By Harold
Denmark and the Netherlands are so similar that most people in America assume they’re the same country. So why is the organ donation rate in the Netherlands 28 percent, while in Denmark it’s 98 percent?
In the Netherlands, like in the U.S., organ donation is “opt-in” — you have to check a box if you want your organs donated. In Denmark, it’s “opt-out” — you have to check a box if you don’t want your organs donated.
So while in each case the person has a simple choice, and all you have to do is check a box, the result is almost entirely determined by the default option. That was part of the message delivered last week by Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke’s business school who gave a lecture at UNC’s Gillings School of Public Health.
Behavior toward the default option has an impact in public health. In hospitals the default option is to leave a catheter in each day until a doctor orders it taken out. But if you make it so that each day a doctor has to order the catheter to be kept in, catheters are used only half as long, which saves money and cuts down on the risk of infection in patients.
Ariely gave a bunch of other examples that basically show that the decisions we make are based on how the questions are presented. It’s hard to think of myself as being so easily influenced by my environment, but since it’s happens whether I like it or not, I was glad that Ariely at least made me aware of it.
Laura
Harold
