Bottom line: Asking before telling can spark curiosity, engagement, and action.

Why does this matter? Sharing info as facts is the current standard. During the pandemic, the WHO shared info exclusively in PSA format. Switching to an FAQ could have critically shaped the public’s attention.

And in social media ads about COVID-19 vaccines, Q&A-style ads got 9–11% more clicks per dollar than direct statements of fact.

Q&A-style messages also boosted self-reported adherence to public health guidelines in Michigan (e.g., self-reported social distancing)

Q&A-style health messages led to substantially more information seeking, leading people to deepen their knowledge about related topics (e.g., how to wear a mask properly)

We texted *the same facts* either directly (e.g., "Even if you're wearing a mask, you still need to stand 6ft from others to stay safe") or after teasing recipients with a question (e.g., "If you're wearing a mask, do you still need to stay 6ft from others to stay safe?").

We ran large field experiments in Ghana and Michigan (with ~50k participants total) testing the impact of information framing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Huge thank you to MoreThanNow for facilitating this collaboration — this work would not have been possible without them!

Organizations hoping to increase the pipeline of women applying for leadership roles may benefit from ensuring women have access to sponsorship—and that they know it.

Instead, women seem to strategically respond to information about whether their environment is likely to support their aspirations, or not.

One implication? The gender leadership gap can’t simply be chalked up to preferences (e.g., women feeling a lack of ‘fit’ in leadership roles, or preferring to focus on work-life balance).

But diversity incentives serve as a (literally) costly signal of org support for gender diversity. So, they boost women’s expectations that they’ll receive critical sponsorship on the path to promotion. This, in turn, increases their willingness to be open about their leadership aspirations.

You might expect diversity incentives to backfire—it doesn’t feel great to question whether you were promoted on your own merits vs. because of your identity.

Women who were told that org execs were incentivized to boost the representation of women in leadership from 21% to 23% were 11+% more likely to indicate an interest in management than women told about the goal alone, or those who were simply reminded of their org’s commitment to gender diversity.

Interestingly, we find that diversity goals boost anticipated belonging—counter to prior theory. As organizations strip their websites of mentions of diversity entirely, this work highlights the value of clear signals of commitment to DEI for attracting highly qualified underrepresented candidates

This result is driven by White women, while we find null effects for URMs. But in the lab, both groups respond similarly. We explore possible explanations for this difference (including noise!) in the paper.

In a large-scale reverse audit experiment (n = 5,557), we find that women & racial minority job seekers were 6.5% more likely to apply when an org shared a measurable goal instead of a vague one, and this effect was strongest for highly qualified applicants (who were 11% more likely to apply).

One narrative suggests that measurable goals would feel tokenizing and alienating for marginalized candidates, who might expect to be used as a means to an end. The other suggests measurable goals might signal strategic benefits & genuine commitment to DEI. Which account dominates?