Nudging is Ineffective When Attitudes Are Unsupportive: An Example from a Natural Field Experiment

For security reasons, employees of a Dutch local government department needed to wear an identifying lanyard with their employee badge, but compliance with this policy was low. Two nudges to increase compliance were evaluated in a pre-registered natural field experiment using a pre-post design, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBasic and applied social psychology Vol. 43; no. 4; pp. 213 - 225
Main Authors Dewies, Malte, Schop-Etman, Astrid, Rohde, Kirsten I. M., Denktaş, Semiha
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Mahwah Routledge 04.07.2021
Psychology Press
Subjects
Attitudes
Bayesian analysis
Compliance
Employees
Government agencies
Local government
Policy making
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Summary:For security reasons, employees of a Dutch local government department needed to wear an identifying lanyard with their employee badge, but compliance with this policy was low. Two nudges to increase compliance were evaluated in a pre-registered natural field experiment using a pre-post design, and a qualitative survey. Bayesian inference provides insufficient support for the effectiveness of the nudges. While more respondents judged the nudges and the lanyard policy positively than negatively, there was substantial negative judgment and incomprehension for both with some employees finding the nudges paternalistic. We hypothesize that the nudges were ineffective because they failed to change attitudes about the policy, and because they led to reactance among some employees. Implications for nudging within organizations are discussed.
ISSN:0197-3533
1532-4834
DOI:10.1080/01973533.2021.1917412