I Knew It
The dark side of Eureka: Artificially induced Aha moments make facts feel true
Ruben Laukkonen et al.
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some ideas that we have feel mundane, but others are imbued with a sense of profundity. We propose that Aha! moments make an idea feel more true or valuable in order to aid quick and efficient decision-making, akin to a heuristic. To demonstrate where the heuristic may incur errors, we hypothesized that facts would appear more true if they were artificially accompanied by an Aha! moment elicited using an anagram task. In a preregistered experiment, we found that participants (n = 300) provided higher truth ratings for statements accompanied by solved anagrams even if the facts were false, and the effect was particularly pronounced when participants reported an Aha! experience (d = .629). Recent work suggests that feelings of insight usually accompany correct ideas. However, here we show that feelings of insight can be overgeneralized and bias how true an idea or fact appears, simply if it occurs in the temporal ‘neighbourhood’ of an Aha! moment. We raise the possibility that feelings of insight, epiphanies, and Aha! moments have a dark side, and discuss some circumstances where they may even inspire false beliefs and delusions, with potential clinical importance.
How causal information affects decisions
Min Zheng et al.
Cognitive Research, February 2020
Abstract:
Through experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we study how people use causal information to make everyday decisions about diet, health, and personal finance. Our first experiment, using decisions about maintaining bodyweight, shows that causal information can actually lead to worse decisions than no information at all. In Experiment 2, we test decisions about diabetes management, where some participants have personal domain experience and others do not. We find that individuals without such experience are aided by causal information, while individuals with experience do worse. Finally, our last two experiments probe how prior experience interacts with causal information. We find that while causal information reduces confidence in individuals with prior experience, it has the opposite effect on those without experience. In Experiment 4 we show that our results are not due to an inability to use causal models, and that they may be due to familiarity with a domain rather than actual knowledge.
Children Delay Gratification for Cooperative Ends
Rebecca Koomen, Sebastian Grueneisen & Esther Herrmann
Psychological Science, February 2020, Pages 139-148
Abstract:
To cooperate effectively, both in small-scale interactions and large-scale collective-action problems, people frequently have to delay gratification (i.e., resist short-term temptations in favor of joint long-term goals). Although delay-of-gratification skills are commonly considered critical in children’s social-cognitive development, they have rarely been studied in the context of cooperative decision-making. In the current study, we therefore presented pairs of children (N = 207 individuals) with a modified version of the famous marshmallow test, in which children’s outcomes were interdependently linked such that the children were rewarded only if both members of the pair delayed gratification. Children from two highly diverse cultures (Germany and Kenya) performed substantially better than they did on a standard version of the test, suggesting that children are more willing to delay gratification for cooperative than for individual goals. The results indicate that from early in life, human children are psychologically equipped to respond to social interdependencies in ways that facilitate cooperative success.
Arousal enhances herding tendencies when decision making
Brent Coker
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examines how arousal enhances consumer tendencies to be influenced by the majority when decision making, also known as “herding.” Physiological arousal was manipulated in three controlled experiments, using discrete choice decisions as the dependent variable. The results suggest that arousal enhances tendencies to choose more popular options and that deindividuation mediates the effect of arousal on choice. This research enriches our understanding of the theoretical relationship between arousal and consumer decision making, by suggesting that arousal increases herding. The practical relevance of our findings suggests that strategies to increase herding effects, such as “popular choice” stickers and social media metrics, may be enhanced by making the experience more arousing.
Are monkeys able to discriminate appearance from reality?
Marie Hirel et al.
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
The understanding that the perceptual appearance of the environment can differ in several ways from the reality underlies the ability to discriminate appearance from reality. Being able to realize when a misperception can lead us to behave in inappropriate ways confers an evolutionary advantage and may be a prerequisite to develop a Theory of Mind. Understanding that our own perception can differ from reality seems indeed necessary to attribute to others perceptions or beliefs different than ours. This appearance-reality discrimination ability has recently been demonstrated in great apes but no information is currently available regarding this ability in other nonhuman species. In a comparative study, we tested Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana), an Old World primate species, and brown capuchins (Sapajus apella), a New World primate species. We provided monkeys with two experiments using visual illusions of size and quantity to test their ability to discriminate appearance from reality, with an experimental setup similar to the one developed by Krachun et al. (2016) on chimpanzees. A large number of brown capuchins, from different ages and both sexes, as well as two Tonkean macaques succeeded in the two experiments. By ruling out all alternative explanations (i.e. visual tracking or associative learning), our study brings the first evidence that some Old World and New World monkeys are able to discriminate appearance from reality. Our results suggest moving the evolutionary apparition of this cognitive ability earlier in time. Finally, it suggests that humans could share more Theory of Mind components with more nonhuman species than we previously thought.
Crowdsourcing hypothesis tests: Making transparent how design choices shape research results
Justin Landy et al.
Psychological Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
To what extent are research results influenced by subjective decisions that scientists make as they design studies? Fifteen research teams independently designed studies to answer five original research questions related to moral judgments, negotiations, and implicit cognition. Participants from 2 separate large samples (total N > 15,000) were then randomly assigned to complete 1 version of each study. Effect sizes varied dramatically across different sets of materials designed to test the same hypothesis: Materials from different teams rendered statistically significant effects in opposite directions for 4 of 5 hypotheses, with the narrowest range in estimates being d = −0.37 to + 0.26. Meta-analysis and a Bayesian perspective on the results revealed overall support for 2 hypotheses and a lack of support for 3 hypotheses. Overall, practically none of the variability in effect sizes was attributable to the skill of the research team in designing materials, whereas considerable variability was attributable to the hypothesis being tested. In a forecasting survey, predictions of other scientists were significantly correlated with study results, both across and within hypotheses. Crowdsourced testing of research hypotheses helps reveal the true consistency of empirical support for a scientific claim.