Barnabas Szaszi
Cognitive scientist at Eotvos Lorand University. First author of the 2022 letter reporting corrected nudge effects near zero with large heterogeneity.
Who they are
Szaszi works on decision making and on research methods. With Anthony Higney, Aaron Charlton, Elizabeth Tipton and colleagues, he applied three different bias-correction methods to the same choice architecture database and compared what each produced.
Their point is quieter than the headline reanalysis and broader in its consequences.
Key papers
Szaszi, B., Higney, A., Charlton, A., Gelman, A., Ziano, I., Aczel, B., Goldstein, D. G., Yeager, D. S., & Tipton, E. (2022). No reason to expect large and consistent effects of nudge interventions. PNAS, 119(31), e2200732119.
Key ideas
Three correction methods give average effects ranging from slightly below zero to very small, alongside large variation between studies.
Their conclusion is the sentence to carry into any argument about nudges: the interventions may work under certain conditions, and the literature has barely identified what those conditions are.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1073/pnas.2200732119