"Modality of Choice Expression: How Speaking Versus Clicking Shapes Default Acceptance," by Yongkun Liu¹, Kurt Munz, and Uri Barnea.
Consumers increasingly express choices in digital environments by speaking rather than clicking, yet little is known about how this shift in choice expression modality shapes default acceptance. Across six preregistered experiments (N = 2, 934), we show that consumers are more likely to accept default options when expressing their choice by speaking rather than by clicking. This effect emerges in both incentive-compatible and hypothetical choice settings, and generalizes across narrated and written product descriptions, horizontally and vertically presented options, and option sets of different sizes. This effect arises because speaking heightens perceived time pressure by making the choice feel more immediate, thereby increasing reliance on the default. Supporting this explanation, perceived time pressure mediates the effect, and the effect attenuates when interfaces reduce expectations of an immediate response, such as by imposing a brief delay before responding or requiring self-initiated microphone activation. By identifying choice expression modality as a systematic and previously overlooked determinant of default acceptance, this research adds to both theories of people’s use of different modalities in communication, and their attitudes towards default options. Furthermore, it offers practical implications for companies optimizing the design of user interfaces.