This research demonstrates how promoting the environment can negatively affect adoption of energy efficiency in the United States because of the political polarization surrounding environmental issues. Study 1 demonstrated that more politically conservative individuals were less in favor of investment in energyefficient technology than were those who were more politically liberal. This finding was driven primarily by the lessened psychological value that more conservative individuals placed on reducing carbon emissions. Study 2 showed that this difference has consequences: In a real-choice context, more conservative individuals were less likely to purchase a more expensive energy-efficient light bulb when it was labeled with an environmental message than when it was unlabeled. These results highlight the importance of taking into account psychological value-based considerations in the individual adoption of energy-efficient technology in the United States and beyond.C limate change presents a major challenge to our current level of energy consumption. Much attention has been given to the development of energy-efficient technology as a way of addressing the problem of global warming and reducing the cost of energy use for consumers, but the demand for energy efficiency has not met expectations (1, 2). There are a number of potential roadblocks to the adoption of energy-efficient technology. People do not know the cost and energy savings associated with different technologies (3-5), and climate change is not viewed as an immediate threat requiring action now (6, 7). In addition, people tend to have short time horizons and discount the future hyperbolically, so that the upfront costs of switching to a new technology, even when it results in long-term net savings, can deter investment in more expensive energy-efficient products (8).Given these issues, one strategy for making energy-efficient technology attractive to consumers has been to focus on its environmental benefits (9). For example, a 2010 North American advertising campaign for the Toyota Prius (arguably the bestknown hybrid car) emphasized its environmental upside by telling viewers that "the world gets fewer smog-forming emissions" with a Prius, resulting in "harmony between man, nature, and machine." Similarly, the ENERGY STAR website (jointly run by the United States Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency) promotes energy-efficient products as providing ways for people to "save energy and fight climate change." Because these messages explicitly emphasize environmental benefits, they likely resonate well with individuals who value protecting the environment. However, this emphasis on the environment might detract from the appeal of energy efficiency among individuals who do not want to be associated with environmental concern.This research investigated whether relying on environmental concern to promote energy-efficient technology may, in fact, present an additional roadblock to increasing demand by deterring otherwise interested co...

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor’s appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.

We present results from a large (n = 3,016) field experiment at a global organization testing whether a brief science-based online diversity training can change attitudes and behaviors toward women in the workplace. Our preregistered field experiment included an active placebo control and measured participants’ attitudes and real workplace decisions up to 20 weeks postintervention. Among groups whose average untreated attitudes—whereas still supportive of women—were relatively less supportive of women than other groups, our diversity training successfully produced attitude change but not behavior change. On the other hand, our diversity training successfully generated some behavior change among groups whose average untreated attitudes were already strongly supportive of women before training. This paper extends our knowledge about the pathways to attitude and behavior change in the context of bias reduction. However, the results suggest that the one-off diversity trainings that are commonplace in organizations are unlikely to be stand-alone solutions for promoting equality in the workplace, particularly given their limited efficacy among those groups whose behaviors policymakers are most eager to influence.

Two studies investigated people's perceptions of the acceptability of restorative justice procedures for handling crimes that differ in severity. Results from Study 1 supported our hypothesis that as crimes increase in seriousness, people require a restorative justice procedure that also has a possible retributive component (i.e. a prison sentence). Study 1 also demonstrated that individuals assigned lower prison sentences for offenders who successfully completed a restorative procedure as compared to a traditional court procedure. The results from Study 2 replicated those from Study 1, as well as demonstrating that offenders who failed to successfully complete the restorative procedure received no reduction in prison sentence. These findings suggest that in order for citizens to view a restorative justice procedure as an acceptable alternative to the traditional court system for serious crimes, the procedure must allow for the option of some retributive measures.

We investigated the hypothesis that people's need for punishment does not preclude a desire for restorative sanctions that address the repairing of the harm to victims and communities caused by wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that although people felt it was important to punish the offender to achieve justice, they viewed additional justice goals as equally necessary. Study 2 revealed that people viewed sanctions as differentially able to fulfill various justice goals. Study 3 showed that the target on which respondents focused—the offender, victim, or community—determined which sanctions they selected to achieve justice; and that people did tend, by default, to focus on punishing the offender when responding to crime. These findings, taken together, suggest that people view the satisfaction of multiple justice goals as an appropriate and just response to wrongdoing, which allows for a possible reconciliation between the “conflicting” goals of restorative and retributive justice.