Decision Making
Default Options Task
Also called: default effect task, default bias, opt-in versus opt-out, status quo bias, choice architecture, preselected options
Measure the default effect: participants make everyday choices about invented plans, settings and offers in points, with the yes option preselected, the no option preselected or nothing preselected, mixed in each session or set by your study.
3-5 minUntimed
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 171
- Evidence grade
- D
- Registered clinical studies
- 0
What it measures
Measures the default effect. Participants make 12 everyday choices about invented plans, settings and offers, priced in points. One option is already selected on some choices and none on others. The main score is how much more often people choose an option when it is preselected.
Constructs
- Default effect
- Status quo bias
- Choice architecture
- Decision inertia
Research uses
- Behavioral economics and nudge research
- Judgment and decision-making research
- Consumer and policy research
- Comparison of conditions within a study
How the paradigm works
The default options task measures the default effect: people choose an option more often when it is already selected for them (Johnson and Goldstein, 2003). Participants make 12 everyday choices written for this task about invented plans, settings and offers, with prices in points. They cover a savings plan, giving points to a tree fund, a wind and solar electricity plan, a repair plan for a kettle, a refund option on a train ticket, automatic renewal of a club membership, a shop's newsletter, automatic program updates, practice reminders, photo backup, saving visited places in a map app and sharing how an app is used. Each choice has a yes option (join, add, turn on or give) and a no option. In the standard mixed setting, the yes option is preselected on 4 choices (opt-out), the no option on 4 (opt-in) and neither on 4 (no default, an active choice). Which choices take which condition, the order of the choices and the order of the two options are drawn from the session's seed, so across sessions each choice appears in each condition equally often. Changing a preselected option takes one tap, as in Johnson and Goldstein's online experiment. Settings give every choice in a session the same condition, for between-group designs, or draw one condition for each session. A check question first confirms that a preselected option can be changed. There is no time limit.
More about the paradigm
The main score is the default effect: the share of yes answers when yes was preselected minus the share when no was preselected, from -1 to 1, the contrast the meta-analysis of Jachimowicz, Duncan, Weber and Johnson (2019) used. Across 58 studies with 73,675 participants it estimated an average effect of d = 0.68 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.83), larger for consumer choices and where a default reads as a recommendation or as the current state of things. In Johnson and Goldstein's online experiment, 161 respondents chose whether to be organ donors; agreement was about twice as high when it was the default as when it was not, and with no default it did not differ from the opt-out condition. The no-default rate shows how people choose without a preselected option, and the share of preselected options kept and the decision times describe how defaults are handled. With four choices in each condition, one person's score is coarse, so studies compare groups. Scores describe choices among invented options; they are research measures and do not judge a person.
Scores
- Default Effectscore
- Share of yes answers when the yes option was preselected (opt-out) minus the share when the no option was preselected (opt-in), from -1 to 1. Empty unless the session had both conditions.
- Positive means preselected options drew choices; 0 means no default effect
- Preselected Options Kept%
- Share of the choices with a preselected option on which that option was kept.
- Higher means more preselected options kept
- Yes When Yes Preselected%
- Share of yes answers on the choices where yes was preselected (opt-out).
- Informational
- Yes When No Preselected%
- Share of yes answers on the choices where no was preselected (opt-in).
- Informational
- Yes With No Default%
- Share of yes answers on the choices with nothing preselected (active choice).
- Informational: the baseline
- Yes Overall%
- Share of yes answers over all the choices.
- Informational
- Selection Changescount
- Times the selected option changed, over all the choices; choosing on a screen with no default counts once.
- Informational
- Check Correct0/1
- 1 when the check question about changing a preselected option was answered correctly, 0 when not.
- 1 expected
- Median Decision Timems
- Median time from a choice's screen to Continue, over choices made at or after 100 ms.
- Informational
- Choices Under 100 mscount
- Choices confirmed less than 100 ms after their screen appeared.
- 0 expected
- Choicescount
- Choices answered in the scored run.
- Informational
- Planned Choicescount
- Choices the session planned: 12.
- Informational
Use and evidence
171 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, up 84% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 187 of 670 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 50 |
| 2024 | 27 |
| 2023 | 34 |
| 2022 | 33 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2020 | 27 |
| 2019 | 22 |
| 2018 | 14 |
| 2017 | 17 |
| 2016 | 13 |
| 2015 | 7 |
| 2014 | 14 |
| 2013 | 12 |
| 2012 | 8 |
| 2011 | 14 |
| 2010 | 1 |
| 2009 | 4 |
| 2008 | 3 |
| 2007 | 4 |
| 2006 | 2 |
| 2005 | 0 |
| 2004 | 4 |
| 2003 | 0 |
| 2002 | 0 |
| 2001 | 1 |
| 2000 | 2 |
Use grade C
100 to 299 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade D
Little published measurement evidence found.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 0
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 6
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 0
Measured on ConductCognition
Pooled across the studies that feed our platform norms, by device group. A figure needs 50 or more people.
