Making Decisions Great Again
Prospective outcome bias: Incurring (unnecessary) costs to achieve outcomes that are already likely
Joshua Lewis & Joseph Simmons
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do people decide whether to incur costs to increase their likelihood of success? In investigating this question, we offer a theory called prospective outcome bias. According to this theory, people tend to make decisions that they expect to feel good about after the outcome has been realized. Because people expect to feel best about decisions that are followed by successes - even when the decisions did not cause those successes - they will pay more to increase their chances of success when success is already likely (e.g., people will pay more to increase their probability of success from 80% to 90% than from 10% to 20%). We find evidence for prospective outcome bias in nine experiments. In Study 1, we establish that people evaluate costly decisions that precede successes more favorably than costly decisions that precede failures, even when the decisions did not cause the outcome. Study 2 establishes, in an incentive-compatible laboratory setting, that people are more motivated to increase higher chances of success. Studies 3-5 generalize the effect to other contexts and decisions and Studies 6-8 indicate that prospective outcome bias causes it (rather than regret aversion, waste aversion, goals-as-reference-points, probability weighting, or loss aversion). Finally, in Study 9, we find evidence for another prediction of prospective outcome bias: people prefer small increases in the probability of large rewards (e.g., a 1% improvement in their chances of winning $100) to large increases in the probability of small rewards (e.g., a 10% improvement in their chances of winning $10).
Framing Feedback Giving as Advice Giving Yields More Critical and Actionable Input
Jaewon Yoon et al.
Harvard Working Paper, August 2019
Abstract:
When looking to improve workplace performance, people often seek third-party input by asking for feedback. However, we propose that asking for feedback might not be the most effective way of soliciting critical and actionable input. We offer a simple yet powerful alternative: ask for advice instead. Across four experiments (N=1,438), including a field experiment, we show that people offer more critical and actionable input when they are asked to provide advice (versus feedback) - even when they are asked to provide comments on identical output. When asked to provide feedback (versus advice), givers focus too much on evaluating the recipient, which undermines their ability to generate constructive (i.e. critical and actionable) input. Our findings suggest that framing feedback provision as advice provision may be a promising way of soliciting constructive third-party input.
Influencing the physiology and decisions of groups: Physiological linkage during group decision-making
Katherine Thorson et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many of the most important decisions in our society are made within groups, yet we know little about how the physiological responses of group members predict the decisions that groups make. In the current work, we examine whether physiological linkage from "senders" to "receivers" - which occurs when a sender's physiological response predicts a receiver's physiological response - is associated with senders' success at persuading the group to make a decision in their favor. We also examine whether experimentally manipulated status - an important predictor of social behavior - is associated with physiological linkage. In groups of 5, we randomly assigned 1 person to be high status, 1 low status, and 3 middle status. Groups completed a collaborative decision-making task that required them to come to a consensus on a decision to hire 1 of 5 firms. Unbeknownst to the 3 middle-status members, high- and low-status members surreptitiously were told to each argue for different firms. We measured cardiac interbeat intervals of all group members throughout the decision-making process to assess physiological linkage. We found that the more receivers were physiologically linked to senders, the more likely groups were to make a decision in favor of the senders. We did not find that people were physiologically linked to their group members as a function of their fellow group members' status. This work identifies physiological linkage as a novel correlate of persuasion and highlights the need to understand the relationship between group members' physiological responses during group decision-making.
Grasping for Metaphors: Identity Ambiguity Contributes to the Preference for Metaphor Usage
Michael Bultmann et al.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Metaphors are frequently used linguistic devices that have the power to clarify ambiguous topics. In turn, a clear and stable self-concept is important to psychological functioning. The current article examines the potential role of self-concept clarity in understanding metaphor usage. Study 1 found that self-concept clarity negatively predicts metaphor usage. Study 2 found that experimentally lowering self-concept clarity led to more metaphor usage in general, and that self-reported self-concept clarity was implicated as a potential mediating factor. Implications are discussed.