Swayed
Seeing Stars: Matthew Effects and Status Bias in Major League Baseball Umpiring
Jerry Kim & Brayden King
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper tests the assumption that evaluators are biased to positively evaluate high-status individuals, irrespective of quality. Using unique data from Major League Baseball umpires' evaluation of pitch quality, which allow us to observe the difference in a pitch's objective quality and in its perceived quality as judged by the umpire, we show that umpires are more likely to overrecognize quality by expanding the strike zone, and less likely to underrecognize quality by missing pitches in the strike zone for high-status pitchers. Ambiguity and the pitcher's reputation as a “control pitcher” moderate the effect of status on umpire judgment. Furthermore, we show that umpire errors resulting from status bias lead to actual performance differences for the pitcher and team.
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Napoleon Complex: Height Bias Among National Basketball Association Referees
Paul Gift & Ryan Rodenberg
Journal of Sports Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given the vast number of observations in a transparent environment, the interaction between players and referees in the National Basketball Association (NBA) provides a real-world laboratory that allows for observation and testing of implicit height-based biases (the so-called “Napoleon Complex”). Controlling for a plethora of referee-specific characteristics and including 4,463 regular season games from 2008 to 2012, we find that (i) more personal fouls are called when a relatively shorter three-person officiating crew is working and (ii) no more or fewer fouls are called when games involve relatively taller players. Such biases are probably not large enough to impact game outcomes but could affect gambling markets. Our findings support the conclusion that relatively shorter NBA referees officiate basketball games differently than their taller peers. The analysis spotlights an oft-suggested but rarely studied bias in a workplace where employees are heavily scrutinized and monitored.
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Chaos and Decision Making: Contextual Disorder Reduces Confirmatory Information Processing
Julia Niedernhuber, Andreas Kastenmueller & Peter Fischer
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, May/June 2014, Pages 199-208
Abstract:
When making decisions, individuals tend to systematically prefer information that supports their a priori views over information that conflicts with them. This phenomenon is known as confirmatory information processing. The present research investigated whether contextual disorder — a factor that is typically irrelevant to a given decision case yet can significantly influence decision quality — affects confirmatory information processing. In Study 1, decision makers in untidy environments evinced less confirmatory information processing than decision makers in tidy environments. Study 2 replicated this finding and demonstrated that divergent thinking is an important precondition of the relationship between disorder and confirmatory information processing.
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Clinton Knight, Stephanie Tobin & Matthew Hornsey
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2014, Pages 139–146
Abstract:
One way to restore a sense of control is to system justify. Individuals high in trait reactance are particularly motivated to regain a sense of control in the face of freedom loss. But will high-reactance individuals system justify to restore control, given that they typically oppose authority? Based on the Compensatory Control Model (CCM), we propose that high-reactance individuals’ motivation to compensate for control loss will, at times, overcome this aversion to authority and lead to increased system justification. In Study 1, high-reactance American participants were shown to hold stronger oppositional attitudes toward government authority (i.e., they showed reduced system justification). In Studies 2–4, only high-reactance participants increased their support of government when personal control was reduced. Thus, for high-reactance individuals, the need for control compensation overpowers the need to hold anti-authority attitudes. Outcomes support a CCM account of control compensation for those high (not low) in trait reactance.
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When Suspicious Minds Go Political: Distrusting and Justifying the System at the Same Time
Dmitrij Agroskin, Eva Jonas & Eva Traut-Mattausch
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing on the sensitivity to mean intentions model, we hypothesized that sensitivity to injustice from a victim's perspective (victim sensitivity) is negatively related to the acceptance of political reforms due to an inclination to attribute ulterior motives to policy makers. In Study 1 with a Canadian sample, initial evidence for this mediational model was obtained, as victim sensitivity uniquely predicted distrust of policy makers through general trait suspiciousness. In Study 2, victim-sensitive Austrians and Germans ascribed sinister motives to initiators of an economic reform when contextual cues of initiators' untrustworthiness were given. This situational suspiciousness led them to subsequently oppose this particular reform, and it even generalized to the whole economic system by reducing economic-system justification. However, in both studies, mutually suppressive tendencies toward both opposing and justifying the system occurred. This suggests that victim-sensitive individuals may be torn between distrusting and endorsing the system because it can not only victimize but also promote a sense of security from victimization by conferring order.
