Based on the Evidence
Power and overconfident decision-making
Nathanael Fast et al.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, forthcoming
Abstract:
Five experiments demonstrate that experiencing power leads to overconfident decision-making. Using multiple instantiations of power, including an episodic recall task (Experiments 1-3), a measure of work-related power (Experiment 4), and assignment to high- and low-power roles (Experiment 5), power produced overconfident decisions that generated monetary losses for the powerful. The current findings, through both mediation and moderation, also highlight the central role that the sense of power plays in producing these decision-making tendencies. First, sense of power, but not mood, mediated the link between power and overconfidence (Experiment 3). Second, the link between power and overconfidence was severed when access to power was not salient to the powerful (Experiment 4) and when the powerful were made to feel personally incompetent in their domain of power (Experiment 5). These findings indicate that only when objective power leads people to feel subjectively powerful does it produce overconfident decision-making.
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Living Large: The Powerful Overestimate Their Own Height
Michelle Duguid & Jack Goncalo
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In three experiments, we tested the prediction that individuals' experience of power influences their perceptions of their own height. High power, relative to low power, was associated with smaller estimates of a pole's height relative to the self (Experiment 1), with larger estimates of one's own height (Experiment 2), and with choice of a taller avatar to represent the self in a second-life game (Experiment 3). These results emerged regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through assigned roles (Experiment 2). Although a great deal of research has shown that more physically imposing individuals are more likely to acquire power, this work is the first to show that powerful people feel taller than they are. The discussion considers the implications for existing and future research on the physical experience of power.
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The Economics of Scientific Misconduct
Nicola Lacetera & Lorenzo Zirulia
Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, October 2011, Pages 568-603
Abstract:
This article presents a model of the research and publication process that analyzes why scientists commit fraud and how fraud can be detected and prevented. In the model, authors are asymmetrically informed about the success of their projects and can fraudulently manipulate their results. We show, first, that the types of scientific frauds that are observed are unlikely to be representative of the overall amount of malfeasance; also, star scientists are more likely to misbehave but less likely to be caught than average scientists. Second, a reduction in fraud verification costs may not lead to a reduction of misconduct episodes but rather to a change in the type of research that is performed. Third, a strong "publish or perish" pressure may reduce, and not increase, scientific misconduct because it motivates more scrutiny. Finally, a more active role of editors in checking for misconduct does not always provide additional deterrence.
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A Causal Role for Negative Affect: Misattribution in Biased Evaluations of Scientific Information
Geoffrey Munro, Jessica Stansbury & Jeffrey Tsai
Self and Identity, Winter 2012, Pages 1-15
Abstract:
The role of negative affect as a potential causal mechanism underlying the tendency for prior attitudes to bias evaluations of scientific information was investigated using a misattribution of affect manipulation. Participants read scientific studies that disconfirmed prior beliefs. Half the participants were given the opportunity to misattribute any negative affect to poor room conditions (Study 1) or caffeinated water (Study 2). All participants then evaluated the methodological quality of the scientific information. Those in the misattribution condition evaluated the information more positively than those in the control condition. In Study 2, no differences were found for participants reading confirming information. The role of affect in attitude resistance is discussed.
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Matthew Kotchen & Matthew Potoski
NBER Working Paper, November 2011
Abstract:
This paper provides a study on conflicts of interest among college football coaches participating in the USA Today Coaches Poll of top 25 teams. The Poll provides a unique empirical setting that overcomes many of the challenges inherent in conflict of interest studies, because many agents are evaluating the same thing, private incentives to distort evaluations are clearly defined and measurable, and there exists an alternative source of computer rankings that is bias free. Using individual coach ballots between 2005 and 2010, we find that coaches distort their rankings to reflect their own team's reputation and financial interests. On average, coaches rank teams from their own athletic conference nearly a full position more favorably and boost their own team's ranking more than two full positions. Coaches also rank teams they defeated more favorably, thereby making their own team look better. When it comes to ranking teams contending for one of the high-profile Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games, coaches favor those teams that generate higher financial payoffs for their own team. Reflecting the structure of payoff disbursements, coaches from non-BCS conferences band together, while those from BCS conferences more narrowly favor teams in their own conference. Among all coaches an additional payoff between $3.3 and $5 million induces a more favorable ranking of one position. Moreover, for each increase in a contending team's payoff equal to 10 percent of a coach's football budget, coaches respond with more favorable rankings of half a position, and this effect is more than twice as large when coaches rank teams outside the top 10.
