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If defaults don't work then Google wasted 15 billion dollars last year paying Apple to be in the search bar... I guess there must be further detail in the paper and I will have to read it to understand the nuance.
Or Google is using the search bar as a pretense for paying Apple for something else.
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I just think it's implausible that there's been no good research showing solid evidence of choice architecture mattering. Could be, I'm not an expert, but I'd like to see where things stand after a couple more years of research and debate.
>I just think it's implausible that there's b The job of scientist is to find and present that evidence. If your assumption is correct, and Kahneman failed to find good evidence that was there, that makes him a incompetent scientist. I don't think he is.
Feynman taught us to be scornful of cargo cult science, but fewer have internalized how difficult real science can be in comparison.
If this is the case, though, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that maybe no quality research has been done.
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That's just refusing to be convinced by evidence, though. It's good to have hunches, but it's good to let them go after you've done the experiments. Come up with a new hunch and a new experiment that shows why the expected effects weren't seen, and you're right back in there.
"Refusing to be convinced by evidence" is a simplistic false dichotomy. The evidence is interesting but I have several reasons not to immediately take it as definitive. Are you really certain that a big debunking in PNAS, surfing a wave of other celebrated debunkings, should be taken as definitive, when a good deal of the research being debunked was published to similar fanfare in PNAS back when a different kind of r…
The one that you expressed is that it "seems so obvious to you that you become suspicious." I'm just taking you at your word.
How do we know this study wasn’t “nudged”?
Think of how popular it became as a field in the last 50-100 years as the populace became less religious. The US adult population recently crossed a threshold where No science gives social scientists higher powers of forecasting human future, yet we took the ideas and applied them with the same conviction some believe in gods, in the same way; a network of randos spreading their gossip, wrapping it in technical jargon biased by past ignorance.
Consider how much of this work was being leveraged against an ignorant public with no opt out button, via print and TV. How is that informed consent?
Social media comes along, upends those forms of media, creates a new meta awareness we lived in a society policed by high minded but normal people. That awareness means we can opt out of being influenced by intentional nudges, same as we opt out of believing in intentional nudges to abide higher powers.
Social science “worked” when the masses were unaware it was happening to them. As the public has become more aware of how it works, it’s all Soylent green; just people.
And a million advertisers and designers cry out. We should spread this widely in the hope that the pop ups and banners die off.
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"Refusing to be convinced by evidence" is a simplistic false dichotomy. The evidence is interesting but I have several reasons not to immediately take it as definitive. Are you really certain that a big debunking in PNAS, surfing a wave of other celebrated debunkings, should be taken as definitive, when a good deal of the research being debunked was published to similar fanfare in PNAS back when a different kind of r…
> I have several reasons not to immediately take it as definitive. The one that you expressed is that it "seems so obvious to you that you become suspicious." I'm just taking you at your word.
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In the case of organ donation, Thaler has written that he actually prefers mandated choice--i.e. there is no default but you have to either opt in or opt out--in this case. [1] But I'm not sure why a system where the government creates a default of either opt-in or opt-out (which you can change) wouldn't be a nudge. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/business/economy/27view.h... (The issue being that in countries…
The system is that you're by default in some register. The choice has already been made. Many people aren't even aware of it, or only remotely. You have to undertake action to change it. That's not a "choice architecture" in the nudge sense. That would require that you are presented with both options simultaneously, and are forced to choose. A nudge, e.g. on a web form, would then be to have one option already checke…
Yes. But an alternative is to present choices on a web form without one being pre-selected but with a choice mandatory. Which is essentially what I understand Thaler to be arguing for.
>The choice has already been made.
I'd say that still is a default but one which requires more effort to change than a pre-selected option on a webform. And arguably sufficient effort that it may no longer be reasonable to default to organ donation in that manner.
Wow. As a former social scientist with an axe to grind this hits hard. I like to provide that HN community with some context as to what this means. There are some 300 “research” departments in each of the major social sciences: psychology, sociology, economics and anthropology. If you believe what they say, about half of their mission is teaching and the other half is research. That’s a lot, tens of billions of dolla…
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In the example you cited I don't think that's a nudge? Or is it? I ask because I am sure that changing defaults DEFINITELY works, especially if the user does not have a strong existing preference. You're not really changing user behaviour most of the time, you're changing the outcome of what they're trying to do, which is to reduce their cognitive load by ignoring as much as they possibly can.
Some other poster posted that they must have a pretty specific definition of nudge, because it defies credulity that defaults don’t change outcome if only because half the time I don’t read the defaults or know where to find them. I mean I just found out two weeks ago you could change the hacker news banner color. Are you telling me I’m in a statistically insignia can’t minority of hacker news users? Also how many se…