SL reminders/notification Flashcards
What is a reminder/notification nudge?
Reminder: a thing that causes
someone to remember
something they already knew,
but maybe forgot.
Notification: the action
of notifying someone or
something of something they
might not yet know.
Where do you find it in the refine matrix?
Under encourage.
What biases does reminders address to change behavior?
Under encourage is the main biase groups, reference dependent preferences, overconfidence, other regarding preferences and bounded self control.
Under each group lays biases:
Reference dependent preferences
- Status quo bias
- loss aversion
Bounded self-control
- procastination and temptation
- addiction
Biased reasoning
- motivational bias
Potential problem with reminders/notifications
Notifications competes about attention (Limited cognitive ability - limited attention bias) –> information overload –> removes attention from other matter or annoyance leads to reregistration of notifications.
A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients
to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor’s appointment, by Milkman, Katherine L., et al. (2021)
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Read figure 10 and explain the results.
Question a)
Research question:
What is the effect on people taking the influenza vaccine by using a large filed experiment testing 19 nudges delivered to patient via text message? Furthermore what are the effect of the individual nudges?
Design:
- A megastudy of text-based nudges
encouraging patients to get vaccinated
at an upcoming doctor’s appointment. - 19 different nudges delivered to patients via text message
Question b)
Main findings:
1. Findings suggest that text messages can boost vaccination rates
by an average of 5%. (Low-cost nudge)
2. Interventions performed better when they were framed as
reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the
patient. (top ones)
3. Interventions performed better when they were congruent with
the sort of communications patients expected to receive from
their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or
interactive
Behavioral nudges reduce failure to appear for court (Fishbane, A., Ouss, A., and Shah A.K., 2020)
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Explain the results.
Question a)
Research question:
The study explores if behavioral nudges reduce failure to appear for court?
- Study how quickly people could identify and remember information
- Study beliefs on (criminal justice) from experts’ and non-experts’ whether failure to
appear in court were intentional or simple human error
Is it in fact a human error that keeps people from attending even though they know there is a penalty.
Design:
- They compare appearance numbers with the original summons form and 2 interventions
- Laboratory experiment
Control: the original form paper
intervention 1: They move up the important information about meeting time (implementation incentive) from the bottom to the top of the paper, so people could indetify court information faster and remember it more accurately with the interventions.
Intervention 2: They do the same as intervention 1 + sending a text message on the day, noticing the participant the time and that he will avoid an arrest warrant if he shows up.
Question b)
Restults of how quickly people could identify and remember information
Intervention 1 decrease failure to appear rates with 6,2 percentage point relative to the control regular form.
Which lead to 23.000 warrants avoided.
Intervention 2 further decrease failure to appear rates with 8 percentage points.
Which lead to 7.800 warrants avoided.
Experts are more likely to believe that failure to appear are human errors, which can be corrected by making it more clear and giving reminders.
This study supports the explanation of human error on failure to appear in court
* This study also finds that implementing nudges may help reduce failure to
appear rates more than implementing punitive sanctions
* But implementing these nudges are difficult because the majority (non-
experts) believe its intentional and wants punishment rather than helpful nudges.
Paolina C. Medina (2021) - Side Effects of Nudging: Evidence
from a Randomized Intervention in the Credit Card Market
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Explain the results, what are the postive and negative effects of reminders. What have we learnt?
Question A)
Research question:
- Primary: Does credit card bill reminders reduce late credit card payment fees?
- Secondary: Does credit card bill reminders impact overdraft fees in checking accounts?
What is a credit card?
* An account with a pre-approved amount of money that you can spend, provided your
account is in good standing, up to a predetermined limit. ( standardbank.co.za )
* It’s your responsibility to avoid using an overdraft.
* Spending too much will lead to overdraft which results in an overdraft fee.
Design:
Data from a Brazilian account management app
* Information on time of transaction, overdraft, login among other
Ca. 26,000 people.
A period of 5 billing cycles:
* Two billing cycles before the intervention (baseline)
* Two billing cycles during the intervention
* One additional billing cycle after the last intervention
She establishes 4 groups:
Treatment group 1: Receives 2 messages within 9-3 days before due date
* Uncover effect from receiving fewer reminders closer to the bill due date.
“Your credit card due date is approaching. Pay today and avoid late- payment fees (R$40
on average)! Ignore if you already paid”
Treatment group 2: Receives 3 messages within 27-13 days before due date
* Uncover effect from receiving more reminders and having more time to plan finances.
“Start planning for your next credit card payment today. Set some money aside and
avoid late- payment fees (R$40 on average)”
Attention group: Receives messages without direct credit card bill information
(except for first billing week)
* Uncover effect from receiving message without credit card information → disentangle effect from
just being inattentive and actually being reminded.
“Your finances want your attention. Log in now!”
Control group: Receives no messages
Question b)
Positive effect:
* Reminders reduced credit card late-payment fees by 14% → net saving of 15% due to
the reminders.
* More frequent and earlier reminders had larger effect than reminders closer to the
payment due date. I.e. more time to plan finances → more likely to pay upcoming
credit card bill
* Non credit card specific reminders only led to more log-ins → inattention was not the
issue
Negative effect:
* History of overdraft use: 9% increase in account overdrafts.
* Net increase of 5% in total fees due to the reminders.
* They basically cover the bill by using an overdraft.
Psychology of the overdraft-group
Reminders caused the overdraft group to act as if the credit card bill was
almost 2 times as important as overdraft fees. Why?
* Salience: credit card reminders → people weigh credit card bill more
* Misinterpret nudge as direct financial advice from the app.
* Incorrect expectations about liquidity needs.
* Fear of low credit score from not paying credit card bill
We have learned that:
* A subgroup within the target audience might respond differently to the
reminder in ways that leads to the sub-group to have net negative
outcomes.
* We should consider if a sub-group with different characteristics exists in
our target audience.
* It is crucial to consider potential different responses when implementing
reminders (or any other form of nudging).
Give some examples of daily life reminders/notification.
Reminder to go to the doctor.
Health app, tracking step and making you reach your own goal. But has it downsides, where people got stressed and felt bad for not being active enough.
Track hydration, reminder to drink. positive helping you to drink the amount of water that fits you. But do you respond with action? Can be annoying!
Insta reals, excessive scrolling, loss track of time. Reminder that tell your daily limit is reached. Do you then put your phone away?
Duolingo, pushing a lot of notifications for daily lessons and keeping streak. But for me has the opposite effect, that I get annoyed by the amount of apps.
Tips for implementation
Overall
* Reminders can be an effective way to nudge people’s behaviour
* Reminders are typically cost effective if implemented correctly
Tips for implementation:
* Consider if a sub-group with different characteristics exists in our target audience
* There are risk of unwanted side effects from using reminder so one should be very
cautious when implementing
* Don’t make the rate of reminders too high.
* Formulate the reminder to be simple and clear
* Think of the timing of the reminder
