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On user-generated content platforms, individuals and firms alike seek to build and expand their follower base to eventually increase the reach of the content they upload. The bulk of the seeding literature in marketing suggests targeting users with a large follower base, that is, high-status influencers. In contrast, some recent studies find targeting lower-status influencers to be a more effective seeding policy. This multimethod article shifts the focus from the follower base of the seeding target to the focal content creator. The authors propose accelerating natural triadic closure by leveraging first-degree followers as interconnectors to target second-degree followers, that is, the nearby (low-status) influencers (who are interconnected with the focal content creator). Empirical studies document that this seeding target is much more effective for building and expanding the follower base, compared with targeting influencers who are not interconnected with the focal content creator—that is, the remote (both high- and low-status) influencers—by 2,300% and 46%, respectively. These studies on the acceleration of natural triadic closure are augmented by a preregistered field experiment to obtain convergent validity of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines how price discounts—a classic marketing incentive—drive children's healthy choices in the understudied context of a developing economy. The authors partnered with UNICEF to launch three field experiments in Panamá among 2,418 children to examine four pillars of price discount promotions for children: what to discount (product selection), how to discount (message design), whom to target (children's age), and whether to discount again (repetition). They uncovered four previously undocumented insights. First, price discounts alone effectively increase demand among children 6–11 years of age, reconciling conflicting findings in prior literature. Second, product selection based on relative price—a particularly crucial factor in developing regions—drives opposing postpromotion effects: ironically, marketers should not discount expensive healthy options but rather moderately priced ones. Third, different from prior literature's practice of directly communicating final prices, discount messages that require older children to derive final prices are more effective. Fourth, repetition can amplify or undermine discounts' efficacy depending on message complexity and children's age. This research offers concrete guidelines for researchers and practitioners, uncovering both positive and negative effects of price promotions on children, and shedding light on price promotion interventions that most powerfully nudge children of different ages to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This randomized experiment on a social media platform in Pakistan measures the impact of two treatments that use ex-ante moderation to control misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic compared to standard ex-post moderation. One treatment never posts misinformation, while the other rebuts it. We also disseminate official information about the pandemic on the platform. The treatments reduce daily users by 19%. This reduces exposure to official information by 29% more than exposure to misinformation. A conceptual framework posits that this can be explained by the fact that, in this setting, official information is more trusted and disseminated than misinformation.

Improving urban air quality is a pressing challenge in the Global South. A key source of air pollution is the informal burning of household waste. Reducing informal burning requires governments to develop formal systems for waste disposal and for residents to adopt new disposal behaviors. Using a randomized experiment, we show that social competitions between pairs of neighborhoods in Nansana municipality, Uganda, galvanized leadership and inspired collective action to reduce informal burning. All 44 neighborhoods in the study received a public health campaign, while 22 treated neighborhoods were paired and competed to reduce waste burning over an 8-mo period. Treated neighborhoods showed a 24 percent reduction (95% CI: 11 to 35 percent) in waste burning relative to control neighborhoods at the end of the competition period. There is no evidence that treated neighborhoods experienced a rebound in waste burning several months after the competitions. Community leaders reported greater effort in coordinating residents and more pride in their neighborhood when assigned to the competition treatment. These results suggest that creating focal points for leadership and collective action can be an effective and low-cost strategy to address policy problems that require broad participation and costly behavior change.

To encourage farsighted behaviors, previous research suggests that marketers should invite consumers to precommit to adopting these behaviors "later." However, the authors propose that people will draw different inferences from different types of precommitment offers, and that these inferences can help explain when precommitment is (and is not) effective at increasing adoption of farsighted behaviors. Specifically, the authors theorize that simultaneously offering consumers the opportunity to adopt a farsighted behavior now or later (i.e., offering "simultaneous precommitment") may signal that the behavior is not urgently recommended; however, offering consumers the opportunity to adopt that behavior immediately and then, only if they decline, inviting them to adopt it later (i.e., offering "sequential precommitment") may signal just the opposite. In a multisite field experiment (N = 5,196), the authors find that simultaneously giving consumers the chance to increase their savings now or later reduced retirement savings. Two preregistered lab studies (N = 5,080) show that simultaneous precommitment leads people to infer that taking action is not urgently recommended, and such inferences predict less adoption of recommended behaviors. Importantly, offering sequential precommitment increases inferred urgency, predicting greater adoption. Together, this research advances knowledge about the limits and potential of precommitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt accumulation has been linked to materialism, impulsivity, shortsightedness, self-control, and lifestyle preferences. However, applying stigma theory allows novel insights into debt accumulation for middle-class individuals who access a variety of credit-related products. The authors define anticipated stigmatization of debt as the negative judgment and discrimination an individual expects to experience because of their consumer indebtedness. Results from a series of studies demonstrate that although financial stress motivates behaviors designed to reduce debt, debtors who anticipate stigmatization perform a variety of concealment behaviors (secrecy, social spending, and help avoidance) that hinder debt reduction and have negative effects on well-being. To understand how to help these individuals, the authors collaborated with a financial education company, designing a field experiment to examine the efficacy of a behavior change course. Individuals who anticipated stigmatization and formed new social connections in a community-based condition reduced their consumer debt. Although the emotional effect of community-based support has been examined in other stigma contexts, this study is the first to investigate the effect on well-being in a debt context and link social benefits to actual behavior change in terms of debt reduction behaviors and debt repayment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates how shopping on a weekday or a weekend moderates the impact of music on supermarket sales. Contrary to the intuitive beliefs of interviewed store managers, a meta-analysis, two field studies, and a controlled experimental study indicate that playing pleasant music (vs. no music) in supermarkets on weekdays enhances sales, an effect not found on weekends. Theorizing and interviews with shoppers suggest a potential reason for this week-part difference: Shoppers are more mentally depleted on weekdays (vs. weekends). A final study demonstrates and tests mental depletion as the driving factor for how shoppers are affected by music during different week parts. When consumers are depleted (e.g., on weekdays) music increases affect, which mediates the impact of music on sales. The results of the studies further indicate that week part plays a significant role in determining the impact of in-store music on sales. This article concludes with a discussion of the substantive and theoretical importance of incorporating the impact of week parts to predict in-store marketing effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We collaborated with a leading fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturer to investigate how intelligent image processing (IIP)-based shelf monitoring aids manufacturers' shelf management by using data from a quasi-experiment and a field experiment. We discovered that such artificial intelligence (AI) assistance significantly and consistently improves product sales. Several underlying mechanisms were revealed by our quantitative and qualitative analysis. First, retailers are more likely to comply due to the greater monitoring effectiveness enabled by AI assistance. Second, the positive effect of IIP-based shelf monitoring partially