Eric Johnson
Psychologist at Columbia Business School. First author of the 2003 Science policy forum comparing organ donation consent under opt-in and opt-out systems.
Who they are
Johnson studies how the presentation of a decision changes the decision. The 2003 piece, written with Daniel Goldstein, compared countries where citizens must opt in to organ donation against countries where they must opt out, and reported a large gap.
It is the version of the default effect that escaped academia and reached policy, journalism and the slide decks.
Key papers
Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302(5649), 1338-1339.
Key ideas
The consent default is associated with a large difference in how many people are registered donors, with opt-out countries far ahead.
The piece is a policy forum rather than a full study. The medical literature that followed is more careful about what else differs between those countries, and this site keeps those qualifications attached to the finding.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1126/science.1091721