Person: Rogers, Todd
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Rogers
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Rogers, Todd
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Publication Partisan Nudge Bias: How Politics Distort Preferences for Behavioral Policy Interventions(2017) Tannenbaum, David; Fox, Craig; Rogers, ToddPublication Creating birds of similar feathers: Leveraging similarity to improve teacher-student relationships and academic achievement(American Psychological Association, 2015) Gehlbach, Hunter; Brinkworth, Maureen Elizabeth; King, Aaron; Hsu, Laura; McIntyre, Joe; Rogers, ToddWhen people perceive themselves as similar to others, greater liking and closer relationships typically result. In the first randomized field experiment that leverages actual similarities to improve real-world relationships, we examined the affiliations between 315 ninth grade students and their 25 teachers. Students in the treatment condition received feedback on five similarities that they shared with their teachers; each teacher received parallel feedback regarding about half of his/her ninth grade students. Five weeks after our intervention, those in the treatment conditions perceived greater similarity with their counterparts. Furthermore, when teachers received feedback about their similarities with specific students, they perceived better relationships with those students, and those students earned higher course grades. Exploratory analyses suggest that these effects are concentrated within relationships between teachers and their “underserved” students. This brief intervention appears to close the achievement gap at this school by over 60%.Publication How Long Do Treatment Effects Last? Persistence and Durability of a Descriptive Norms Intervention's Effect on Energy Conservation(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012) Allcott, Hunt; Rogers, ToddBehavioral decision research has profoundly changed our understanding of decision-making. Recent research has begun to explore how behavioral insights can influence behavior in the world, at scale. This work often involves field experiments studying outcomes over short time windows. We study a descriptive social norms intervention's impact on household energy usage continuously over 39 to 49 months. Our two field experiments (N=155,000 households) each have three conditions: untreated control, continued treatment, and treatment that is subsequently discontinued. We find that continued treatment reduces energy usage over the entire period (“durability”). Further, after treatment is discontinued, a sizable energy use reduction persists (“persistence”). Finally, continued treatment generates a greater impact over time than discontinued treatment, showing that continued treatment exerts incremental influence on behavior over and above persistence. We discuss implications, describe how long-term persistence can occur, and argue that future behavioral decision research should address long-term effects of interventions.Publication Are Ballot Initiative Outcomes Influenced by the Campaigns of Independent Groups? A Precinct-Randomized Field Experiment(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012) Rogers, Todd; Middleton, Joel A.Ballot initiatives are consequential and common, with total spending on initiative campaigns in the US rivaling that of Presidential campaigns. Observational studies using regression approaches on observational data have alternately found that initiative campaign spending cannot affect initiative outcomes, can increase the number of votes rejecting (but not approving) initiatives, or can affect outcomes in either direction. We report the first well-powered precinct randomized field experiment to evaluate an initiative advocacy campaign. We find that campaigns can influence both rejection and approval of initiatives by changing how citizens vote, as opposed to by influencing turnout or ballot completion. Our experiment (involving around 18% of Oregon households in 2008) studied a statewide mail program conducted by a Political Action Committee. Results further suggest that two initiatives would have passed if not for the advocacy campaign to reject them. We discuss implications for theories about direct democracy, campaign finance, and campaign effects.Publication What Does “Intending to Vote” Mean?(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012) Rogers, ToddHow accurate are responses to questions about intentions to vote in an upcoming election? Questions of this type are studied in a range of work in political science to understand the effects of other factors on political engagement, as well as in public opinion research. We analyze six phone surveys conducted over two elections which include pre-election vote intention and postelection vote validation (N=24,303). As expected, many who report intending to vote actually do not vote (13% and 54% for the two elections). More surprisingly, high rates people who predicted they would not vote actually do vote (56% and 39%). For both forms of inaccurate self-prediction, respondents were much more accurate when predicting that they would behave consistently with their past behavior than when predicting that they would behave inconsistently with their past behavior. We discuss implications for political science research, behavioral prediction, election administration, and public opinion.Publication Text Messages as Mobilization Tools: The Conditional Effect of Habitual Voting and Election Salience(Sage, 2011) Malhotra, Neil; Michelson, Melissa R.; Rogers, Todd; Valenzuela, Ali AdamDale and Strauss’s (DS) noticeable reminder theory (NRT) of voter mobilization posits that mobilization efforts that are highly noticeable and salient to potential voters, even if impersonal, can be successful. In an innovative experimental design, DS show that text messages substantially boost turnout, challenging previous claims that social connectedness is the key to increasing participation. We replicate DS’s research design and extend it in two key ways. First, whereas the treatment in DS’s experiment was a “warm” text message combined with contact, we test NRT more cleanly by examining the effect of “cold” text messages that are completely devoid of auxiliary interaction. Second, we test an implication of NRT that habitual voters should exhibit the largest treatment effects in lower salience elections whereas casual voters should exhibit the largest treatment effects in higher salience elections. Via these two extensions, we find support for NRT.Publication Motivating Voter Turnout by Invoking the Self(National Academy of Sciences, 2011) Rogers, ToddThree randomized experiments found that subtle linguistic cues have the power to increase voting and related behavior. The phrasing of survey items was varied to frame voting either as the enactment of a personal identity (e.g., “being a voter”) or as simply a behavior (e.g., “voting”). As predicted, the personal-identity phrasing significantly increased interest in registering to vote (experiment 1) and, in two statewide elections in the United States, voter turnout as assessed by official state records (experiments 2 and 3). These results provide evidence that people are continually managing their self-concepts, seeking to assume or affirm valued personal identities. The results further demonstrate how this process can be channeled to motivate important socially relevant behavior.Publication Why Bother Asking? The Limited Value of Self-Reported Vote Intention(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2012) Rogers, ToddHow accurate are people when predicting whether they will vote? These self-predictions are used by political scientists to proxy for political motivation, and by public opinion researcher to predict election outcomes. Phone surveys from three elections, including one survey experiment, are analyzed to compare respondents’ pre-election vote intention with their actual voting behavior using administrative records (N=29,403). Unsurprisingly, many who predict that they will vote actually do not vote. More surprisingly, many who predict that they will not vote actually do vote (29% to 56%). Records of past voting behavior predicts turnout substantially better than self-prediction. Self-prediction inaccuracy is not caused by lack of cognitive salience of past voting, or by inability to recall past voting. Moreover, self-reported recall of turnout in one past election predicts future turnout just as well as self-prediction. We discuss implications for political science research, behavioral prediction, election administration policy, and public opinion.Publication Procedural Justice and the Risks of Consumer Voting(Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 2019-11) Kim, Tami; John, Leslie; Rogers, Todd; Norton, MichaelFirms are increasingly giving consumers the vote. Eight studies demonstrate that when firms empower consumers to vote, consumers infer a series of implicit promises—even in the absence of explicit promises. We identify three implicit promises to which consumers react negatively when violated: representation (Experiments 1A–1C); consistency (Experiment 2), and non-suppression (Experiment 3). However, when firms honor these implicit promises, voting can mitigate the disappointment that arises from receiving an undesired outcome (Experiment 4). Finally, Experiment 5 identifies one instance when suppressing the vote outcome is condoned: when voters believe that the process of voting has resulted in an unacceptable outcome. More generally, we show that procedural justice plays a key mediating role in determining the relative success or failure of various empowerment initiatives—from soliciting feedback to voting. Taken together, we offer insight into how firms can realize the benefits of empowerment strategies while mitigating their risks.