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Negative results are disappearing from most disciplines and countries
Daniele Fanelli
Scientometrics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Concerns that the growing competition for funding and citations might distort science are frequently discussed, but have not been verified directly. Of the hypothesized problems, perhaps the most worrying is a worsening of positive-outcome bias. A system that disfavours negative results not only distorts the scientific literature directly, but might also discourage high-risk projects and pressure scientists to fabricate and falsify their data. This study analysed over 4,600 papers published in all disciplines between 1990 and 2007, measuring the frequency of papers that, having declared to have "tested" a hypothesis, reported a positive support for it. The overall frequency of positive supports has grown by over 22% between 1990 and 2007, with significant differences between disciplines and countries. The increase was stronger in the social and some biomedical disciplines. The United States had published, over the years, significantly fewer positive results than Asian countries (and particularly Japan) but more than European countries (and in particular the United Kingdom). Methodological artefacts cannot explain away these patterns, which support the hypotheses that research is becoming less pioneering and/or that the objectivity with which results are produced and published is decreasing.
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The USDA Graduate School: Government Training in Statistics and Economics, 1921-1945
Malcolm Rutherford
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, December 2011, Pages 419-447
Abstract:
The USDA Graduate School was founded in 1921 to provide statistical and economic training to the employees of the Department of Agriculture. The school did not grant degrees, but its graduate courses were accepted for credit by a significant number of universities. In subsequent years, the activities of the school grew rapidly to provide training in many different subject areas for employees from almost all federal departments. The training in statistics provided by the school was often highly advanced (instructors included Howard Tolley and, later, Edwards Deming), while the economics taught displayed an eclectic mix of standard and institutional economics. Mordecai Ezekiel taught both economics and statistics at the school, and had himself received his statistical training there. Statistics instruction in 1936 and 1937 included seminar series from R.A. Fisher and J. Neyman, and courses on the probability approach to sampling involving Lester Frankel and William Hurwitz became important after 1939. The instruction in economics was noticeably institutionalist in the period of the New Deal. Towards the end of the period considered here, the instruction in economics became narrower and more focused on agricultural economics. The activities of the school provide a basis for understanding some of the sources of the relative statistical sophistication of agricultural economists and of the statistical work done in government in the interwar period. It is noteworthy than within the USDA Graduate School, and in contrast to the Cowles Commission, statistical sophistication coexisted with an approach to economics that was not predominantly neoclassical. It also provides a light on the place of institutional economics in the training of government economists through the same time span.
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Brief Exposure to Misinformation Can Lead to Long-Term False Memories
Bi Zhu et al.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do false memories last? And do they last as long as true ones? This study investigated whether experimentally created false memories would persist for an extended period (one and a half years). A large number of subjects (N = 342) participated in a standard three-stage misinformation procedure (saw the event slides, read the narrations with misinformation, and then took the memory tests). The initial tests showed that misinformation led to a significant amount of false memory. One and a half years later, the participants were tested again. About half of the misinformation false memory persisted, which was the same rate as for true memory. These results strongly suggest that brief exposure to misinformation can lead to long-term false memory and that the strength of memory trace was similar for true and false memories.
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Gummed-up memory: Chewing gum impairs short-term recall
Michail Kozlov, Robert Hughes & Dylan Jones
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Several studies have suggested that short-term memory is generally improved by chewing gum. However, we report the first studies to show that chewing gum impairs short-term memory for both item order and item identity. Experiment 1 showed that chewing gum reduces serial recall of letter lists. Experiment 2 indicated that chewing does not simply disrupt vocal-articulatory planning required for order retention: Chewing equally impairs a matched task that required retention of list item identity. Experiment 3 demonstrated that manual tapping produces a similar pattern of impairment to that of chewing gum. These results clearly qualify the assertion that chewing gum improves short-term memory. They also pose a problem for short-term memory theories asserting that forgetting is based on domain-specific interference given that chewing does not interfere with verbal memory any more than tapping. It is suggested that tapping and chewing reduce the general capacity to process sequences.
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Memory conformity for confidently recognized items: The power of social influence on memory reports
Ruth Horry et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Memory conformity occurs when one person's memory report influences another's. Memory conformity is more likely to occur when the information comes from a credible source, and when internal evidence is weak. Here, we investigate whether there are situational variations in how heavily participants weigh internal cues to accuracy when confronted with conflicting information from a partner. The results show that even confidently held memories are subject to influence from external sources, and that social influence is exaggerated when the source is seen to be highly credible.
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"He Couldn't Have Done It, He Was With Me!": The Impact of Alibi Witness Age and Relationship
Leora Dahl & Heather Price
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Undergraduate participants who conducted a simulated police investigation were presented with either a child (6 years old) or adult (25 years old) alibi witness, who was either the son or neighbor of the participant's suspect. Replicating previous research, participants were more likely to believe the adult neighbor alibi witness than the adult son. In fact, an alibi provided by the adult son actually proved detrimental to that suspect, as participants thought the suspect was more likely to be guilty after viewing an alibi provided by the adult son. However, child-provided alibis reduced perceptions of suspect guilt, regardless of that child's relationship to the suspect. The child alibi witnesses were also viewed by the participants as more credible than the adult witnesses.
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The Effects of Journalist Opinionation on Learning From the News
Lauren Feldman
Journal of Communication, December 2011, Pages 1183-1201
Abstract:
This study considers whether opinionated television news - that is, news in which the anchor expresses a clear point of view - promotes learning relative to traditional, objective news. Results from an online experiment indicate that news opinionation neither increases nor decreases learning. An examination of processing mechanisms helps to explain this null effect: While perceived bias in opinionated news enhances learning, opinionated news also shifts the focus of information processing away from the message and toward the source, thereby distracting from learning. Learning differences as a function of attitudinal congruency with the opinionated news message are explored. Although there are no differences in learning congruent versus incongruent information, this likewise can be explained by patterns in perceived bias and information processing.
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Human cortical activity evoked by the assignment of authenticity when viewing works of art
Mengfei Huang et al.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, November 2011
Abstract:
The expertise of others is a major social influence on our everyday decisions and actions. Many viewers of art, whether expert or naïve, are convinced that the full esthetic appreciation of an artwork depends upon the assurance that the work is genuine rather than fake. Rembrandt portraits provide an interesting image set for testing this idea, as there is a large number of them and recent scholarship has determined that quite a few fakes and copies exist. Use of this image set allowed us to separate the brain's response to images of genuine and fake pictures from the brain's response to external advice about the authenticity of the paintings. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, viewing of artworks assigned as "copy," rather than "authentic," evoked stronger responses in frontopolar cortex (FPC), and right precuneus, regardless of whether the portrait was actually genuine. Advice about authenticity had no direct effect on the cortical visual areas responsive to the paintings, but there was a significant psycho-physiological interaction between the FPC and the lateral occipital area, which suggests that these visual areas may be modulated by FPC. We propose that the activation of brain networks rather than a single cortical area in this paradigm supports the art scholars' view that esthetic judgments are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional in nature.
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Can Questioning Induce Forgetting? Retrieval-Induced Forgetting of Eyewitness Information
Gino Camp, Henrieke Wesstein & Anique de Bruin
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In eyewitness situations, questioning can be seen as a form of retrieval practice that may have detrimental effects on eyewitness memory. Memory research has demonstrated that retrieval practice may not only enhance memory for practiced information but also induce forgetting of related information. The present study examined the effect of retrieval practice on forgetting in eyewitness memory. First, we investigated whether asking questions about particular offender characteristics can induce forgetting of other offender characteristics. Second, we examined whether this forgetting effect is limited to information from the practiced offender or may also influence memory for characteristics of others present in the crime scene. Third, we studied whether forgetting of eyewitness information occurs in the absence of output interference effects. We found that questioning induced forgetting of offender characteristics. Moreover, the forgetting effect was not limited to information about the practiced offender. Finally, forgetting was found even when output order was experimentally controlled.