persists after it is terminated, implying that human learning takes place. Third, the value of IIP-based shelf monitoring can be attributed to independent retailers rather than chain retailers. Since the degree of contract heterogeneity is the major difference between these retailers in terms of monitoring, this finding further suggests that AI is relatively more scalable when coping with more heterogeneous instances. Apart from these great benefits, we demonstrate the low marginal costs of implementing IIP-powered shelf monitoring, which indicates its long-term applicability and potential to generate incremental value. Our research contributes to several literature streams and provides managerial insights for practitioners who consider AI-assisted operational models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many taxa, young can recognize their parents using olfactory cues. Yet this possibility has been overlooked in birds, because they were long assumed to have a poor sense of smell. While evidence is growing that birds use odours to communicate, olfactory parent recognition has only been documented in two altricial bird species. Whether chicks of precocial species use olfaction to recognize parents is currently unknown. Parent recognition is particularly important in precocial species, as chicks leave the nest shortly after hatching, and may lose contact with their parents and encounter other conspecific adults. We conducted Y-maze trials in the wild to test whether chicks of a precocial shorebird, the white-fronted plover, Anarhynchus marginatus , can recognize parents via olfaction. We tested first whether chicks show a preference for the odour (preen oil) of an unfamiliar adult over a control (no odour), and second whether chicks show a preference for the odour of a parent over that of an unfamiliar adult. Plover chicks spent as much time with the odour of an unfamiliar adult as with the control, and as much time with the odour of a parent as with that of an unfamiliar adult. Therefore, we found no evidence that chicks react to the preen oil odour of a conspecific adult, nor that they can discriminate a parent using preen oil odours. It may be that chicks of this species can discriminate parental and foreign odours but that our experiment failed to detect it, that they rely on other (e.g. auditory) cues, or that they do not need to discriminate between parents and foreign conspecific adults. • Young can recognize their parents using olfactory cues in many taxa. • Plover chicks are precocial and could benefit from parent recognition. • Odour preferences of wild plover chicks were tested using a Y-maze in the field. • Plover chicks did not prefer parental odours (preen oil). • We found no evidence of olfactory parent recognition in white-fronted plovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Wetter winters as a result of climate change increase N and S topsoil availability in forests. • Surprisingly high leaching rates of additionally available nutrients. • No short-term effects of wetter winters on decomposition and tree growth. • Groundwater N and S pollution likely increases with winter climate change. Climate models project moderate to large increases in air temperature for most temperate ecosystems with an overall increase in winter precipitation and a shift from snow towards rain. We investigated the effects of increased winter rainfall on the ecosystem functioning of European beech forests at their north-eastern distribution range. In a large-scale field experiment we manipulated winter climate at nine forest sites by increasing the amount of rainfall and excluding snow. Nutrient availability in the topsoil and leaching in 50 cm depth as well as litter decomposition and radial growth of mature European beech trees were analysed. It was hypothesized that (1) wetter winters lead to increased nutrient deposition as well as leaching, with an overall increase in net nutrient availability, (2) decomposition decreases in response to water addition containing also additional nutrients and (3) primary production during the subsequent growing season increases as presumably not all additionally available nutrients would be leached. We found an increase in topsoil nitrate and sulfate availability during winter in response to rain addition, likely as a consequence of collecting more atmospheric deposition, and surprisingly high leaching rates of the additionally available nutrients. During the subsequent early growing season, no difference in nutrient availability could be observed anymore. Enhanced nutrient availability in the topsoil and leaching do not seem to have a strong short-term influence on forest ecosystem processes in ecosystems which are close to their critical load of N deposition. Decomposition rates during winter and early growing season as well as stem diameter growth during the following growing season were not influenced. This indicates that additional nutrients in the topsoil in response to wetter winters are not available for plant growth but pollute ground- and surface waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the dictator game, the evidence that giving is equivalent to taking is mixed. The purpose of this study was to investigate framing effects (giving/taking) on social‐discounting rates among young African adults from an informal settlement in South Africa. Employing a within‐participant design, these young adults completed a series of incentivized dictator games with an isomorphically equivalent giving and taking frame at each of eight social distances. Altruism was measured by the social‐discounting rate, and framing effects were assessed using generalized linear regression. The study provides empirical evidence that prosocial behavior among young South African adults is subject to framing because exponential, hyperbolic, and q‐exponential social‐discounting rates in all instances were lower in the taking than in the giving frame. This difference may be the result of greater “egalitarianism” and “selflessness” elicited by the taking frame, which likely is a product of the experiment's particular social and economic field context. More comparative research is required to establish the working of specific mechanics of morality that may operate differently in diverse socioeconomic contexts, thus contributing to elucidating the heterogeneous nature of findings in this area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the small-arch-shed-recycling machines in China use manual disassembly and manual recycling, with low recycling efficiency and low mechanization. Therefore, this paper designs a small recovery machine for arch sheds, greatly improving the efficiency of the recycling of arch sheds, which can realize the lifting and collection of the arch shed rod and orderly recycling of the shed film. By performing univariate experimental studies in the field, on the basis of field experiments, we carried out an experimental analysis with machine speed and different soil moisture contents as the influencing factors and took the removal rate of the shed rod, the removal rate of the shed film, and the damage rate of seedlings as the test indexes. The test results show that the optimal parameter combination is a travel speed of 1.1 m/s, at which the operation effect is the best. The results show that under the optimal operation effect, the removal rate of the shed rod was 95.72%, the removal rate of the shed film was 98.63%, the seedling injury rate was only 2.11%, and the removal rate of the shed rod was only 4.01%, which met the requirements of the recovery operation of the arch shed and means that this approach is conducive to the recycling of the arch shed materials and the realization of sustainable development. In actual operation, the parameters should be adjusted according to the actual situation in the field to meet the different recovery needs of arch sheds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change often facilitates biological invasions, leading to potential interactive impacts of these global drivers on freshwater ecosystems. Although climatic mitigation efforts may reduce the magnitude of these interactive impacts, we are still missing experimental evidence for such effects under multiple climate change scenarios within a multi‐trophic framework. To address this knowledge gap, we experimentally compared the independent and interactive effects of two climate change scenarios (mitigation and business‐as‐usual) and biological invasion on the biomass of major freshwater trophic groups (phytoplankton, zooplankton, periphyton, macroinvertebrates, and a native macrophyte) and the decomposition rate of allochthonous material. Among the independent effects, we found that the business‐as‐usual climate treatment resulted in lower native macrophyte biomass and higher periphyton biomass compared to the climatic baseline and mitigation treatments. This indicates the potential of climate change to alter the relative dominance of different freshwater producers and demonstrates that climate mitigation efforts can counteract these effects. Biological invasion alone increased the biomass of chironomids, a dominant macroinvertebrate group in tropical freshwater ecosystems, demonstrating a compensatory effect on climate change. Climate change and biological invasion interactively reduced the decomposition rate of allochthonous detritus, likely mediated by the feeding preference of abundant chironomids for periphytic algae associated with the presence of non‐native