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Depression Stigma
(2024)
Throughout history, people with mental illness have been discriminated against and stigmatized. Our experiment provides a new measure of perceived depression stigma and then investigates the causal effect of perceived stigma on help-seeking in a sample of 1,844 Americans suffering from depression. A large majority of our participants overestimate the extent of stigma associated with depression. In contrast to prior correlational evidence, lowering perceived social stigma through an information intervention leads to a reduction in the demand for psychotherapy. A mechanism experiment reveals that this information increases optimism about future mental health, thereby reducing the perceived need for therapy.
Does social recognition motivate prosocial individuals? We run large-scale experiments at Italy’s main blood donors association, evaluating social recognition through social media and peer groups against a simple ask to donate. Across several studies, we find that the simple ask is at least as effective as offering social recognition. In a survey experiment with blood donors we show that socially recognized donations signal not only altruism but also image-seeking. This can lead to social recognition being less effective, or even counterproductive, when offered to those who are already perceived as good citizens.
While psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in treating depression, take-up remains low. In a sample of 1843 depressed individuals, we document that effectiveness concerns are top of mind when respondents consider the value of therapy. We then show that the average respondent underestimates the effectiveness of therapy. An information treatment correcting this misperception increases participants’ incentivized willingness to pay for a $320 therapy from $166 to $176. Our evidence suggests that while information can influence therapy demand by altering beliefs and shifting attention, it may not significantly increase demand unless substantial subsidies are provided.
Laboratory evidence shows that when people have to argue for a given position, they persuade themselves about the position's factual and moral superiority. Such self-persuasion limits the potential of communication to resolve conflict and reduce polarization. We test for this phenomenon in a field setting, at international debating competitions that randomly assign experienced and motivated debaters to argue one side of a topical motion. We find self-persuasion in factual beliefs and confidence in one's position. Effect sizes are smaller than in the laboratory, but robust to a one-hour exchange of arguments and a tenfold increase in incentives for accuracy.
While psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in treating depression, take-up remains low. In a sample of 1,843 depressed individuals, we document that effectiveness concerns are top-of-mind when respondents consider the value of therapy. We then show that the average respondent underestimates the effectiveness of therapy and that an information treatment correcting this misperception increases participants’ incentivized willingness to pay for therapy. Information affects therapy demand by changing beliefs rather than by shifting attention. Our results suggest that information interventions that target the perceived effectiveness of therapy are a potent tool in combating the ongoing mental health crisis.
Social interactions predominantly take place under the shadow of the future. Previous literature explains cooperation in indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma as predominantly driven by self-interested strategic considerations. This paper provides a causal test of the importance of social preferences for cooperation, varying the composition of interactions to be either homogeneous or heterogeneous in terms of these preferences. Through a series of pre-registered experiments (N = 1,074), we show that groups of prosocial individuals achieve substantially higher levels of cooperation. The cooperation gap between prosocial and selfish groups persists even when the shadow of the future is increased to make cooperation attractive for the selfish and when common knowledge about group composition is removed.
We conduct an experiment in which U.S. Democrats and Republicans engage in naturalistic video conversations about policy-relevant facts. We investigate self-selection into politically homogeneous interactions and how these interactions affect information aggregation and affective polarization. Participants exhibit a preference against cross-partisan conversations, explained by lower expectations about their informational and hedonic value. Indeed, participants find it significantly more difficult to extract knowledge from counter-partisans and, thus, tend to learn less from them. In contrast, cross-partisan interactions prove more enjoyable than anticipated and lastingly reduce affective polarization. Overall, cross-partisan contact may better serve to reduce affective polarization than to improve information aggregation.
We use a field experiment to study how social image concerns affect a commonly used strategy to attract new donors: pledges to engage in a charitable activity. While waiting for their appointment, visitors to a local government office are offered sign-ups for blood donations in a crowded waiting room. We randomly vary the visibility of the pledge to donate and the organization for which blood donations are solicited (charitable vs. commercial). Our setting provides natural variation in who observes the pledge. We do not find that visibility increases pledges to donate. Exploring heterogeneity in treatment effects, we find that visibility increases pledges when participants are observed by friends or family. Almost all subjects renege on their pledge.
We propose a novel experiment that prevents social learning, thus allowing us to disentangle the underlying mechanisms of social influence. Subjects observe their peer’s incentives, but not their behavior. We find evidence of conformity: when individuals believe that incentives make others contribute more, they also increase their contributions. Conformity is driven by individuals who feel socially close to their peer. However, when incentives are not expected to raise their peer’s contributions, participants reduce their own contributions. Our data is consistent with an erosion of norm-adherence when prosocial behavior of the social reference is driven by extrinsic motives, and cannot be explained by incentive inequality or altruistic crowding out. These findings show scope for social influence in settings with limited observability and offer insights into the mediators of conformity.
A large share of the global workforce lacks access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. In Colombia, where labor informality is high, the government introduced the Beneficios Economicos Periodicos (BEPS) program to promote voluntary retirement savings. However, many enrollees fail to contribute regularly. We conduct a randomized controlled trial with 2,819 BEPS users, assigning them to different planning and monthly reminder treatments, where reminders are tailored in their timing. We find that personalized reminders significantly increase both the frequency and amount of savings, with individuals who recognize their forgetfulness more likely to demand reminders. Our findings highlight the role of reminders tailored to individuals’ preferred timing in sustaining engagement in voluntary savings programs.