You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can help everyone forever: learning and effective nudging

Mattias Forsgre, Gustav Karreskog Rehbinder and Benjamin Mandl3

The study investigates whether people learn to adapt their susceptibility to nudges based on how well those nudges align with their goals. Specifically, it examines if participants learn to follow or ignore nudges depending on how predictive they are of the superior option.

Key findings:

Strong and statistically significant effect across all three nudge types (decoy, default, rule): Participants who experienced higher historical predictivity were more likely to follow the nudge in test rounds.

An increase of 10 percentage points in historical predictivity resulted in:

1.29% increase in choosing the option with a decoy

1.58% increase in choosing the default option

2.21% increase in choosing the option indicated by the rule

Participants quickly adapted their behavior based on the experienced predictivity of the nudge.

The results suggest that the effectiveness of nudges scales with how useful they are for decision-makers in helping them select the superior option.

The authors conclude that while nudges may occasionally affect behavior when contrary to a decision-maker’s goals, they may eventually be overcome by learning. Nudges aligned with the decision-maker’s goals may have a more permanent effect and be reinforced by learning.

The study highlights the importance of aligning nudges with individuals’ goals for sustained effectiveness in choice architecture and behavioral interventions.

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