People are aware of the impact of defaults and use them strategically

Abstract

Decades of research in judgment and decision making highlight the significant impact of defaults, in which individuals tend to accept preselected options. While some scholars argue that individuals exhibit ‘default neglect’, failing to strategically use defaults for economic or social gain, others suggest people are default aware and capable of using defaults to their advantage. To further investigate default neglect, we conducted 3 experiments in which participants acted as default setters in a decision-making ‘card game’ involving players with aligned, misaligned, unknown, or neutral interests. Across experiments, participants consistently selected high-value cards as defaults for aligned players and low-value cards for opponents. In Experiment 2, they were also willing to override preselected defaults even at a hypothetical cost when it benefited their interests. Experiment 3 revealed that participants could accurately infer which option was better based on the default-setting behavior of others, suggesting they expect others to use defaults strategically. Across all experiments, participants chose the optimal default in over 80% of trials. Together, the results challenge the idea of default neglect and suggest that individuals are attuned to and capable of leveraging defaults to influence others.