Nudgeability: Mapping conditions of susceptibility to nudge influence

Nudges are behavioral interventions to subtly steer citizens’ choices toward “desirable” options. An important topic of debate concerns the legitimacy of nudging as a policy instrument, and there is a focus on issues relating to nudge transparency, the role of preexisting preferences people may have, and the premise that nudges primarily affect people when they are in “irrational” modes of thinking. Empirical insights into how these factors affect the extent to which people are susceptible to nudge influence (i.e., “nudgeable”) are lacking in the debate. This article introduces the new concept of nudgeability and makes a first attempt to synthesize the evidence on when people are responsive to nudges. We find that nudge effects do not hinge on transparency or modes of thinking but that personal preferences moderate effects such that people cannot be nudged into something they do not want. We conclude that, in view of these findings, concerns about nudging legitimacy should be softened and that future research should attend to these and other conditions of nudgeability

Understanding public support for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures over time:Does it wear out?

Background: COVID-19 mitigation measures intend to protect public health, but their adverse psychological, social, and economic effects weaken public support. Less favorable trade-offs may especially weaken support for more restrictive measures. Support for mitigation measures may also differ between population subgroups who experience different benefits and costs, and decrease over time, a phenomenon termed “pandemic fatigue.” Methods: We examined self-reported support for COVID-19 mitigation measures in the Netherlands over 12 consecutives waves of data collection between April 2020 and May 2021 in an open population cohort study. Participants were recruited through community panels of the 25 regional public health services, and through links to the online surveys advertised on social media. The 54,010 unique participants in the cohort study on average participated in 4 waves of data collection. Most participants were female (65%), middle-aged [57% (40–69 years)], highly educated (57%), not living alone (84%), residing in an urban area (60%), and born in the Netherlands (95%). Results: COVID-19 mitigation measures implemented in the Netherlands remained generally well-supported over time [all scores >3 on 5-point scale ranging 1 (low)−5 (high)]. During the whole period studied, support was highest for personal hygiene measures, quarantine and wearing face masks, high but somewhat lower for not shaking hands, testing and self-isolation, and restricting social contacts, and lowest for limiting visitors at home, and not traveling abroad. Women and higher educated people were more supportive of some mitigation measures than men and lower educated people. Older people were more supportive of more restrictive measures than younger people, and support for more socially restrictive measures decreased most over time in higher educated people or in younger people. Conclusions: This study found no support for pandemic fatigue in terms of a gradual decline in support for all mitigation measures in the first year of the pandemic. Rather, findings suggest that support for mitigation measures reflects a balancing of benefits and cost, which may change over time, and differ between measures and population subgroups

Understanding a national increase in COVID-19 vaccination intention, the Netherlands, November 2020-March 2021

The intention to get the COVID-19 vaccine increased from 48% (November 2020) to 75% (March 2021) as national campaigning in the Netherlands commenced. Using a mixed method approach we identified six vaccination beliefs and two contextual factors informing this increase. Analysis of a national survey confirmed that shifting intentions were a function of shifting beliefs: people with stronger intention to vaccinate were most motivated by protecting others and reopening society; those reluctant were most concerned about side effects

Vaccination willingness and educational level

Vaccination is an important part of the fight against COVID-19 virus. A predictor of the proportion of people who will actually take a vaccination is the willingness to vaccinate among the population. Literature shows that vaccination willingness among people with lower socioeconomic status is lower than among other groups. In this contribution we describe to what extent this is also the case in the Netherlands and show how risk perception, trust in the effects and safety of the vaccine, and health literacy may be related to this. Finally, we highlight a number of intervention strategies that can make a positive contribution to vaccination willingness among lower educated groups

Simple nudges that are not so easy

In this paper, we critically review three assumptions that govern the debate on the legitimacy of nudging interventions as a policy instrument: (1) nudges may violate autonomous decision-making; (2) nudges lend themselves to easy implementation in public policy; and (3) nudges are a simple and effective mean for steering individual choice in the right direction. Our analysis reveals that none of these assumptions are supported by recent studies entailing unique insights into nudging from three disciplinary outlooks: ethics, public administration and psychology. We find that nudges are less of a threat to autonomous choice than critics sometimes claim, making them ethically more legitimate than often assumed. Nonetheless, because their effectiveness is critically dependent on boundary conditions, their implementation is far from easy. The findings of this analysis thus suggest new opportunities for identifying when and for whom nudge interventions are preferable to more conventional public policy arrangements

