Pre-checked Boxes Make People Spend More, But These ‘Dark Defaults’ Risk Jeopardizing Consumer Trust

Adapted from “Dark defaults: How choice architecture steers political campaign donations” by Nathaniel Posner from Columbia Business School, Andrey Simonov from Columbia Business School and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Kellen Mrkva from Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, and Eric J. Johnson from Columbia Business School.

Key Takeaways:

• There is evidence that default settings have the potential to deceive customers or political donors. During the 2020 election cycle, political fundraising websites that added pre-checked boxes converting each donation to a recurring weekly contribution raised $43 million. However, many weekly donors asked for refunds, suggesting they were unaware they had agreed to make repeated donations.
• Politicians and business owners can use pre-checked boxes to get users to buy or donate more, but changing default settings has the potential to impact people’s trust in their campaign or brand in the long run.
• On the consumer side, internet users must be mindful of default settings and pre-checked boxes when they make donations or purchases.

Why the research was done: Lawmakers in many countries, including the United States, have considered or enacted bans on pre-checked consent when it can be perceived as deceptive or harmful. When presenting choices to users online, companies may offer default settings — or preselected options — like shipping speed, a retirement savings contribution amount, or the choice to be an organ donor. These pre-checked boxes can nudge people toward making a certain selection. 

“There are two ways you can think about default effects influencing consumers,” says co-author Andrey Simonov, the Gary Winnick and Martin Granoff Associate Professor of Business at CBS. “First, it's easier for consumers because it's presented to them. They don't need to make a choice; they just click and it's already there. And second, consumers might not notice and then later on regret these choices they've made.”

In this new study, the researchers looked at the fiscal impact of pre-checked boxes for recurring donations on political campaign fundraising during the U.S. 2020 election. They also examined whether pre-checking a box can cause a user to mistakenly make a decision they later regret, thereby potentially eroding trust in the group that implemented the default setting.

How it was done: The researchers used data from political fundraising platforms, which are required by law to make their data available online through the Federal Election Commission. In the 2020 election cycle, Democrats raised $4.3 billion via online fundraising conduit ActBlue, while Republicans raised $2.2 billion on competing platform WinRed. As the election drew nearer, several Republican campaigns changed their donation pages to include pre-checked boxes for recurring weekly donations. Using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, which creates an archive of the internet that shows previous iterations of websites, the researchers were able to determine the approximate timing of the website updates. Using that data, they ran statistical models to analyze how changing default settings impacted the amount of money raised by campaigns.

What the researchers found: In their analysis, the researchers discovered that pre-checked boxes for recurring weekly donations boosted contributions by $43 million, or around 11 percent of the campaigns’ totals. “[That] is quite a lot of money with this small tweak to the website,” Simonov says. At the same time, those default settings contributed to donors requesting an additional $3 million in refunds, with the majority of requests coming from weekly donors. “At least some percent of people made a mistake,” says Simonov.

Why it matters: Companies and campaigns should weigh the benefit of increased payments against the possibility of damaging their reputation. “You can raise a lot of money by [setting] defaults on the website, but it's good to stop for a second and ask, ‘Is it because it's actually better for your consumers to do this, or is it something your consumers might regret later on?’” Simonov says.

The study’s results also have implications for the regulation of default settings for political donation platforms. If candidates use pre-checked boxes to fundraise in the 2024 election, Simonov predicts it will reignite discussion among policymakers about options to regulate the practice. “Politics is a pretty unique setting because the job of politicians is to earn the trust of voters,” Simonov says. “And not regulating these checkboxes in some way can reduce trust.”

Read more about dark defaults and political donations.