Generalize nudge susceptibility beyond defaults and social influence

Determine whether the opposing effects of reasoning configuration on susceptibility to automatic and reflective nudges extend to other automatic nudges, including deceptive visualizations and scarcity cues, and to other reflective nudges, including suggested alternatives and reminders of consequences.

Background

The study examines only two representative forms of digital influence: default options as an automatic Type 1 nudge and social influence as a reflective Type 2 nudge. Its central finding is that high reasoning reduces susceptibility to defaults but increases susceptibility to social influence.

The authors explicitly leave unresolved whether this pattern is specific to these two mechanisms or generalizes across a broader range of automatic and reflective digital nudges. Establishing such generality would clarify the scope of the reported relationship between reasoning configuration and nudge susceptibility in LLM-based GUI agents.

References

Whether the same pattern extends to other automatic nudges, such as deceptive visualizations or scarcity cues, and to other reflective nudges, such as suggesting alternatives or reminding of consequences, remains open.

— A Dual-Process Perspective on Nudge Susceptibility in LLM-Based GUI Agents  (2609.19843 - Halimeh et al., 17 Sep 2026) in Section 6, Discussion, Limitations and Outlook