ArticleSocial issues and policy review2013
More Is Not Always Better: Intuitions About Effective Public Policy Can Lead to Unintended Consequences.
Article in Social issues and policy review, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Code Status Orders: Do the Options Matter?Journal of general internal medicine · 2023Trial
- The Influence of Cost Information on Treatment Choice: A Mixed-Methods Study.The Journal of hand surgery · 2020Trial
- Dismantling the theory of planned behavior: evaluating the relative effectiveness of attempts to uniquely change attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2018Trial
- Use of Two Self-referral Reminders and a Theory-Based Leaflet to Increase the Uptake of Flexible Sigmoidoscopy in the English Bowel Scope Screening Program: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial in London.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2018Trial
- Trial
- The effect of a supplementary ('Gist-based') information leaflet on colorectal cancer knowledge and screening intention: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2015Trial
- The European Health Data Space: an opportunity to strengthen citizen rights and engage citizens in health data governance.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Numeric social-media posts engage people with climate science.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Designing a decision aid for cancer prevention: a qualitative study.Family practice · 2024Article
- The Swiss Health Insurance Literacy Measure (HILM-CH): Measurement Properties and Cross-Cultural Validation.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Interpretability, credibility, and usability of hospital-specific template matching versus regression-based hospital performance assessments; a multiple methods study.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- The Importance of Choosing a Health Insurance Policy and the Ability to Comprehend That Choice for Citizens in the Netherlands.Health literacy research and practice · 2021Article
- Parent and Youth Preferences in the Treatment of Youth Depression.Child psychiatry and human development · 2021Article
- COVID-19 and children with cancer: Parents' experiences, anxieties and support needs.Pediatric blood & cancer · 2021Article
- Choice Hygiene for "Consumer Neuroscientists"? Ethical Considerations and Proposals for Future Endeavours.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- Unintended Effects of Communicating About Drug Safety Issues: A Critical Review of the Literature.Drug safety · 2019Review
- Would You Use It With a Seal of Approval? Important Attributes of 2,4-Dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP) as a Hypothetical Pharmaceutical Product.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2018Article
- Knowledge about Chemicals in e-Cigarette Secondhand Vapor and Perceived Harms of Exposure among a National Sample of U.S. Adults.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2017Article
- The high price of anticancer drugs: origins, implications, barriers, solutions.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2017Review
- Communicating Tobacco Product Information to the Public.Food and drug law journal · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Public policy decisions often appear based on an assumption that providing more options, more information, and greater decision-making autonomy to consumers will produce better outcomes. We examine reasons why this "more-is-better" approach exists based on the psychological literature. Although better outcomes can result from informed consumer choice, we argue that more options, information, and autonomy can also lead to unintended negative consequences. We use mostly health-related policies and guidelines from the United States and elsewhere as exemplars. We consider various psychological mechanisms that cause these unintended consequences including cognitive overload, affect, and anticipated regret, information salience and availability, and trust in governments as authoritative information providers. We also point toward potential solutions based on psychological research that may reduce the negative unintended consequences of a "more-is-better" approach.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.