“How Effective Is Nudging? A Quantitative Review on the Effect Sizes and Limits of Empirical Nudging Studies”, 2019-06-01 (; backlinks; similar):
Empirical nudging studies can be categorized along 8 dimensions.
Analysis reveals that only 62% of nudging treatments are statistically-significant.
Nudges have a median effect size of 21% which depends on the category and context.
Defaults are most effective while precommitment strategies are least effective.
Digital nudging is similarly effective, but offers new perspectives of individualization.
Changes in the choice architecture, so-called nudges, have been employed in a variety of contexts to alter people’s behavior. Although nudging has gained a widespread popularity, the effect sizes of its influences vary considerably across studies. In addition, nudges have proven to be ineffective or even backfire in selected studies which raises the question whether, and under which conditions, nudges are effective.
Therefore, we conduct a quantitative review on nudging with 100 primary publications including 317 effect sizes from different research areas. We derive 4 key results:
A morphological box on nudging based on 8 dimensions,
an assessment of the effectiveness of different nudging interventions,
a categorization of the relative importance of the application context and the nudge category, and
a comparison of nudging and digital nudging.
Thereby, we shed light on the (in)effectiveness of nudging and we show how the findings of the past can be used for future research. Practitioners, especially government officials, can use the results to review and adjust their policy making.
[Keywords: behavioral economics, nudging, quantitative review, digital nudging, choice architecture]