverages with the meals, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Efforts to contain the virus resulted in changes to restaurants’ operations and disrupted HDB implementation efforts. Economic repercussions from containment efforts have exacerbated food insecurity, limited access to healthy foods, and created obstacles to chronic disease management. Promoting healthy default options is critical at a time when engaging in healthy behaviors is difficult, but important, to both prevent and manage chronic disease and decrease COVID-19 risk. This commentary discusses COVID-19’s impact on restaurant operations and healthy eating, and the resulting challenges and opportunities for this promising health promotion intervention.

The Basics

Following the first three introductory chapters, chapter 4 lays out the essentials of Sonata Theory’s understanding of the guidelines within which classical sonatas work. This is the chapter that summarizes the approach’s technical details and terminology: Sonata Theory in a nutshell. It begins with an overview of the five sonata types and notes that the “Type 3” or the “textbook” sonata, with exposition, development, and recapitulation, is by far the most common. It proceeds to move through each of the action zones of a typical “two-part exposition”—primary theme (P), transition (TR and medial caesura), secondary theme (S), and closing zone (C), noting the various commonly encountered, “default” options within each zone, and how each zone is vectored toward a generically expected cadence. The several issues involved with determining where secondary themes begin and end—within Sonata Theory’s view of things—are given special attention. Along with way it introduces some concepts new to this handbook, such as that of the “narrative” grouping of S (concluding cadentially with the EEC) and the thematic portions of any C that might follow: “the S/C thematic complex.” Following a close study of expositional practice, the chapter moves on, similarly, to describe standard features of developments, recapitulations, and codas. It ends with a few remarks on the Type 1 sonata and its expanded variant, which will be revisited in more detail at the end of chapter 11 and in chapter 12.