scholarly journals Experiencing default nudges: autonomy, manipulation, and choice-satisfaction as judged by people themselves

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Patrik Michaelsen ◽  
Lars-Olof Johansson ◽  
Martin Hedesström

Abstract Criticisms of nudging suggest that nudges infringe on decision makers’ autonomy. Yet, little empirical research has explored whether people who are subjected to nudges agree. In three between-group experiments (N = 2083), we subject participants to contrasting choice architectures and measure experiences of autonomy, choice-satisfaction, perceived threat to freedom of choice, and objection to the choice architecture. Participants who received a prosocial opt-out default nudge made more prosocial choices but did not report lower autonomy or choice satisfaction than participants in opt-in default or active-choice conditions. This was the case even when the presence of the nudge was disclosed, and when monetary choice stakes were introduced. With monetary choice stakes, participants perceived the threat to freedom of choice as slightly higher in the nudge condition than in the other conditions, but objection to the choice architecture did not differ between the conditions. Taken together, our results suggest that default nudges are less manipulative and autonomy-infringing than sometimes feared. We recommend that policymakers include measures of choice experiences when testing out new interventions.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrik Michaelsen ◽  
Lars-Olof Johansson ◽  
Martin Hedesström

Critiques of nudging suggest that nudges infringe on decision makers’ autonomy. Yet, little empirical research has explored whether people who are subjected to nudges agree. In three online between-group experiments (N = 2083), we subject participants to different choice architectures and measure their experiences of autonomy, choice-satisfaction, perceived threat to freedom of choice, and objection to the choice architecture. Participants who received an opt-out nudge made more prosocial choices but did not report more negative choice experiences compared to participants in opt-in default or active choice conditions. This was predominantly the case even when the presence of the nudge was made transparent to participants, and when choice stakes were increased. Our results suggest that defaults are less manipulative and autonomy-infringing than sometimes feared. Policy-makers should include measures of choice experiences when testing out new nudges.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Hun Park ◽  
Jun-Hwan Park ◽  
Sujin Lee ◽  
Hyuk Hahn

The role of R&D (research and development) intensity on the effect of knowledge services on the business performance of firms has been discussed by using PLS-SEM and PLS-MGA methods. Research groups were divided into two groups, innovative and non-innovative. Respondents were classified into innovative firms if their R&D intensity was over 3% and vice versa. PLS-SEM and PLS-MGA results were compared for two groups and valuable insights were extracted. For innovative firms, knowledge services seemed to be verified and processed by the decision makers and utilized to achieve their business performance. On the other hand, a large number of non-innovative firms seemed to have a stronger tendency to utilize knowledge services directly for their business without sufficient verification by the decision makers.


AI & Society ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Chiodo

AbstractWe continuously talk about autonomous technologies. But how can words qualifying technologies be the very same words chosen by Kant to define what is essentially human, i.e. being autonomous? The article focuses on a possible answer by reflecting upon both etymological and philosophical issues, as well as upon the case of autonomous vehicles. Most interestingly, on the one hand, we have the notion of (human) “autonomy”, meaning that there is a “law” that is “self-given”, and, on the other hand, we have the notion of (technological) “automation”, meaning that there is something “offhand” that is “self-given”. Yet, we are experiencing a kind of twofold shift: on the one hand, the shift from defining technologies in terms of automation to defining technologies in terms of autonomy and, on the other hand, the shift from defining humans in terms of autonomy to defining humans in terms of automation. From a philosophical perspective, the shift may mean that we are trying to escape precisely from what autonomy founds, i.e. individual responsibility of humans that, in the Western culture, have been defined for millennia as rational and moral decision-makers, even when their decisions have been the toughest. More precisely, the shift may mean that we are using technologies, and in particular emerging algorithmic technologies, as scapegoats that bear responsibility for us by making decisions for us. Moreover, if we consider the kind of emerging algorithmic technologies that increasingly surround us, starting from autonomous vehicles, then we may argue that we also seem to create a kind of technological divine that, by being always with us through its immanent omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence and inscrutability, can always be our technological scapegoat freeing us from the most unbearable burden of individual responsibility resulting from individual autonomy.


2014 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. iii-ix

We introduce this issue with a thought. There has been much made of the need for our discipline to be “policy relevant,” and much ridicule has been directed at the Review recently that comments how little the Review offers that is relevant for decision makers. But what does it mean to be policy relevant? Generally, scholarly journals publish the best in basic research, which hopefully can be used by those in positions of authority to good effect. This often means that there are no catchy titles, nor opinion-editorial pieces that are so often portrayed as the model of policy relevant work. In our view, the role of the Review is to expand knowledge on important scholarly questions, not only to publish work that is currently popular or somehow ordained as useful by pundits. There is certainly a place for such work, but not in the pages of the Review. On the other hand, we as the editors of the Review understand the need to make the Review accessible to as broad an audience as possible, and we have made great efforts to do just that.


1969 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Prewitt ◽  
Heinz Eulau

Scholars interested in theorizing about political representation in terms relevant to democratic governance in mid-twentieth century America find themselves in a quandary. We are surrounded by functioning representative institutions, or at least by institutions formally described as representative. Individuals who presumably “represent” other citizens govern some 90 thousand different political units—they sit on school and special district boards, on township and city councils, on county directorates, on state and national assemblies, and so forth. But the flourishing activity of representation has not yet been matched by a sustained effort to explain what makes the representational process tick.Despite the proliferation of representative governments over the past century,theoryabout representation has not moved much beyond the eighteenth-century formulation of Edmund Burke. Certainly most empirical research has been cast in the Burkean vocabulary. But in order to think in novel ways about representative government in the twentieth-century, we may have to admit that present conceptions guiding empirical research are obsolete. This in turn means that the spell of Burke's vocabulary over scientific work on representation must be broken.To look afresh at representation, it is necessary to be sensitive to the unresolved tension between the two main currents of contemporary thinking about representational relationships. On the one hand, representation is treated as a relationship between any one individual, the represented, and another individual, the representative—aninter-individualrelationship. On the other hand, representatives are treated as a group, brought together in the assembly, to represent the interest of the community as a whole—aninter-grouprelationship. Most theoretical formulations since Burke are cast in one or the other of these terms.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 316-318
Author(s):  
Joost Pauwelyn

I am extremely grateful, and humbled, by the wealth of comments received on my AJIL article through this AJIL Unbound Symposium. One of the many points I take away from these reactions is, indeed, that my analysis offers a snapshot and that many of the critiques now leveled against Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) are, in Catherine Rogers’s words, “effectively recycled versions of criticisms that were originally leveled against the WTO and its decision-makers.” (Freya Baetens makes a similar point.)In this rejoinder, I would only like to make two points. Firstly, many commentators seem to think that in this article I took the normative position that World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement is “better” than ISDS. Although I did point to the current discrepancy in public perception of the respective regimes, I purposefully avoided expressing any personal, normative position on one being “better” than the other (but apparently not explicitly enough).


2012 ◽  
pp. 95-113
Author(s):  
Rita Biancheri

Up to now, in the traditional biomedical paradigm the terms "sex" and "gender" have either been used synonymously and the insertion of gender among the determining elements of conditions of wellbeing/disease has been difficult, and obstructed by disciplinary rigidities that retarded the acceptance of an approach which had already been largely found to be valid in other areas of research. The effected simplification demonstrated its limitations in describing the theme of health; but if, on the one hand, there has been a growing awareness of a subject which can in no way be considered "neutral", on the other hand there continues to be insufficient attention, both in theoretical analysis and in empirical research, given to female differences. The article is intended to support that the sick individual is a person, with his/her genetic heritage, his/her own cultural acquisitions and personal history, and own surrounding life context; but these and similar factors have not traditionally been taken into consideration by official medicine and welfare systems, despite a hoped-for socio-health integration.


2012 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 998-1021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel ángel Jiménez-Crespo ◽  
Maribel Tercedor

Localization is increasingly making its way into translation training programs at university level. However, there is still a scarce amount of empirical research addressing issues such as defining localization in relation to translation, what localization competence entails or how to best incorporate intercultural differences between digital genres, text types and conventions, among other aspects. In this paper, we propose a foundation for the study of localization competence based upon previous research on translation competence. This project was developed following an empirical corpus-based contrastive study of student translations (learner corpus), combined with data from a comparable corpus made up of an original Spanish corpus and a Spanish localized corpus. The objective of the study is to identify differences in production between digital texts localized by students and professionals on the one hand, and original texts on the other. This contrastive study allows us to gain insight into how localization competence interrelates with the superordinate concept of translation competence, thus shedding light on which aspects need to be addressed during localization training in university translation programs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (97 (153)) ◽  
pp. 115-139
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Szczepankiewicz

The presence of contemporary entities in the cyber-space shows that IT offers unlimited possibilities of running a business and developing an organisation. On the other hand, it involves a greater number of internal and external threats in the area of accounting information resources security. The objective of the paper is to diagnose the current level of accounting information resources security (AIRS) assurance in Polish business entities. The paper analyses two research hypotheses. In accordance with the first one, the AIRS assurance level in various entity groups may be different, even though all entities should have implemented the same requirements of the Accounting Act in the analyzed area. The identified differences may result from the effect of additional, industry-specific regulations. The other hypothesis claims that in the private business area, accounting and auditing companies adhere to AIRS regulations more strictly than other small and medium enterprises. The paper defines the fundamental factors affecting the functioning of corporate accounting systems in the three dimensions of the cyber-space. Subsequently, the author presents the results of empirical research on how corporate information security is ensured in the context of internal accounting control systems and the requirements of the Polish Accounting Act. The results of the empirical research show how the management of the analysed entities crafts the basic elements of their internal environment as well as internal communication and control processes connected with ensuring information resources security. The results also show the management’s approach to various aspects of risk management of accounting information resources security, as well as to adherence to organisational and administrative procedures, and to hardware and software safeguards in the IT environment of the accounting system. The issues analysed in the present paper open a scholarly discussion that should lead to the development of theoretical models, recommendation of efficient methods and tools, as well as indication of adequate legislative initiatives. Research methods used by the author include analysis of literature and legislation, analysis of survey results, deduction and inference.


2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Houle ◽  
C Guillou-Ouellette

Introduction In Montréal, the characteristics of suicide cases may vary between different areas. The information collected by coroners during their investigations of suicides could be used to support local suicide-prevention planning actions. Methods This study analyzes all coroners' records on suicide in Montréal from 2007 to 2009 to 1. determine the usefulness of the data available; 2. develop a profile of cases; 3. examine local differences by comparing two areas, one with the highest suicide rate and the other with the lowest. Results The data collected revealed the lack of a systematic, standardized procedure for recording information about deaths by suicide. The rates of missing data varied, but were very high for antecedents of suicide attempts and recent events that could have precipitated the suicide. We observed differences in the characteristics of suicide cases according to area of residence. Conclusion By adopting a standardized procedure for collecting information on cases of suicide, coroners could provide local decision makers with a more accurate portrait of the people who die by suicide in their area. Local adjustments may improve suicide-prevention strategies.


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