Psychological ownership interventions increase interest in claiming government benefits

Rosa, Wendy De La; Sharma, Eesha; Tully, Stephanie; Giannella, Eric; Rino, Gwen

doi:10.1073/pnas.2106357118

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Notably, these factors can range from simple physical interactions with an object to more complex psychological experiences. Researchers have also examined the consequences of ownership such that ownership, or beliefs of ownership, increase valuations of what is deemed to be owned (e.g., Thaler, 1980), positively influence stewardship over what is deemed to be owned (e.g., Peck, Kirk, Luangrath, & Shu, 2021;Preston & Gelman, 2020), and increase interest in obtaining and using resources with higher perceptions of ownership (e.g., De La Rosa, Sharma, Tully, Giannella, & Rino, 2021;Sharma, Tully, & Cryder, 2021). Missing from the current knowledge are factors that lead to disagreements in ownership perceptions, and the consequences of those disagreements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Boyer

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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Ownership is universal and ubiquitous in human societies, yet the psychology underpinning ownership intuitions is generally not described in a coherent and computationally tractable manner. Ownership intuitions are commonly assumed to derive from culturally transmitted social norms, or from a mentally represented implicit theory. While the social norms account is entirely ad hoc, the mental theory requires prior assumptions about possession and ownership that must be explained. Here I propose such an explanation, arguing that the intuitions result from the interaction of two cognitive systems. One of these handles competitive interactions for the possession of resources observed in many species including humans. The other handles mutually beneficial cooperation between agents, as observed in communal sharing, collective action and trade. Together, these systems attend to specific cues in the environment, and produce definite intuitions such as “this is hers”, “that is not mine”. This computational model provides an explanation for ownership intuitions, not just in straightforward cases of property, but also in disputed ownership (squatters, indigenous rights), historical changes (abolition of slavery), as well as apparently marginal cases, such as the questions, whether people own their seats on the bus, or their places in a queue, and how people understand “cultural appropriation” and slavery. In contrast to some previous theories, the model is empirically testable and free of ad hoc stipulations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Boyer

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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“…For example, roughly 20% of eligible individuals do not claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), one of the largest poverty alleviation programs in the United States ( 13 ). Researchers and policymakers have focused on increasing interest in claiming the EITC by raising awareness, highlighting a sense of urgency, or increasing the psychological ownership of these benefits ( 14 , 15 ). Given that the EITC is currently described in annual terms, our work suggests an additional path to help increase take-up.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating amounts in terms of commonly used budgeting periods increases intentions to claim government benefits

Rosa

Sussman

Giannella

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Millions of eligible families did not claim their 2021 expanded child tax credit (CTC), collectively forgoing billions of dollars. To address this problem, many policymakers focused on increasing awareness of the CTC by highlighting that families could receive up to $3,600 a year per child. However, people rarely budget on a yearly basis. We propose that communicating the CTC benefit amount in terms of commonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $300 a month) instead of uncommonly used budgeting periods (e.g., $3,600 a year) could increase interest in claiming the CTC. Two large-scale field experiments ( n = 16 , 696 ) among low-income individuals support this account. Using common (vs. uncommon) budgeting periods to describe CTC benefit amounts increased CTC claiming intentions by 16 to 26%. A third large-scale field experiment ( n = 14 , 178 ) demonstrated that encouraging people to consider different budgeting periods moderated these effects. These results suggest that communicating amounts in terms of common budgeting periods is a simple, cost-effective way to stimulate interest in claiming government benefits.

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“…We also hypothesize that we could facilitate adoption by framing it as if it were the default response, without actually changing what happens if no choice is made. At least two contemporaneous papers have examined nudges that manipulate perceived ownership (of government benefits and vaccine doses, respectively) without changing the de facto default, showing that these nudges can influence decisions (De La Rosa et al 2021; Milkman et al 2021). Our “defaultless defaults” manipulation was distinct from standard defaults and from these perceived ownership manipulations.…”

Section: Mobile App Adoptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nudging App Adoption: Choice Architecture Facilitates Consumer Uptake of Mobile Apps

Reeck¹,

Posner²,

Mrkva³

et al. 2023

Journal of Marketing

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How can firms encourage consumers to adopt smartphone apps? The authors show that several inexpensive choice architecture techniques can make users more likely to enable important app features and complete app onboarding. Across six pre-registered experiments (n=5,968) and a field experiment (n=594,997), choice architecture interventions manipulating choice sequence, color, and wording of app adoption decisions dramatically increased app adoption. Across experiments, integrating multiple feature decisions into a single choice increased adoption. This integration effect emerges because it decreases decision noise and reduces the prominence of individual features, consistent with support theory. Changing colors to match habitual patterns commonly found in current digital interfaces appears to increase adoption by accelerating consumers’ decisions. Finally, wording options as if enabling the app was the default response (even without changing the actual default) also increases adoption. These defaultless defaults may be particularly relevant in heavily regulated consumer domains, such as finance or healthcare. The effects generalized across different types of apps and were robust across subsamples varying in demographics, attitudes towards the apps, and political affiliation. These results suggest simple tools that marketing managers and app developers can use to increase app adoption.

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Psychological ownership interventions increase interest in claiming government benefits

Cited by 18 publications

References 20 publications

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Communicating amounts in terms of commonly used budgeting periods increases intentions to claim government benefits

Nudging App Adoption: Choice Architecture Facilitates Consumer Uptake of Mobile Apps

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