macrophytes. We concluded that (i) climatic mitigation can maintain climate baseline conditions in freshwater ecosystems, and (ii) the interactive effects between future climate scenarios and biological invasion are related to complex cascading interactions among trophic groups on ecosystem processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquid nitrogen is the most common refrigerant adopted in the artificial ground freezing (AGF) method for the rapid freezing of soil. However, the relatively high price of liquid nitrogen demands the reuse of liquid nitrogen in AGF, which utilizes partially gasified liquid nitrogen after an initial injection. This study investigated the reusability of liquid nitrogen in AGF by performing a field experiment. Temperatures of the ground were monitored near the sub-freezing pipes installed 1 m away from the main freezing pipes, where liquid nitrogen was initially injected. A frozen wall having a thickness of 1 m was formed between two sub-freezing pipes after 5 days of injecting liquid nitrogen into the main freezing pipes. Furthermore, the lowest temperature of − 12 °C measured in the sub-freezing pipe implied that the temperature of nitrogen after circulating through the main freezing pipe was sufficiently low to freeze the surrounding soil formation. The freezing rate, elapsed time for freezing, and freezing duration evaluated from the monitored temperature data also demonstrated the promising potential of reusing liquid nitrogen in AGF for saturated silty deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: This study shares the results of a test I established of a new minibus route in Kampala with the Uganda Transport Operators Federation (UTOF). Informal transport provides the bulk of urban mobility in the Global South but may be limited in the connectivity and spatial coverage it is able to provide. I tested the effectiveness of market response by temporarily subsidizing operations in an unserved location and found that even a limited expansion of routing found passenger demand, showing a countercurrent of travel against the existing pattern of radial, central business district–to-suburb travel. Female street vendors were a particularly important previously unserved group of passengers. For operators, the study revealed that establishing new services can be difficult, requiring organizational capacity and substantial investment and risk in terms of time and money. In parallel, when such investments are made, other formal and informal actors, such as police, government bureaucracy, and competing operators, can act to extract the benefits, further slowing the change and growth of the transport network. Takeaway for practice: I describe the implementation steps and lessons learned from a small-scale pilot project that could be scaled for use as a planning intervention as well as to assess the equity of market-driven public transport and identify mobility gaps. This study expands the body of evidence on the effectiveness of informal transport systems for diverse mobility needs and spatial coverage, providing unique data and a methodological approach to address latent and hidden mobility needs for urban residents. It develops a potential avenue of intervention for regulators and planning practitioners for a cheap, light-touch intervention that collaborates with informal transport workers to expand accessibility and equity for passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providers' tendency to cream skim clients according to certain sociodemographic traits is widely believed to increase under marketization, and therefore also discrimination. However, due to a lack of experimental research, little is known about the presence of discrimination in marketized welfare services and of the potential drivers of such biased treatment. The lack of research is particularly evident in regard to socioeconomic status (SES) discrimination and publicly financed for-profit providers. Moreover, competition, an important aspect of marketization, has not been investigated. Focusing on the interesting case of the Swedish school sector, we aim to improve knowledge on these matters. In a field experiment, 3,430 elementary school principals were randomly contacted though e-mail by parents with Arabic- or Swedish-sounding names and in low- or high-socioeconomic professions. The fictional parents were interested in placing their children at the school. The Swedish school sector resembles marketized public services in several Western countries. The results show clear signs of ethnic as well as SES discrimination, particularly in regard to more qualitative aspects of the replies. However, we find no significant differences in discrimination between public and private/for-profit schools and depending on the degree of competition in the school market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A brand name is a fundamental component of a brand's identity. This research introduces a novel linguistic tool for brand name creation: phonesthemes—sound and spelling letter clusters that are associated with one dominant meaning. For instance, sn, one of over 140 phonesthemes in English, consistently appears in words related to the nose or breathing (sneeze, sniff, snort). Six experiments reveal positive effects of phonesthemic non‐word brand names (e.g., Glif; gl‐; e.g., glow, glimmer; meaning "light") on consumer preference, attitude, purchase intent, and choice when the dominant meaning activated by the phonestheme is semantically congruent with the product category or product attribute (e.g., luminant car wax), due to enhanced processing fluency. Phonological (sound) and orthographic (spelling) priming are eliminated as alternative explanations for the phenomenon. This research advances psycholinguistic research in marketing and the emerging area of brand linguistics by broadening the focus beyond brand name phonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how people's tendency to avoid action, known as "omission bias," influences their financial decisions, specifically in the context of debt repayment to the UK government. Using a randomized controlled trial, we communicated with individuals who owed money, employing two distinct message framings. The omission‐framed message suggested that nonresponse was seen as inadvertent, while the commission‐framed message treated nonresponse as a deliberate choice. Analyses of nearly 40,000 responses revealed that repayment rates almost doubled with commission framing, reaching 23.2%, as opposed to 12% under omission framing. This reframing strategy generated over $1.4 million in additional revenue, underscoring the considerable real‐world impact of understanding and leveraging the omission bias in shaping financial behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presented in this paper examined intersectional discrimination against individuals with multiple minority identities in the housing market, specifically those identifying as Arab Muslims. By sending inquiries from three fictitious applicants – a Swedish Christian, an Arab Christian, and an Arab Muslim – to 1,200 landlords in Sweden, we analyzed differences in landlord responses. Results showed the Swedish Christian received the most positive replies, followed by the Arab Christian, with the Arab Muslim receiving the fewest. The study underscores the compounded discrimination faced by those with multiple minority identities and challenges the conflation of ethnic and religious identities in prior research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are residents of ethnically diverse communities less likely to encounter acts of cooperation and kindness from strangers? Although a vast literature has arisen examining the relationship between ethnic diversity and popular attitudes such as social trust, we know little about how prosocial behaviors vary across neighborhoods. This study presents evidence from a 'lost letter' experiment conducted across 77 neighborhoods in 13 German cities. We experimentally vary the ethnic identity of letter senders and recipients, and also carefully select our experimental field sites to create 'matched sets' of neighborhoods that differ only with respect to the percentage of foreign residents. We find no difference in return rates across our ethnicity treatments, and no overall relationship between return rates and neighborhood diversity. However, comparing across 'matched sets,' we do detect significantly lower return rates in areas featuring higher unemployment. Taken together, our findings support the view that it is not diversity per se, but rather associated socioeconomic deprivation, which is most detrimental to cooperative neighborhood interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Functional differences between native and exotic species, estimated when species are grown alone or in mixtures, are often used to predict the invasion risk of exotic species. However, it remains elusive whether the functional differences estimated by the two methods and their ability to predict species invasiveness (e.g. high abundance) are consistent. We compiled data from two common garden experiments, in which specific leaf area, height, and aboveground biomass of 64 common native and exotic invasive species in China were estimated when grown individually (pot) or in mixtures (field). Exotic species accumulated higher aboveground biomass than natives, but only when grown in field mixtures. Moreover, aboveground biomass and functional