Whenever we make an active decision, we usually consider the options and their attributes in light of what appear to be our stable preferences. What often goes unnoticed is that all options are presented within a context – the “choice architecture” – that ranges from how the options are arranged to what scale the attributes are expressed upon to the background colour. It turns out that our preferences are not very stable and so our decisions are often influenced by this choice architecture.
In this stream of research, I have investigated how changing the choice architecture can be strategically used to nudge people toward particular – often, more sustainable – options, and why.
References:
- Camilleri, A R. (2024). Taxonomies of nudging. In S.H. Chuah, R. Hoffmann and A. Neelim (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Camilleri, A. R. & Sah, S. (2021). Amplification of the status quo bias among physicians making medical decisions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(6), 1374-1386. DOI: 10.1002/acp.3868 [Preregistration] [Data] [PDF]
- Camilleri, A. R., Cam, M., & Hoffmann, R. (2019). Nudges and signposts: The effect of smart defaults and pictographic risk information on retirement saving investment choices. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 32(4), 431-449. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.2122 [Preregistration] [PDF]
- Hoffmann, R., Cam, M., & Camilleri, A. R. (2019). Deciding to invest responsibly: Choice architecture and demographics in an incentivised retirement savings experiment. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 80, 219-230. DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2019.04.005 [PDF]
- Camilleri, A. R. & Larrick, R. P. (2019). The collective aggregation effect: Aggregating potential collective action increases prosocial behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(3), 550-569. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000563 [PDF]
- Camilleri, A. R., Larrick, R. P., Hossain, S., & Patino-Echeverri D. (2019). Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels. Nature Climate Change, 9, 53–58. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-018-0354-z [Data] [PDF]
- Ungemach, C., Camilleri, A. R., Johnson, E. J., Larrick, R. P., & Weber, E. U. (2018). Translated attributes as choice architecture: Aligning objectives and choices through decision signposts. Management Science, 64(5), 2445 – 2459. DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2016.2703 [PDF]
- Camilleri, A. R. & Larrick, R. P. (2015). Choice architecture. In R. Scott & S. Kosslyn (Eds.), Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. DOI: 10.1002/9781118900772 [PDF]
- Camilleri, A. R. & Larrick, R. P. (2014). Metric and scale design as choice architecture tools. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 33(1), 108-125. DOI: 10.1509/jppm.12.151. [PDF]