Scott Nicholson’s scientific contributions

In this article, we examine the effect of “choice fatigue” on decision making. We exploit a natural experiment in which voters face the same contest at different ballot positions due to differences in the number of local issues on their ballot. Facing more decisions before a given contest significantly increases the tendency to abstain or rely on decision shortcuts, such as voting for the status quo or the first-listed candidate. We estimate that, without choice fatigue, abstentions would decrease by 8%, and 6% of the propositions in our data set would have passed rather than failed.

Do people …nd the pure act of decision making to be exhausting or e¤ort-consuming? If so, how does this a¤ect the behavior of voters as they proceed down a long ballot? In this paper, we answer these questions by exploiting a natural experiment in which voters face the same contest at di¤ erent points on the ballot as a result of di¤erences in the number of local issues on their ballots. We show that increasing the position of a contest on the ballot signi…cantly increases the tendency of voters to abstain or rely on decision shortcuts, such as voting for the status quo or the …rst listed candidate. For example, we estimate that if voters did not su¤er from this "choice fatigue" when voting, abstentions would decrease by 10%, and 6.25% of the 352 propositions in our dataset would have passed rather than failed.