Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Saving for retirement is a difficult task and individuals need to overcome many hurdles to succeed in it. When governments and companies try to help individuals, they will need to engage in choice...Show moreSaving for retirement is a difficult task and individuals need to overcome many hurdles to succeed in it. When governments and companies try to help individuals, they will need to engage in choice architecture, which means that they will exert some influence on the individuals’ decisions. Therefore, they might be held responsible for the outcomes of the individuals’ savings decisions. Evidence from two online experiments on Prolific (N = 1142) indicates that choice architecture which does not reach the desired outcome can result in a loss of trustworthiness. Further, this loss of trustworthiness depended on the exact choice architecture used. When the choice architecture did not reach the desired outcome, an individual who was presented with a suggestion perceived the trustworthiness of the CA as lower than an individual who was presented a simple free choice. Interestingly, using defaults seems to have no adverse impacts on perceived trustworthiness when the desired outcome was not reached. Finally, we discuss implications for policy and research.Show less
