Cargando…
Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations
In the months before the 2020 U.S. election, several political campaign websites added prechecked boxes (defaults), automatically making all donations into recurring weekly contributions unless donors unchecked them. Since these changes occurred at different times for different campaigns, we use a s...
Autores principales: | , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
National Academy of Sciences
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10556642/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37751554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218385120 |
_version_ | 1785116910322450432 |
---|---|
author | Posner, Nathaniel Simonov, Andrey Mrkva, Kellen Johnson, Eric J. |
author_facet | Posner, Nathaniel Simonov, Andrey Mrkva, Kellen Johnson, Eric J. |
author_sort | Posner, Nathaniel |
collection | PubMed |
description | In the months before the 2020 U.S. election, several political campaign websites added prechecked boxes (defaults), automatically making all donations into recurring weekly contributions unless donors unchecked them. Since these changes occurred at different times for different campaigns, we use a staggered difference-in-differences design to measure the causal effects of defaults on donors’ behavior. We estimate that defaults increased campaign donations by over $43 million while increasing requested refunds by almost $3 million. The weekly default only impacted weekly recurring donations, and not other donations, suggesting that donors may not have intended to make weekly donations. The longer defaults were displayed, the more money campaigns raised through weekly donations. Donors did not compensate by changing the amount they donated. We found that the default had a larger impact on smaller donors and on donors who had no prior experience with defaults, causing them to start more chains and donate a larger proportion of their money through weekly recurring donations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10556642 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105566422023-10-07 Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations Posner, Nathaniel Simonov, Andrey Mrkva, Kellen Johnson, Eric J. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Social Sciences In the months before the 2020 U.S. election, several political campaign websites added prechecked boxes (defaults), automatically making all donations into recurring weekly contributions unless donors unchecked them. Since these changes occurred at different times for different campaigns, we use a staggered difference-in-differences design to measure the causal effects of defaults on donors’ behavior. We estimate that defaults increased campaign donations by over $43 million while increasing requested refunds by almost $3 million. The weekly default only impacted weekly recurring donations, and not other donations, suggesting that donors may not have intended to make weekly donations. The longer defaults were displayed, the more money campaigns raised through weekly donations. Donors did not compensate by changing the amount they donated. We found that the default had a larger impact on smaller donors and on donors who had no prior experience with defaults, causing them to start more chains and donate a larger proportion of their money through weekly recurring donations. National Academy of Sciences 2023-09-26 2023-10-03 /pmc/articles/PMC10556642/ /pubmed/37751554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218385120 Text en Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Social Sciences Posner, Nathaniel Simonov, Andrey Mrkva, Kellen Johnson, Eric J. Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title | Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title_full | Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title_fullStr | Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title_full_unstemmed | Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title_short | Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
title_sort | dark defaults: how choice architecture steers political campaign donations |
topic | Social Sciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10556642/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37751554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2218385120 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT posnernathaniel darkdefaultshowchoicearchitecturesteerspoliticalcampaigndonations AT simonovandrey darkdefaultshowchoicearchitecturesteerspoliticalcampaigndonations AT mrkvakellen darkdefaultshowchoicearchitecturesteerspoliticalcampaigndonations AT johnsonericj darkdefaultshowchoicearchitecturesteerspoliticalcampaigndonations |