All across the United States, many households receive energy bills comparing their use to that of similar neighbors to remind them to use less energy.
All across the United States, many households receive energy bills comparing their use to that of similar neighbors to remind them to use less energy. At most companies, employees are automatically enrolled in 401(k) plans unless they choose to opt-out, helping employees easily save for retirement. Such policies aim to "nudge" people toward making better choices, both for their future selves and for others.
Nudges like these have become popular among policymakers, because they are virtually costless to implement. However, a new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon, Fordham and Harvard universities finds that these nudges have an unexplored cost: they can decrease support for policies with far greater impact.
"Although nudges can effectively change behavior, most have too small an impact to address societal problems on their own," said David Hagmann, a recent graduate of CMU's Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "It appears that many people view them as substitutes for economic policies like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme, instead of the complements they were always intended to be."
Across a series of six studies, the researchers found that support for a carbon tax declines when the potential for a green energy nudge is introduced. In the first experiment, more than 70 percent of participants supported implementation of a carbon tax when it was the only option available. However, when they could also enroll residential energy consumers into "green energy" plans by default, only 55 percent of participants favored implementing the tax.
Read more at Carnegie Mellon University
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