Do people like financial nudges?

Abstract

Abstract Do people like financial nudges? To answer that question we conducted a pre-registered survey presenting people with 36 hypothetical scenarios describing financial interventions. We varied levels of transparency (i.e., explaining how the interventions worked), framing (interventions framed in terms of spending, or saving), and ‘System’ (interventions could target either System 1 or System 2). Participants were a random sample of 2,100 people drawn from a representative Australian population. All financial interventions were tested across six dependent variables: approval, benefit, ethics, manipulation, the likelihood of use, as well as the likelihood of use if the intervention were to be proposed by a bank. Results indicate that people generally approve of financial interventions, rating them as neutral to positive across all dependent variables (except for manipulation, which was reverse coded). We find effects of framing and System. People have strong and significant preferences for System 2 interventions, and interventions framed in terms of savings. Transparency was not found to have a significant impact on how people rate financial interventions. Financial interventions continue to be rated positive, regardless of the messenger. Looking at demographics, we find that participants who were female, younger, living in metro areas and earning higher incomes were most likely to favor financial interventions, and this effect is especially strong for those aged under 45. We discuss the implications for these results as applied to the financial sector.

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