Democratic governments vary in the extent to which they encourage citizens to reflect on the policies that they enact. This trade-off is particularly acute for behavioral nudges like setting default choices, which are often not made explicit to citizens. Using data from an online survey experiment administered to 24,303 respondents in the G7, this paper tests the effects of encouraging citizens to reflect on a hypothetical default nudge policy (automatic enrolment for COVID-19 booster appointments) on both vaccination intentions and policy support. Contrary to expectations, individuals report that they would be less likely to get the booster in the default nudge condition compared to a control condition in which citizens would initiate their own booster appointments. At the same time, individuals were more supportive of the default nudge policy than the control condition policy. However, encouraging people to reflect on the nudge eliminates the increase in policy approval it otherwise generates while strengthening the negative effect it has on vaccination intentions. These results suggest that reflection may increase backlash but can better align expressed policy approval with the behavioral effects the nudge generates.