Nudging Decision Making in Sacred Domains
Namrata Goyal (ESADE Business School Department of People Management and Organization, Barcelona)
People go to great lengths to protect values they deem sacred, even when abiding by them comes at large personal costs. For example, even in dire circumstances such as the coronavirus pandemic, many individuals refused getting vaccinated to protect their values of “personal freedom”. Can we nudge individuals to (temporarily) forego their sacred preferences for the greater good? In three studies, we show that consensus cues can influence decision making in taboo domains such as abortion (Study 1; N = 400), the death penalty (Study 2; N = 400) and vaccination-resistance (Study 3; N = 400). We find that people are willing to forego sacred preferences when there is ingroup consensus to do the same. Together, our studies highlight the importance of ingroup attitudes in shaping sacred values.
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