What Should Technologists Know about Power, Consent and Privacy? Part 2

The Extended Mind recently hosted an event with Vanessa Bohns, a social psychologist who has done extensive research on the psychology of requests. Her research illuminates the human tendency to be agreeable and the difficulty with which we say no.

The purpose of these blogs is to outline some of the highlights of the event and discuss the consequences of social and power dynamics on informed consent, transparency, and choice, as well as how technologists can avoid pitfalls in product design. In this, the second of two blogs, we will recap the distinction between legal and psychological consent and the power of defaults.

Legal consent is not psychological consent

Products and services often collect user’s legal consent to their data collection practices, privacy policies, and other terms of service. Most users agree to the terms because they want to use the product, thus offering their legal consent, but it’s unknown how often they offer their actual psychological consent.

“I think it’s really interesting to think about psychological consent, which is something that gets a lot less attention, but just the general idea that even if you’re obtaining legal consent in whatever way,…even if they feel like they’re objectively legally consenting, they may not feel like they really consented.” — Vanessa Bohns

Or, put more bluntly:

“They may feel violated because they agreed to something they didn’t really want to do.” — Vanessa Bohns

The difference between legal and psychological consent highlights that users may end up feeling violated by the very terms they agreed to because their psychological consent, which is the most meaningful, wasn’t collected. If the user finds out their data was used in ways they consider unfavorable or their privacy was violated by their own standards, it may lead to backlash or a diminishment of trust of the product or company.

Defaults influence user behavior

When it comes to product settings, defaults have a huge amount of power. Defaults and other recommended settings ‘nudge’ people towards certain choices and direct human behavior.

“Defaults are one of the strongest nudges out there that people, especially if they don’t have time to think about it, they’re just not going to make the effort to switch the default”. — Vanessa Bohns

In behavioral psychology, nudges are a way of influencing human behavior “by altering the environment so that automatic cognitive processes are triggered to favour the desired outcome” (Wiki, 2021).

In most cases, people will not make the effort to change their settings. This bears out in the data from actual products as well. Only 5% of Google users have ever changed the settings that control the types of data Google can collect and save about them (Aten, 2021).

Takeaways

What human defaults, nudges, and the divide between legal and psychological consent really highlight is the difference between consent and compliance. People feel compelled to agree with requests that are made of them, even if they don’t actually want to.

“[There’s a difference] between getting someone to consent to something that you want them to do, and cases where they really just feel like they’re complying. They just feel compelled to agree.” — Vanessa Bohns

In cases where there are power dynamics (police), nudges (product settings), or lack of understanding (terms of service), the human tendency to be agreeable is likely strengthened by other factors such as fear, social influence, or laziness.

Are people making real choices about their privacy settings and how their data is being used? Or, are they simply acting in a compliant way because they want to access the product or services at hand?

To read more about Vanessa’s research, you can check out her website, or her new 2021 book You have more influence than you think.

Resources

Aten, J. (2021, January 5). Google Just Revealed How Many People Use Its Privacy Checkup Tool. It’s Not Good News. Inc.Com. https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/google-just-revealed-how-many-people-use-its-privacy-checkup-tool-its-not-good-news.html

Wikipedia contributors. (2021, October 11). Nudge theory. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory