The Dark Side of Nudges

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk658

Keywords:

Behavioral intervention, nudges, salience, cognitive load, traffic safety

Abstract

Among other methods, governments use highway message signs to encourage responsible driving. We find that displaying year-to-day roadside fatality counts leads to an immediate increase in traffic crashes. We argue that the statistics distract drivers at precisely the moments when they should focus on the road.

Author Biographies

  • Joshua Madsen, University of Minnesota

    Assistant Professor of Accounting

  • Jonathan Hall, University of Toronto

    Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy

Original article reference

Hall, J. D., Madsen, J. M. (2022). Can behavioral interventions be too salient? Evidence from traffic safety messages. Science, 376(6591). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm3427

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Published

2022-09-30

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 3 (2022)

Section

Psychology

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Joshua Madsen, Jonathan Hall

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.