Why self-regulation success is not the opposite of failure

Inspired by some of current Western societies' most pressing problems, much research attention has been devoted to understanding self-regulation failure. While this has yielded some very valuable insights, the current paper underlines that understanding self-regulation failure does not mean that we also understand self-regulation success. Whereas failure and success are semantic antonyms, in terms of self-regulation research, they should not be regarded as mere opposites. First, on the process level, self-regulation success versus failure is not simply a matter of inverse explanatory factors (e.g., the capacity to inhibit impulses vs. a lack thereof). Second, on the outcome level, self-regulation success versus failure is not strictly a matter of inverse behavioral action (e.g., abstaining from versus indulging in immediate gratification). This has significant implications, the most important one being that to understand self-regulation success, researchers need to take a more holistic perspective rather than mainly considering single instances when studying self-regulation

Tricky treats: how and when temptations boost self-control

The overall aim of this dissertation was to explore how and when temptations boost self-control. More specifically, we aimed to a) replicate and extend previous findings showing that temptations yield enhanced self-control on cognitive as well as behavioral measures; b) examine the role of temptation strength as a possible moderator of counteractive control processes; and c) explore whether facilitative temptation-goal associations could be established in people having trouble resisting temptations. The aims were addressed in five empirical chapters, reporting on twelve experiments that were conducted in the context of food temptations. First, it was demonstrated that participants who were confronted with food temptations, compared to those who viewed neutral stimuli, reported higher healthy eating intentions and were more likely to pick a healthy over an unhealthy cookie on a subsequent behavioral measure. Next, it was shown that self-control processes were activated to a larger extent in response to strong (i.e., very attractive), as compared to weak (i.e., moderately attractive) temptations. For example, participants in the strong temptation conditions displayed higher mental accessibility of the dieting goal and consumed less of the food temptation compared to participants in the weak temptation conditions. We also showed that weak temptations are (unjustly) perceived to be less unhealthy compared to strong temptations, explaining why weight-conscious people consume more from weak temptations than from strong temptations. In another study we introduced cognitive resources as a moderator for the effect of temptation strength on self-control, to consolidate our paradoxical findings with the mere intuitive prediction that people would be better able to deal with weak rather than strong temptations. It was shown that when cognitive resources were high, participants consumed more from weak than from strong temptations, replicating our previous findings. However, when cognitive resources were low, the opposite pattern was found and participants consumed more from strong than from weak temptations. Finally, it was shown that unsuccessful dieters who made an implementation intention linking a temptation (i.e., chocolate) to their dieting goal, as compared to those who only formulated the intention to diet, became more successful in resisting temptations. Not only did they display facilitated temptation-goal associations as assessed with a primed lexical decision task, we also demonstrated that the strength of this mental association was related to actual chocolate intake in the following week. Based on the current research it is concluded that, for people who have a personally relevant goal that is being threatened, temptations are not always bad. Rather than being subjected to their hedonic impulses, people are often well able to resist temptations when appropriate defensive self-regulation mechanisms are activated. However, it is important to realize that people should be especially alert when facing weak temptations, as these may be the ‘tricky treats

Whatever happened to self-control? : A proposal for integrating notions from trait self-control studies into state self-control research

In this article we discuss recent findings in trait self-control research suggesting that successful self-control may rely on either handling the self-control dilemma in a smart and effortless way or on the effortfully inhibiting an immediate urge or an unwanted response. We then contrast these results with findings from ego-depletion research on state self-control that up to now has focused on merely (consequences of) effortful inhibition. In doing so, we aim to shift the focus of recent debate about the underlying mechanisms of the ego-depletion phenomenon to the broader and more important question of how successful self-control operates. Specifically, we emphasize that dealing with personally relevant dilemmas or conflicts is often absent from the ego-depletion paradigm, which is crucial for understanding why and how people are able and willing to prioritize a higher ultimate goal. We first discuss the key role for handling self-control dilemmas in trait self-control research. Subsequently, we discuss how self-control dilemmas are seemingly absent from ego-depletion paradigms and then suggest future directions for self-control research