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Decisions among defaults and the effect of the option to do nothing

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  • Di Guida, Sibilla
  • Marchiori, Davide
  • Erev, Ido

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of default options on choice behavior in experience-based decisions. To this end, we designed the “radio-button” experimental paradigm, in which participants are asked to set default options that remain effective until they decide to change them, and the outcomes from active and inactive options are determined and presented to participants every two seconds. Comparison of behavior in six basic decision problems run under the “clicking” and “radio-button” experimental paradigms reveals an unexpected result. We find that, although the basic properties of decisions from experience are robust to the option to rely on self-set defaults, the introduction of defaults reduces the tendency to prefer the status quo. We dub this behavioral pattern as the “do something” effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Di Guida, Sibilla & Marchiori, Davide & Erev, Ido, 2012. "Decisions among defaults and the effect of the option to do nothing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 790-793.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:790-793
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.08.018
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Richard H. Thaler & Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman & Alan Schwartz, 1997. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 647-661.
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    3. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    4. Daniel Friedman & Ryan Oprea, 2012. "A Continuous Dilemma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 337-363, February.
    5. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 2004. "Omission bias, individual differences, and normality," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 74-85, July.
    6. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 1994. "Reference Points and Omission Bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 475-498, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sibilla Di Guida & Ido Erev & Davide Marchiori, 2014. "Cross Cultural Differences in Decisions from Experience: Evidence from Denmark, Israel and Taiwain," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-16, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Di Guida, Sibilla & Erev, Ido & Marchiori, Davide, 2015. "Cross cultural differences in decisions from experience: Evidence from Denmark, Israel, and Taiwan," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 47-58.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Default options; Rare events; Decisions from experience; Clicking paradigm; Status quo;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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