Dear marketing scholars and researchers,

I am putting together a paper on nudges that backfired, i.e. behavioral interventions that had the opposite effect of what was intended. I am looking for any materials (published or unpublished) that document such instances. Also, I am interested in any form of backfiring, such as boomerang effects, rebound effects, unintended consequences, negative side effects, overcompensation, reactance, etc. Though nudges usually don’t involve financial incentives, I would also be interested in cases where financial incentivization had the opposite effect of what was intended.

Material from any domain would be welcome, such as marketing, sales, promotion, but also other domains such as public policy, healthcare, or any other.

To be precise, I am not interested in nudges or behavioral interventions that simply didn’t work, but rather in interventions that resulted in the opposite of what was intended (or at least had significant negative side effects).

Any help would be highly appreciated and I’ll be happy to share the resulting paper once written. If relevant material comes to your mind, I would be glad if you could send it to: kurt.ackermann@zhaw.ch

Best regards,

Kurt

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