Can behavioral interventions be too salient? Evidence from traffic safety messages

Although behavioral interventions are designed to seize attention, little consideration has been given to the costs of doing so. We estimated these costs in the context of a safety campaign that, to encourage safe driving, displays traffic fatality counts on highway dynamic message signs for 1 week each month. We found that crashes increase statewide during campaign weeks, which is inconsistent with any benefits. Furthermore, these effects do not persist beyond campaign weeks. Our results show that behavioral interventions, particularly negatively framed ones, can be too salient, crowding out more important considerations and causing interventions to backfire-with costly consequences.

Automated summary

Although behavioral interventions are designed to seize attention, they may have costly consequences. A study on a safety campaign reveals that displaying traffic fatality counts during the campaign weeks leads to an increase in crashes statewide, with no sustained effects beyond the campaign weeks. This suggests that behavioral interventions, particularly negatively framed ones, can be too salient and can backfire with important considerations being crowded out.