Publication Date
2025
College
Jack C. Massey College of Business
Department
Economics and Finance
Student Level
Undergraduate
SPARK Category
Knowledge
Faculty Advisor
Dustin Rumbaugh
WELL Core Type
Environmental Wellness
SPARK Session
Economics
Presentation Type
Talk/Oral
Summary
Experiment Proposal: Default Donations for Urban Green Spaces
Vicky Gao and Jane Felix
Experiment Setup:
Participants are given a slip of paper outlining a hypothetical scenario in which they make a purchase with the option of donating $10 to Warner Parks, a local urban green space. The groups are split by the two sections of Professor Rumbaugh’s Principles of Microeconomics classes, and each section receives one of two prompts designated below. These prompts are designed to test default bias by examining whether respondents' donation choices change based on the pre-selected option. We will use our numerical results, specifically the percentage of students who choose to donate with both the opt-in and opt-out defaults, to determine the significance of default bias in our setup.
Group A (Opt-In Default): Suppose you just enjoyed some fresh air at Warner Parks and your previous shoes caused you unnecessary pain. You resolve to purchase a pair of athletic hiking shoes for your Warner Parks adventures. Along with your purchase, you are asked if you would like to donate to support Warner Parks.
Professor Rumbaugh will donate $10 to Warner Parks in the name of a randomly selected participant after all responses have been collected. If you would like to keep the money instead, please write “I want to keep the money” below.
______________________________________________________________
Group B (Opt-Out Default): Suppose you just enjoyed some fresh air at Warner Parks with your class and your previous shoes cause you unnecessary pain. You resolve to purchase a pair of athletic hiking shoes for your Warner Parks adventures. Along with your purchase, you are asked if you would like to donate to support Warner Parks.
One person will receive $10 in a random drawing after responses have been collected. Below, write “Donate the money” if you would like to donate the $10 to Warner Parks if you are chosen, consistent with the hypothetical.
_______________________________________________________________
Expected Outcome:
More participants in Group A (Opt-In Default) will donate compared to Group B (Opt-Out Default), because of default bias.
Concept: Default Bias
Our experiment aims to test the default bias discussed in the Nudge reading and analyze its significance in the context of influencing donations v.s. receiving monetary value. According to Thaler, default bias exists due to the human tendency to take the simplest and most accessible route. Within default bias, there is further implication of inertia’s influence on humans and the power of nudges such as the one employed in our experiment.
We are interested in expanding existing literature and experimentation on default bias in exploring its consistency in the context of donations.
Recommended Citation
Gao, Vicky J., "Default Bias: Urban Green Space Donations" (2025). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 300.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/300