distinctiveness estimated in mixtures were more predictive of species persistence and relative abundance in the field mixtures in the second year than those estimated when grown alone. These findings suggest that assessing species traits while grown alone may underestimate the competitive advantage for some exotic species, highlighting the importance of trait‐by‐environment interactions in shaping species invasion. Therefore, we propose that integrating multi‐site or multi‐year field surveys and manipulative experiments is required to best identify the key trait(s) and environment(s) that interactively shape species invasion and community dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses an artificial intelligence (AI) model to identify arbitrage opportunities in the retail marketplace. Specifically, we develop an AI model to predict the optimal purchasing point based on the price movement of products in the market. Our model is trained on a large dataset collected from an online marketplace in the United States. Our model is enhanced by incorporating user-generated content (UGC), which is empirically proven to be significantly informative. Overall, the AI model attains more than 90% precision rate, while the recall rate is higher than 80% in an out-of-sample test. In addition, we conduct a field experiment to verify the external validity of the AI model in a real-life setting. Our model identifies 293 arbitrage opportunities during a one-year field experiment and generates a profit of $7.06 per arbitrage opportunity. The result demonstrates that AI performs exceptionally well in identifying arbitrage opportunities in retail markets with tangible economic values. Our results also yield important implications regarding the role of AI in the society, both from the consumer and firm perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field experiments are crucial for understanding animal behavior in natural settings, offering insights beyond laboratory conditions. Yet, conducting field experiments can be daunting due to harsh environmental conditions, logistical complexity, and high costs. Here, we introduce GALA (GAzebo LAtino) —a low-budget, portable structure designed to record high-quality behavioral videos under diverse weather conditions. To test GALA, we recorded videos of ant species attracted to protein baits in two conditions: without GALA (CONTROL) and with GALA. We compared video quality by quantifying over-exposure, shadowing, reflections, and blurring. We examined GALA response to harsh weather by recording ants in the Patagonian steppe —an area renowned for its intense winds and significant fluctuations in temperature. We assessed wind speed, illumination levels, temperature, and humidity. GALA improved video quality by addressing over-exposure, shadows, reflections, and blurring. GALA reduced environmental noise by blocking wind, optimizing illumination, and stabilizing temperature and humidity. In addition to these benefits, GALA offers several other strengths —it is straightforward to assemble and transport, and its materials are cost-effective at just US$ 68. Beyond its utility for recording ant species, GALA is also suitable for capturing the behaviors of other terrestrial arthropods, as well as small mammals and reptiles. Employing affordable, user-friendly, and portable devices like GALA enables us to extend laboratory capabilities to the field, enriching our comprehension of wildlife behavior in their native environments. This knowledge is critical for predicting how natural populations respond to environmental changes and guiding evidence-based strategies for biodiversity conservation. Significance statement: We introduce GALA —a low-budget, portable structure designed to record high-quality behavioral videos under diverse weather conditions. By reducing issues such as over-exposure, shadows, reflections, and blurring, GALA ensures clearer, more reliable data. Its ability to stabilize environmental factors like wind, illumination, and temperature further improves recording conditions. GALA offers several other strengths —it is straightforward to assemble and transport, and its materials are cost-effective at just US$ 68, making it easily accessible to a wide range of researchers worldwide. This innovation extends laboratory capabilities to the field, enriching our understanding of animal behavior and informing evidence-based strategies for biodiversity conservation and the management of natural populations in response to environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Default nudges—making the desired option the standard option—are often criticized for hampering autonomy. However, laboratory research suggests this expectation of autonomy loss is not reflected in nudgees' experienced autonomy. In this study, we investigated whether this finding translates to a real‐world setting by implementing a default nudge to increase food donations in the supermarket (Experiment 1). Upon entering the supermarket, customers were asked to donate a food item for charity and were handed a shopping cart/basket that was empty (control) or contained a food item meant for donation (default nudge). Donations were collected after checkout, and customers rated their experienced autonomy of their choice to donate. We replicated this study and added a vignette condition portraying the default nudge to measure expected autonomy for the same situation (Experiment 2). The results show the default nudge reduced participants' expected autonomy but not their experienced autonomy, shedding new light on the relation between nudging and autonomy. Furthermore, this novel form of the default nudge was found to be successful in increasing food donations in the supermarket, further expanding the field where this nudge has been successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PurposeMethodologyFindingsImplicationsLivestreaming commerce is becoming increasingly frequent, and this rapid development has benefited from ever-increasing numbers of influencers joining businesses. Given this context, the purpose of this study is to examine the nonlinear effect of influencers’ beauty on viewer purchases.Based on the unstructured data of 2,597 livestreaming clips from TikTok, we first leverage a computer vision-based API interface, Face++, to calculate influencer beauty. Economic models are used to investigate this relationship. Second, the Sobel test is used to test the mediating effects of LSTM-based influencer trustworthiness. Finally, two moderators, product category and influencer type, are verified to clarify the boundary conditions.First, there is an inverted U-shaped relation between influencer beauty and sales rate. Second, influencer trustworthiness mediates the impact of influencer beauty on sales rate. Finally, we find that compared with newcomer influencer selling experience products, veteran influencer beauty has a greater impact on sales when selling search products.First, to the best of our knowledge, this is one of the few empirical studies evaluating influencer beauty through video data. More broadly, our research contributes to the rich influencer marketing literature by taking advantage of the abundant visual information provided by the new business context of livestreaming. The second is the new method of computer vision and multimodal machine learning. The combination of these new methods provides a scalable toolkit for unstructured data mining for academia and a realistic reference for livestreaming commerce for industry. The third contribution is content validity. We depend on hard archival data, which reflect changes in influencer beauty and viewers’ purchases in real time. This study extends the external validity of past studies and has greater reference value for real livestreaming businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem that the dust mass measurement of the existing dust monitoring devices in the process of farmland dust monitoring was susceptible to the influence of ambient temperature and humidity, resulting in zero drift and a large measurement error, this study designed a dust monitoring device based on temperature and humidity compensation. The device included temperature and humidity sensors, mass sensor, data acquisition system, etc., which could realize cross-regional, remote, real-time online measurement of dust mass. The zero drift and temperature and humidity data of the four dust monitoring devices collected by the temperature and humidity correlation test showed that the temperature and humidity had a significant correlation with the zero drift of the dust monitoring device (the mean values of |p| were 0.59 and 0.62, respectively),and the correlation between zero drift of the dust monitoring device and absolute humidity was more stable than relative humidity performance, a linear expression of absolute humidity and zero drift of the dust monitoring device was provided, the humidity coefficient of the expression was positively correlated with temperature. When the temperature changed from 40 ℃ to 60 ℃, the single-factor test of the temperature and the output signal of dust monitoring device showed that the zero drift was 65.7 times that of the sensitivity change, zero drift was a key factor affecting the measurement accuracy of dust monitoring device. A compensation model of the zero-point drift dust monitoring device of BP network based on temperature and humidity was established, the experimental results showed that the data fluctuation range of the proposed model was 8.8% lower than that of the basing on temperature-humidity second-order polynomial compensation model, and 60.3% lower than that of the basing on temperature compensation model of BP network. A field measurement experiment was conducted for the dust monitoring device based on temperature and humidity compensation of this paper. The results showed the device in this paper reduces the final measurement error by 57.5% and the fluctuation of measurement results by 34.2% compared to the uncompensated device, effectively reduced the measurement error of dust mass. The research results could provide technical support for the research on online real-time monitoring of farmland dust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inbreeding depression is likely to play an important role during biological invasion. But relatively few studies have investigated the fitness of selfed and outcrossed offspring in self-incompatible invasive plants in natural environments in their introduced range. Moreover, the majority of studies on inbreeding depression have investigated self-compatible species with mixed mating, and less is known about the intensity of inbreeding depression in outcrossing selfincompatible species. Here, we address these questions experimentally by comparing selfed and outcrossed progeny of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) over four growing seasons, including three under field conditions in a freshwater marsh in southern Ontario, Canada, a region where L. salicaria is highly invasive. The tristylous mating system of L. salicaria involves disassortative mating among floral morphs enforced by trimorphic incompatibility. However, owing to partial incompatibility, self-fertilized seed can be obtained by manual self-pollination thus facilitating comparisons of selfed and outcrossed progeny. We compared progeny with and without intraspecific competition from selfed or outcrossed neighbours and examined the influence of breeding treatment and competition on fitness correlates by measuring a range of life-history traits including: proportion of seeds germinating, days to germination, survival, proportion of plants flowering, time to flowering, vegetative mass, and inflorescence number and mass. We analysed data for each trait using functions from time series estimates of growth and two multiplicative estimates of fitness. We detected varying intensities of inbreeding depression for several traits in three of the four years of the experiment, including inflorescence mass and reproductive output. Cumulative inbreeding depression over four years averaged d = 0.48 and 0.68, depending on the method used to estimate multiplicative fitness. The competition treatments did not significantly affect plant performance and the magnitude of inbreeding depression. Given the primarily outcrossing mating system of L. salicaria populations, the detection of inbreeding depression for several key life-history traits was as predicted by theory. Our results suggests that biparental inbreeding and low selfing in colonizing populations may have significant effects on demographic parameters such as population growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For online retailers, increasing click-through rates and reducing dropout rates are critical to success. In this study, we examine the effect of verbatim repetition of the website's headline message on the proceed button, based on research on processing fluency. In our field study involving 956 online platform visitors, we found that verbatim repetitions of the header message on the proceed button resulted in an increase in the conversion rate by more than 10 percentage points compared to gist repetitions and new messages. Our findings highlight the importance of simple verbatim features and demonstrate the successful application of processing fluency research to impact consumer behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4,8‐Dihydroxy‐1‐tetrahydronaphthone (4,8‐DHT), an allelochemical, was isolated from the Carya cathayensis epicarp and was discovered to have phytotoxicity in laboratory tests. In this study, field experiments were designed to assess the phytotoxicity of 4,8‐DHT on weeds in Cerasus yedoensis and Lagerstroemia indica forestlands after pre‐ and post‐emergence application, in addition to physiological effect on Lindernia procumbens were also measured. The phytotoxic results of 4,8‐DHT demonstrated that the total inhibition rate of weeds was 81.3% and 68.2% in C. yedoensis forestland and L. indica forestland after pre‐emergence applied for 24 days in 2021, and enhanced by 9.9% and 27.8% compared with post‐emergence treatment. Especially, in C. yedoensis forestland, a high concentration of 4,8‐DHT sprayed at the pre‐emergence stage after 8 days had a significant inhibition rate on all weeds except Cyperus rotundus, and was still above 80.0% after 24 days of exposure. Comprehensive control efficacy of 4,8‐DHT indicates that pre‐emergence application is more favorable for weeds control. Physiological analysis showed that 4,8‐DHT stimulated the contents of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and proline and declined in the activities of antioxidant enzymes, meanwhile, accompanied by a decrease in the root vitality and chlorophyll content in L. procumbens. These results warrant further investigations of 4,8‐DHT applied in early pre‐emergence as a potential source of weed control agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphorus (P) is crucial for plant functions like root growth, energy transfer, photosynthesis, and cell division. Yet, its soil efficiency is hindered by high fixation, low solubility, and immobility. Besides, its increased availability and subsequent plant uptake requires availability of sufficient moisture, as increased soil moisture contents higher dissolution of P occurs leading to increased root development, which, ultimately, increase nutrient uptake by plants. We performed a field experiment to check the effect of different P application levels along with different irrigation schemes in improving P uptake efficiency of maize and its related growth and yield attributes. In different treatments, irrigation was provided at recommended levels, skipped at milking and flowering stages to check the impacts of moisture contents on soil P availability. We observed that among different P levels, application of P at 90 kg ha-1 along with recommended irrigation level enhanced different maize traits, such as shoot length (13.4%), root length (51%), shoot fresh and dry weights (35 and 25%), root fresh and dry weights (37 and 42%), SPAD value (17%), chlorophyll 'a and b' (16 and 7%), P use efficiency (255%), harvest index (43%) and carotenoid contents (26%), as compared to control followed by P at 120 kg ha-1. Furthermore, in terms of soil nutrient attributes, P at 90 kg ha-1 along with recommended irrigation level enhanced soil organic matter (17%), active carbon (22%), available P (122%) and extractable potassium (36%), as compared to control. A consecutive decline in all the measured attributes was pragmatic under skipped irrigation systems under all the P application levels. We concluded that P application at 90 kg ha-1 combined with recommended irrigation levels can significantly increase P use efficiency of maize along with increased soil P availability and related growth and yield attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Lemna L. sp. is a free‐floating aquatic macrophyte that plays a key role as a standard test species in aquatic risk assessment for herbicides and other contaminants. Population modeling can be used to extrapolate from laboratory to field conditions. However, there are insufficient data on longer‐term seasonal dynamics of this species to evaluate such models. Therefore, several long‐term growth experiments were conducted in outdoor microcosms (surface area 0.174 m2). Monitoring parameters included biomass, frond numbers, water parameters, and weather data. Three different datasets were generated: frond numbers and biomass from weekly to monthly destructively sampled microcosms; a year‐round dataset of frond numbers from five continuously monitored microcosms; and seasonal growth rates without the effect of density dependence over 1–2 weeks in freshly inoculated microcosms. Lemna sp. reached a maximum of approximately 500 000 fronds m−2 and 190 g dry weight m−2. During the first winter, the microcosms were covered by ice for approximately four weeks, and Lemna sp. populations collapsed. The second winter was warmer, without any ice cover, and Lemna sp. populations maintained high abundance throughout the winter. Dry weight per frond was not constant throughout the year but was highest in autumn and winter. Growth rates without density dependence under outdoor environmental conditions reached 0.29 day−1 for frond number, 0.43 day−1 for fresh weight, and 0.39 day−1 for dry weight. In linear regressions, these growth rates were best explained by water temperature. For the populations continuously monitored throughout a year, the nitrogen‐to‐phosphorus ratio best explained the growth rate of frond numbers. This study yielded a relevant dataset for testing and refining Lemna population models used in chemical risk assessment as well as for managing ecosystems and combating the effects of eutrophication. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:1625–1638. © 2024 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). Key Points: Growth rates of Lemna sp. in the field can reach values close to those required in standard laboratory tests designed for high exponential growth but that are affected by light, temperature, nutrient availability, and density dependence.Water temperature was found to be a major driver in the short‐term experiments without density dependence, and the nitrogen‐to‐phosphorus ratio was the factor that best explained the growth rate of Lemna sp. in continuously monitored microcosms.Dry‐weight‐to‐frond ratios of Lemna sp. were highest in autumn and winter, probably the result of the storage of reserves; these ratios are not constant, as assumed in the Lemna sp. model, but vary over the seasons.This study generated ecologically relevant, long‐term data series for testing and refining and/or as input parameters for Lemna sp. population models to be applied in the higher tiers of the risk assessment framework for plant protection products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factorial surveys (FSs) are increasingly used to predict real-world decisions. However, there is a paucity of research assessing whether these predictions are valid and, if so, under what conditions. In this preregistered study, we sent out N = 3, 002 applications to job vacancies in Germany and measured real-world responses. Eight weeks later, we presented nearly identical applicant profiles to the same employers as a part of an FS. To explore the conditions under which FSs provide valid behavioral predictions, we varied the topic sensitivity and tested whether behavioral predictions were more successful after filtering out respondents who gave socially desirable answers or did not exert sufficient effort when answering FS vignettes. Across conditions, the FS results did not correspond well with the real-world benchmark. We conclude that researchers must exercise caution when using FSs to study (hiring) behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practitioner's Abstract Online platforms/retailers widely use collaborative filtering (CF)-based generic product recommendations to improve sales. These systems recommend products to a consumer based on the product co-views and co-purchases by other consumers on the website but do not leverage the consumer's browsing data. Based on a field study on a U.S. fashion apparel and home goods retailer's website, we show that informing generic CF recommendations to individual consumers' browsing history can generate substantial additional sales. Specifically, we show that it is optimal to offer generic CF recommendations to a consumer if the consumer has not carted a product and recommend products he or she has seen in the previous sessions (retargeted recommendations) if he or she has carted a product. Our simulation results show that such recommendations could result in a 3% increase in total sales compared with conventional generic CF recommendations. Online platforms/retailers with detailed consumer browsing data can implement such recommendations to achieve higher sales. Although the effects of algorithmic product recommendations on product sales are understood, the differential effects of retargeted recommendations (recommended products a user has previously viewed) versus generic recommendations (recommended products a user has not previously viewed) are unclear. We conduct a field experiment to empirically examine the relative effect of retargeted versus generic recommendations on product sales at different stages of users' purchase funnel. The product recommendations can affect sales by influencing the number of product impressions and their conversion rates (purchase probability conditional on impression). We separately estimate the effect of retargeted and generic recommendations on product impressions and conversion rates. We find that (i) generic recommendations increase conversion rates only in the early purchase funnel stage, but retargeted recommendations do not affect conversion rates, and (ii) both recommendations result in a higher number of impressions of recommended products. Overall, retargeted (generic) recommendations result in higher recommended and total product sales in the late (early) purchase funnel stage. We also conducted a controlled experiment on Amazon MTurk to unveil that retargeting (showing previously viewed products to users) drives the effect of retargeted recommendations. Our counterfactual simulations show that the retailer can obtain up to three percent higher product sales by applying our findings to the existing recommendation systems. Our research has implications for online retailers and the design of algorithmic product recommendation systems. History: Param Singh, Senior Editor; Idris Adjerid, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University [Grant 102720]. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0560. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many organizations have implemented internet monitoring to curb employees' non-work-related internet activities during work hours, commonly referred to as "cyberloafing." For managers, two primary considerations emerge: (1) the actual effectiveness of internet monitoring in diminishing cyberloafing and (2) any unintended side effects this monitoring might have on overall employee behavior. From a longitudinal field quasi experiment, we observed that although internet monitoring notably reduced cyberloafing because of amplified employee concerns about potential sanctions and privacy breaches, it unintentionally suppressed their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Moreover, a follow-up observation four months after introducing internet monitoring revealed that its capability to mitigate cyberloafing had weakened, yet the dampening effect on OCB continued. We conclude this paper by underlining the value of using internet monitoring as a feedback mechanism on employees' online behavior, rather than solely as a deterrence measure. Many organizations have adopted internet monitoring to regulate employees' cyberloafing behavior. Although one might intuitively assume that internet monitoring can be effective in reducing cyberloafing, there is a lack of research examining why the effect can occur and whether it can be sustained. Furthermore, little research has investigated whether internet monitoring can concurrently induce any side effects in employee behavior. In this paper, we conducted a longitudinal field quasi-experiment to examine the impacts of internet monitoring on employees' cyberloafing and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Our results show that internet monitoring did reduce employees' cyberloafing by augmenting employees' perceived sanction concerns and information privacy concerns related to cyberloafing. The results also show that internet monitoring could produce the side effect of reducing employees' OCB. Interestingly, when examining the longitudinal effects of internet monitoring four months after its implementation, we found that the effect of internet monitoring on cyberloafing was not sustained, but the effect on OCB toward organizations still persisted. Our study advances the literature on deterrence theory by empirically investigating both the intended and side effects of deterrence and how the effects change over time. It also has important broader implications for practitioners who design and implement information systems to regulate employee noncompliance behavior. History: Yong Tan, Senior Editor; David (Jingjun) Xu, Associate Editor. Funding: This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71901201, 72372150, 72025402, 71921001, 72293573, and 72034001], the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (HKU 17502921), the University Research Committee of the University of Hong Kong (201905159007), Theme-based Research Fund from HKU Education Consulting (Shenzhen) Co., LTD. [Grant SZRI2023-TBRF-02]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0216. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To shed light on the influence of interpersonal fairness on tax compliance, the California Franchise Tax Board conducted a field experiment to examine how efficiency of Interactive Voice Response (hereafter, IVR) systems affects tax collection. We find that taxpayers calling the temporary phone line with greater IVR system efficiency (treatment group) pay a significantly larger percentage of their tax deficiencies than the control group during the study period, and this difference is driven by IVR system efficiency. We also find that improving IVR system efficiency increases the likelihood of making payments within the treatment group. Our results support embracing interpersonal fairness principles to encourage tax payments. Our research extends the literature on the service paradigm of tax compliance by providing U.S.-based evidence and has implications for the tax authorities seeking to improve tax compliance efficiency, as tax collection generally becomes more difficult and costly with time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: Artificial intelligence (AI) assistants—software agents that can perform tasks or services for individuals—are among the most promising AI applications. However, little is known about the adoption of AI assistants by service providers (i.e., physicians) in a real-world healthcare setting. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the AI smartness (i.e., whether the AI assistant is powered by machine learning intelligence) and the impact of AI transparency (i.e., whether physicians are informed of the AI assistant). Methodology/results: We collaborate with a leading healthcare platform to run a field experiment in which we compare physicians' adoption behavior, that is, adoption rate and adoption timing, of smart and automated AI assistants under transparent and non-transparent conditions. We find that the smartness can increase the adoption rate and shorten the adoption timing, whereas the transparency can only shorten the adoption timing. Moreover, the impact of AI transparency on the adoption rate is contingent on the smartness level of the AI assistant: the transparency increases the adoption rate only when the AI assistant is not equipped with smart algorithms and fails to do so when the AI assistant is smart. Managerial implications: Our study can guide platforms in designing their AI strategies. Platforms should improve the smartness of AI assistants. If such an improvement is too costly, the platform should transparentize the AI assistant, especially when it is not smart. Funding: This research was supported by a Behavioral Research Assistance Grant from the C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. H. Zhao acknowledges support from Hong Kong General Research Fund [9043593]. Y. (R.) Tan acknowledges generous support from CEIBS Research [Grant AG24QCS]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.0093. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This field experiment investigates how different levels of aggregation in relative performance information (RPI) impact employee performance in environments with multiple tasks. We randomly assign store employees of a retail chain to three groups: RPI on overall performance (control group), RPI on separate tasks, and RPI on both overall performance and separate tasks. We do not find evidence that providing separate task RPI instead of overall RPI affects performance or effort allocation. However, providing RPI on both overall performance and separate tasks seems to reduce performance, especially in the low‐return task. This suggests that detailed RPI directs employees' attention to the smaller benefits of low‐return tasks. We further find that only 30.5% of the employees accessed their performance reports, highlighting a distinction between providing RPI in the field and the laboratory. This study is based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a natural field experiment to estimate the impact of including recipes and nutrition tips in a monthly food-box pre-ordering program on produce orders. Customers were randomized at order pickup to receive recipes and nutrition tips (n = 125), or not (n = 120), and received reminder calls to place next month's order. We observed type(s) and number of boxes ordered. Customers receiving recipes and nutrition tips allocated significantly more (15.7%) of their next month's purchase to fruit (P = 0.04). Customers (33.3%) in this intervention group also increased the amount of produce in their next month's order (P = 0.01) compared to the control group (15.8%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanized harvesting level of potatoes in the arid areas of Northwest China is low and mainly relies on simple machinery to dig the soil surface, and then people manually pick up and bag the potatoes. This harvesting method has the problems of a high labor intensity, low operation efficiency, and high labor cost. Based on this, a wheeled-chassis potato combine harvester with integrated bagging and ton bag-lifting systems was developed, which could complete potato digging, potato–soil separation, potato–film separation, automatic bagging, and field ton bag lifting in one go. Firstly, based on the agronomic requirements and unique terrain characteristics of potato planting in this area, the structural design of the whole machine was completed with SOLIDORKS 2019 3D software. Secondly, the dynamic model was established for a numerical analysis, and the core parameters of key components were determined. The field experiments showed that the potato loss rate was 2.1%, the potato damage rate was 1.7%, the skin breaking rate was 2.5%, the impurity content was 1.9%, and the productivity was 0.15~0.23 hm2/h. The above field test indexes met the requirements of national and industrial standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product recommendations can benefit consumers' online product search via multiple underlying mechanisms, such as showing products that offer them high value, facilitating navigation on the website, or exposing more product information. However, it is unclear ex ante which is the primary underlying mechanism that drives the benefits of product recommendations to consumers. We conducted a randomized field experiment to estimate the benefits of an item-based collaborative filtering (CF) recommendation system to consumers. We collect unique data on the affinity scores computed by an item-based CF algorithm to develop measures of a product's net value and horizontal (taste) fit for consumers. Our results indicate that product recommendations help consumers search for higher-value products that are lower priced, fit their tastes better, or both. Besides that, we find that the ability to find higher-value products (rather than easy navigation or exposure to more product information) is the primary driver for consumers' higher purchase probabilities under recommendations. We further find a higher benefit of recommendations in product categories with higher price dispersion and heterogeneity in consumers' tastes, providing additional evidence for the lower price and better horizontal fit mechanisms. Finally, we find that when made available, consumers substitute their usage of other search tools on the website with product recommendations. Our findings have important implications for online retailers, policymakers, regulators, and item-based CF recommendation system design. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems. Funding: This work was supported by the Public Utility Research Center of the University of Florida, the Hi! PARIS Fellowship, the HEC Foundation, and the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University [Grant 102720]. Supplemental Material: Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4951. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary incentives are widely used to align employee actions with employer objectives. We conducted a field experiment in a retail chain to evaluate whether an attendance bonus could reduce employee absenteeism. Apprentices in 232 stores were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two treatment groups in which a monetary or time-off attendance bonus was introduced for one year. We find that neither variant of the attendance bonus led to a systematic reduction in absenteeism. On the contrary, the monetary attendance bonus increased absenteeism substantially by around 50% on average, which corresponds to more than five additional days absent per employee and year. This effect was driven by the most recently hired apprentices. Survey results reveal that the monetary attendance bonus shifted the perception of absenteeism as acceptable behavior. The backfiring effect persisted beyond the end of the experiment, indicating a lasting erosion of social norms. This paper was accepted by Marie Claire Villeval, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: Funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) [Grant EXC 2126/1–390838866] is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00484. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate models project moderate to large increases in air temperature for most temperate ecosystems with an overall increase in winter precipitation and a shift from snow towards rain. We investigated the effects of increased winter rainfall on the ecosystem functioning of European beech forests at their north-eastern distribution range. In a large-scale field experiment we manipulated winter climate at nine forest sites by increasing the amount of rainfall and excluding snow. Nutrient availability in the topsoil and leaching in 50 cm depth as well as litter decomposition and radial growth of mature European beech trees were analysed. It was hypothesized that (1) wetter winters lead to increased nutrient deposition as well as leaching, with an overall increase in net nutrient availability, (2) decomposition decreases in response to water addition containing also additional nutrients and (3) primary production during the subsequent growing season increases as presumably not all additionally available nutrients would be leached. We found an increase in topsoil nitrate and sulfate availability during winter in response to rain addition, likely as a consequence of collecting more atmospheric deposition, and surprisingly high leaching rates of the additionally available nutrients. During the subsequent early growing season, no difference in nutrient availability could be observed anymore. Enhanced nutrient availability in the topsoil and leaching do not seem to have a strong short-term influence on forest ecosystem processes in ecosystems which are close to their critical load of N deposition. Decomposition rates during winter and early growing season as well as stem diameter growth during the following growing season were not influenced. This indicates that additional nutrients in the topsoil in response to wetter winters are not available for plant growth but pollute ground- and surface waters.

