In the last post, I introduced the concept of self-nudges–an ethical alternative to behavioral nudges. To reap, nudges are behavioral interventions that aim to help people make better choices, but they risk being paternalistic. For instance, the default option of salad (rather than fries) on a menu can be seen as a nudge to help people make healthier diet choices. This nudge relies on the findings that people tend to choose whichever option is the default 1. While well-intentioned, this nudge paternalistically assumes that everyone wants to prioritize health when they have this meal, which may not be the case. For instance, if Tom wishes to be healthy and resist the temptation of fries, but Sam wishes to indulge whenver she eats out, and they were both influenced by the nudge and ordered fries, only Tom would have benefited from the nudge. It would be better if Tom and Sam can nudge themselves according to their own preferences. For instance, if the restaurant allowed customers to self-nudge and pre-select their own default dishes, then Tom can pre-select salad as his default dish, and Sam can pre-select fries as his.
Self-nudging Self-control
A popular application of traditional nudges is to facilitate self-control, in diet, as well as in other domains 2,3,4. However, there are much less opportunieis for people to use self-nudges to facilitate self-control. Even when such opportunities arise, we don’t know whether people actually are motivated to use self-nudges to facilitate self-control. Earlier, I gave the example of Tom pre-selecting the salad as the default dish for himself. In real life, some people may not actually be motivated to pre-select default options for themselves because traditional default nudges often work through social inferences–decision makers see defaults as the choice-setter’s recommendations5. However, a self-selected default bypass such social inferences, so people may not see the need to set them.
Pre-selecting a default: facilitating self-control or licensing indulgence?
Not all pre-selection are self-nudges to facilitate self-control: while health-loving Tom pre-selected the salad for himself while indulgence-prone Sam pre-selected the fries. In Sam’s case, it is debatable whehter her pre-selection is a self-nudge at all, given that she is not nudging herself to be more responsible, but rather she seems to be licensing her indulgence. One possible reason that pre-selecting a choice can license indulgence is that the pre-selection serves to alleviate guilt during the enactement of the choice. Guilt comprises of decision guilt and enactement guilt, and when there is a time gap between deciding to do something guilty (decision guilt) and acting on it(enactement guilt), decision guilt decays over time, and people feel less guilt when they commit the guilty action 6. For instance, if health-loving Tom decides to eat fries, and then eat his fries, the longer the time gap between his decision and his action of eating fries, the less guilty he would feel after eating the fries. Setting fries as the default dish is essentially making a soft decision to eat fries, and it would be a perfect way to prolong the gap between decision and enactement, i.e., eating fries. Perhaps people know this hack–implicitly or explicitly–and they pre-select the indulgent dish when they are motivated to indulge but want to feel less guilty.
Studies preivew
Study 1
Research question: To find out whether people actually do use self-nudges to facilitate self-control, we measured whether people are more likely to set a healthy default for themselves when they face a diet-related self-control conflict than not.
Results: It turns out that this was not the case. If anything, our participants are more likely to pre-select a default for themselves when they do not face a self-control conflict in diet.
Study 2 (in preparation)
Research question: I plan to run a follow-up study to explore wheter people set responsible defaults when they are motivated to be self-controlled, and set indulgent defaults when they are motivated to indulge. I will aslo explore whether setting the indulgent default actually reduces enactement guilt.
Study 1
Study 1 Methods
594 participants from the online survey platform, Prolific, were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions, the Fries-Salad Conditon and th Fries-Onion Rings Condition.
We expected that most participants will see fries and salad as posing a self-control conflict, and fries and onion rings as not. To ensure that this was the case, we asked participants in the Fries-Salad condition to compare fries and salad, and participants in the Fries-Onion Rings Condition to compare fries and onion rings, and say which food is tastier and which one they think they should eat. As expected, more participants gave conflicting responses for fries and salad (e.g., fries are tastier but should eat salad) than for fries and onion rings.
Then, we told participants to imagine that they are going to a dinner in 5 days, where the main dish is a burger,and they can choose one of two side dishes:
Choose between fries and salad in the Fries-Salad Condition 
Choose between fries and onion rings in the Fries-Onion Rings Condition 
Importantly, participants can either pre-select the dish right now that will be served to them by default at dinner (they can change their mind whenever), or decide at dinner in five days. If pre-selecting a default is a self-nudge that facilitates self-control, then participants who have a self-control conflict will be more likely to set a default for themselves, and a healthy default, than those who do not have a self-control conflict.
Study 1 Results
Contrary to expectations, particiapnts are not more likely to pre-select in the Fries-Salad Condition. If anything, they are more likely to pre-select in the Fries-Onion Rings Condition where most participants did not have a self-control conflict. In addition, Of those who did pre-select in the Fries-Salad condition, only 45% pre-selected the dish that they said the should eat, i.e., salad!
Could this be because participants are actually pre-selecting the indulgent dishes like fries and onion rings in order to licence their own indulgence? I plan to find out in Study 2.
Study 2 Plan
I am currently preparing a study in which participants will be randomly assigned to two conditions: one in which they will be motivated to indulge, and the other in which they will be motivated to be self-controlled.
I will ask them to choose between wathcing a funny video versus a TED talk. I assume that the former to be an indulgence and the latter being a responsible choice, and I will send out a survey to confirm my assumption. They will have the option to pre-select one video, complete an irrelevant task, and then watch the movie. I will measure how guilty they feel about their choice after the pre-selection, and after watching the video. If participants see pre-selecting the indulgent choice as a way to licence indulgence and feel less guilty, then those who are motivated will pre-select the funny videos more often than the participants who are motivated to be self-controlled. For those who do end up watching the funny videos, the ones who pre-selected the funny video will feel less guilty overall.
References
- Johnson, E. J & Goldstein, D. (2003). “MEDICINE: Do Defaults Save Lives?”. Science. 302 (5649): 1338–1339.
- Madrian, B. C., & Shea, D. F. (2001). The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1149–1187.
- Fishbach, A., & Hofmann, W. (2015). Nudging self-control: A smartphone intervention of temptation anticipation and goal resolution improves everyday goal progress. Motivation Science, 1, 137–150. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000022
- Laiou, E., Rapti, I., Schwarzer, R., Fleig, L., Cianferotti, L., Ngo, J., Rizos, E. C., Wetle, T. F., Kahlmeier, S., Vigilanza, A., Tsilidis, K. K., Trichopoulou, A., Serra-Majem, L., Brandi, M. L., & Ntzani, E. E. (2021). Review: Nudge interventions to promote healthy diets and physical activity. Food Policy, 102-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102103
- McKenzie, C. R. M., Liersch, M. J., & Finkelstein, S. R. (2006). Recommendations implicit in policy defaults. Psychological Science, 17(5), 414–420. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01721.x
- Duke,K.E. & Amir,O.(2018) Guilt Dynamics: Consequences of Temporally Separating Decisions and Actions. Journal of Consumer Research, 45 (6), 1254–1273, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy049