TOEFL
Academic Talk: Default options
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Let’s talk about something called the default effect.
A default is what happens if you don’t make a choice. Economists used to assume that defaults wouldn’t matter much — if people prefer another option, they’ll simply choose it.
But studies show defaults matter a lot. When companies automatically enrol new employees in a retirement savings plan, with the option to leave, participation is far higher than when employees must sign up themselves.
Why? One reason is effort: changing the default takes time. Another is that people may see the default as a recommendation.
This raises an ethical question. Designing defaults can help people, but it can also be used to steer them towards choices that benefit the designer — like subscriptions that renew automatically.
1.What is a default?
2.What did economists previously assume?
3.What example does the professor give?
4.Which reason for the default effect is mentioned?
5.What concern does the professor raise at the end?
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