Factorial surveys (FSs) are increasingly used to predict real-world decisions. However, there is a paucity of research assessing whether these predictions are valid and, if so, under what conditions. In this preregistered study, we sent out N = 3, 002 applications to job vacancies in Germany and measured real-world responses. Eight weeks later, we presented nearly identical applicant profiles to the same employers as a part of an FS. To explore the conditions under which FSs provide valid behavioral predictions, we varied the topic sensitivity and tested whether behavioral predictions were more successful after filtering out respondents who gave socially desirable answers or did not exert sufficient effort when answering FS vignettes. Across conditions, the FS results did not correspond well with the real-world benchmark. We conclude that researchers must exercise caution when using FSs to study (hiring) behavior.

Non-advertising-based mobile apps face several critical challenges when trying to monetize their free services—among them, the choice of pricing strategies (hard landing vs. soft landing; i.e., a "pay or churn" paywall vs. continuing to offer limited free services to existing users after monetization) and aspects of product design (whether to provide exclusive secondary offerings to paying users). The authors implemented a large-scale randomized field experiment with an app firm to test the causal effects of such pricing and product design strategies. Results show that both soft landing and exclusive secondary offerings decrease existing app users' willingness to subscribe, but there is a positive interaction between these two strategies on subscriptions. The authors propose a theoretical framework, discuss potential mechanisms that might be at play, and conduct robustness checks to rule out several alternative explanations. A customer survey by the firm and an experiment on Prolific provide further support for the theoretical mechanism. To assess generalizability, the authors conducted a second field experiment and obtained consistent results. They also report the results from the actual implementation of the best-performing strategy by the firm. This research provides guidance on possible theoretical underpinnings of users' responses and important managerial implications for app monetization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates whether charities can enhance fundraising effectiveness by increasing donors' sense of agency. This article introduces two strategies that allow donors to target individual charitable projects, either via the choice options (targeting-via-options) or via the suggested donation amounts (targeting-via-amounts). A large-scale field experiment involving more than 40,000 prospective donors manipulates the ability to control the allocation of the charity's resources and finds that enhancing donor agency boosts fundraising revenue by 42%. A causal forest analysis indicates significant donor heterogeneity, with a subset of donors being three times more responsive to the opportunity to target their gift than the average donor. Inactive donors, "clumpy" donors (who exhibit uneven donation patterns), and donors who concentrate their gifts during the popular giving periods are less responsive to interventions, whereas frequent, generous, and long-tenured donors are more responsive to them. Three experiments offer stronger internal validity regarding the manipulations and process evidence that agency—and not emotion—is responsible for the increased donation effects. An optimization analysis provides implications for how charities can leverage these insights to manage their fundraising campaigns to greater success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dissemination of (mis)information on a social media platform in Pakistan. It combines an intervention to disseminate official information about the COVID-19 pandemic across the platform with a randomized experiment that measures the impact of fully controlling access to pandemic-related misinformation. The two treatments rely on a higherintensity, ex-ante approach to moderating misinformation on the platform relative to the control, which relies on a more standard ex-post approach to moderation. In one treatment, no misinformation was allowed on the platform, while in the other, it was allowed with an official rebuttal. Controlling misinformation, as in the treatments, reduces platform usage by 41%, indicating a distaste for moderation. Furthermore, the treatments reduce exposure to official information by 29% more than they reduce exposure to misinformation. A conceptual framework posits that these findings can be explained by the fact that, in this setting, official information is more trusted, and thus is more widely disseminated, relative to misinformation. We find evidence for two potential mechanisms for the observed distaste for moderation.

Young individuals rarely seek information about life insurance—a product that offers long-term benefits that might not motivate a desire to act now. Framing life insurance messaging as a gain in the present (e.g., "ensure your loved ones are protected today") is thought to motivate younger individuals to seek information about insurance policies. A field experiment with a large life insurance issuer and a pre-registered experiment reveal that loss aversion and temporal orientation frames influences whether individuals aged 25–49 years shop for life insurance. Specifically, the results suggest that the superiority of gain frames over loss frames requires positioning the benefits well in the future, despite the need to act now. This study thus also contextualizes the realities and practical difficulty of framing financial products in ways that might interest a potentially vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social gamification, which allows technology users to interact with each other in gamified tasks, has drawn increasing interest due to its effectiveness in facilitating users' game engagement and task efforts. In social gamification, users can compete or cooperate with other users or teams to complete game tasks and achieve game goals. However, it remains unclear how various social interaction mechanisms (SIMs), such as cooperation, interpersonal competition, and intergroup competition, influence gamification outcomes when they are separately or jointly implemented. In addition, the effects of SIMs on experiential and instrumental gamification outcomes have not been well differentiated. In this study, we systematically investigate the influences of these fundamental SIMs, as well as the possible interaction effects among them, on fitness app users' game engagement and fitness behavior. Using a fitness app custom-developed for the Chinese market, Fitness Castle, we conducted a longitudinal field experiment to test our proposed model and hypotheses. The results indicate that when separately implemented, cooperation and interpersonal competition can lead to differential instrumental gamification outcomes in the fitness context. We also systematically compare the differential gamification outcomes when cooperation, interpersonal competition, and intergroup competition are combined in various coopetition settings. Our study offers a theory-based framework and design principles for social gamification. Our findings help practitioners better design SIMs in their gamified technologies with the purpose of achieving optimal experiential and instrumental gamification outcomes simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]