No pooled figure yet.
Note on the counts: includes field studies of defaults in policy, health and retirement plans.
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.48.0, counted 12 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Choices
- 12 everyday choices written for this test about invented plans, settings and offers, priced in points: a savings plan, points for a tree fund, a wind and solar electricity plan, a repair plan, a refund option, a club renewal, a shop's newsletter, program updates, practice reminders, photo backup, a map app's saved places and an app's usage data. No real organization or plan is named.
- Options
- Each choice has a yes option (join, add, turn on or give) and a no option, shown as two full-width buttons. Changing a preselected option takes one tap, and Continue confirms the answer.
- Conditions
- Standard: the yes option is preselected on 4 choices (opt-out), the no option on 4 (opt-in) and nothing on 4 (no default). Which choices take which condition comes from the session's seed, so across sessions each choice appears in each condition equally often.
- Settings
- Every choice in a session in the opt-out, opt-in or no-default condition, for between-group designs, or one condition drawn for each session from its seed.
- Order
- The order of the choices and of the two options on each screen comes from the session's seed. One check question with feedback confirms that a preselected option can be changed. No time limit.
- Scores
- The default effect: the share of yes answers when yes was preselected minus the share when no was preselected. Also the share of preselected options kept, the yes rate in each condition and decision times.
The choices and their wording are written for this library. In Johnson and Goldstein's online experiment, agreement to be an organ donor was about twice as high when it was the default, and a meta-analysis of 58 default studies estimated an average effect of d = 0.68 (Jachimowicz and colleagues, 2019). Here each person meets all three conditions on different choices, four each, so one person's score is coarse; compare groups or conditions within a study. The scores describe choices among invented options and do not judge a person's decisions.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Choices have no correct answer. Continuing in under 200 ms on at least half of the choices invalidates. A run short of its choices or a missed check question is flagged.
Why these rules
The task records which option people choose when one is preselected or none is. Keeping a preselected option is the effect it measures, so neither option is judged against chance.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Preselected options | Mixed in each session (standard) | Mixed in each session (standard), Opt-out: the yes option preselected, Opt-in: the no option preselected, No default: nothing preselected, One condition drawn for each session |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Default Options Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Johnson EJ, Goldstein D, 2003), with the standard settings (preselected options: Mixed in each session). The main score was default effect (share of yes answers when the yes option was preselected (opt-out) minus the share when the no option was preselected (opt-in), from -1 to 1).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302(5649), 1338-1339. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1091721The default effect: one choice asked with opt-in, opt-out and no default.
- Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. G. (2004). Defaults and donation decisions. Transplantation, 78(12), 1713-1716. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.TP.0000149788.10382.B2The online experiment with 161 respondents, where either answer took one click.
- Jachimowicz, J. M., Duncan, S., Weber, E. U., & Johnson, E. J. (2019). When and why defaults influence decisions: A meta-analysis of default effects. Behavioural Public Policy, 3(2), 159-186. https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2018.43Meta-analysis of 58 default studies, scored as opt-out against opt-in.
- Dinner, I., Johnson, E. J., Goldstein, D. G., & Liu, K. (2011). Partitioning default effects: Why people choose not to choose. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17(4), 332-341. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024354Why defaults work: effort, implied endorsement and reference dependence.
Source papers
- Jachimowicz, Duncan, Weber and Johnson (2019): meta-analysis of 58 default studies with 73,675 participants; opt-out against opt-in, d = 0.68 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.83).Paradigm source, Adults
Questions
How long does the Default Options Task take?
About 3 to 5 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Default Effect, Preselected Options Kept, Yes When Yes Preselected, Yes When No Preselected, Yes With No Default, Yes Overall, Selection Changes, Check Correct, Median Decision Time, Choices Under 100 ms, Choices and Planned Choices. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Default Options Task used in research?
171 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, up 84% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 187 of 670 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade C). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.48.0, counted 12 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Default Options Task have?
In the published research, 0 papers report its test-retest reliability and 0 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade D in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Preselected options (Mixed in each session (standard), Opt-out: the yes option preselected, Opt-in: the no option preselected, No default: nothing preselected, One condition drawn for each session). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese, with its words in the same language. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
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