Unintended consequences of nudges: Challenges in improving attitudes towards shared e-scooters

IF 1.4 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2025-09-17 DOI:10.1016/j.socec.2025.102437

Neel Ocean, Roger Woodman

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

As part of a push towards sustainable transportation, there have been several rental e-scooter trials in UK cities. However, vandalism and mistreatment have plagued these schemes, and the adoption of e-scooters remains low. We test the effectiveness of nudges designed to improve attitudes towards shared e-scooters, as well as increase uptake. These are based on three main mechanisms: ownership, social norm messaging, and social status signalling. Using randomised survey experiments, we find that our main ownership and social status nudges are not only ineffective, they worsen attitudes towards shared e-scooters and reduce intended uptake. Injunctive norm messaging did not have any significant impact on stated adoption or willingness to report misuse. Our results highlight the potential consequences of nudges that backfire. We recommend carefully testing proposed nudges within the intended context before implementation, even if they have been successful in a different context, in order to avoid negative consequences.

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轻推的意外后果：改善对共享电动滑板车态度的挑战

作为推动可持续交通的一部分，英国城市已经进行了几次租赁电动滑板车试验。然而，破坏和虐待行为一直困扰着这些计划，电动滑板车的使用率仍然很低。我们测试了旨在改善对共享电动滑板车的态度以及增加吸收率的推动的有效性。这些基于三种主要机制：所有权、社会规范信息和社会地位信号。通过随机调查实验，我们发现我们的主要所有权和社会地位的推动不仅是无效的，他们恶化了对共享电动滑板车的态度，减少了预期的吸收。禁令规范消息传递对声明的采用或报告滥用的意愿没有任何重大影响。我们的研究结果强调了轻推适得其反的潜在后果。我们建议在实施之前在预期的环境中仔细测试提议的推动，即使它们在不同的环境中取得了成功，以避免负面后果。

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来源期刊

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

113

审稿时长

83 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.