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The (perceived) meaning of spontaneous thoughts
Carey Morewedge, Colleen Giblin & Michael Norton
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as meaningless. We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the processes by which they arise that leads people to perceive spontaneous thoughts as revealing meaningful self-insight. Consequently, spontaneous thoughts potently influence judgment. A series of experiments provides evidence supporting two hypotheses. First, we hypothesize that the more a thought is perceived to be spontaneous, the more it is perceived to provide meaningful self-insight. Participants perceived more spontaneous kinds of thought (e.g., intuition) to reveal greater self-insight than did more controlled kinds of thought in Study 1 (e.g., deliberation). In Studies 2 and 3, participants perceived thoughts with the same content and target to reveal greater self-insight when spontaneously rather than deliberately generated (i.e., childhood memories and impressions formed). Second, we hypothesize that the greater self-insight attributed to thoughts that are (perceived to be) spontaneous leads those thoughts to more potently influence judgment. Participants felt more sexually attracted to an attractive person whom they thought of spontaneously than deliberately in Study 4, and reported their commitment to a current romantic relationship would be more affected by the spontaneous rather than deliberate recollection of a good or bad experience with their romantic partner in Study 5.
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B.J. Derksen et al.
Memory, forthcoming
Abstract:
Learning and memory abilities tend to decline as people age. The current study examines the question of whether a learning situation that emphasises collaborative social interaction might help older persons overcome age-related learning and memory changes and thus perform similarly to younger persons. Younger and Older participants (n = 34 in each group) completed the Barrier Task (BT), a game-like social interaction where partners work together to develop labels for a set of abstract tangrams. Participants were also administered standard clinical neuropsychological measures of memory, on which the Older group showed expected inferiority to the Younger group. On the BT, the Older group performed less well than the Younger group early on, but as the task progressed, the performance of the Older group caught up and became statistically indistinguishable from that of the Younger group. These results can be taken to suggest that a learning milieu characterised by collaborative social interaction can attenuate some of the typical memory disadvantages associated with being older.
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Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid: The Role of Beliefs, Belief-Revision, and Meetings in Persuasion
Jeremiah Bentley & Robert Bloomfield
Cornell Working Paper, April 2014
Abstract:
Using a laboratory cheap-talk game, modified to require reporters to make and communicate subjective beliefs, we find that reporters are more persuasive when they sincerely believe their report, but only when they meet with the user. Reporters who meet are also more effective if they revise their beliefs to conform to their report. The results support von Hippel and Trivers’ [2011] theory that self-deception is widespread partly because it helps people deceive others. The results also underscore the importance of institutions that force reporters to explain and defend their reports.
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The impact of middle names: Middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance
Wijnand van Tilburg & Eric Igou
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Middle name initials often appear in formal contexts, especially when people refer to intellectual achievements. On the basis of this common link, the display of middle initials increases positive evaluations of people's intellectual capacities and achievements. We document this effect in seven studies: Middle initials in authors' names increased the evaluation of their writing performance (Study 1), and middle initials increased perceptions of status (Studies 2 and 4). Moreover, the middle initials effect was specific to intellectual performance (Studies 3 and 6), and it was mediated by perceived status (Studies 5–7). Besides supporting our hypotheses, the results of these studies yield important implication for everyday life.
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Luke Kachersky et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using both a lab experiment and actual transaction data, we investigated whether and how incidental similarities (e.g., shared letters between buyer and seller's name) might influence buyer behavior. Particularly, while prior work suggests that consumers generally prefer incidental similarity, we use the context of Internet auctions to show that this preference reverses when prices are high. Under these conditions, buyers avoid incidentally similar sellers. We speculate that this effect is tied to individuals' motive to self-protect. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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Source Credibility and Persuasion: The Role of Message Position in Self-Validation
Jason Clark & Abigail Evans
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Highly credible communicators have been found to elicit greater confidence and attitudes that are based more on recipients’ thoughts (i.e., self-validation) compared with non-credible sources. However, source credibility may produce different effects on thought confidence and persuasion depending on the position of an advocacy. When messages are proattitudinal, credible sources should initiate self-validation because recipients may be motivated to confirm (bolster) their existing views. Conversely, when appeals are counterattitudinal, recipients may be motivated to defend their opinions and disconfirm information. In these contexts, greater self-validation may emerge when a communicator lacks rather than possesses credibility. When a message was counterattitudinal and contained weak arguments, evidence of self-validation was found with low source credibility (Studies 1 and 2) and among participants high in defense motivation (Study 2). In response to strong, proattitudinal arguments, findings were consistent with high credibility producing self-validation when bolstering motivation was high (Study 3).
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Fool Me Twice: The Consequences of Reading (and Rereading) Inaccurate Information
Matthew Jacovina, Scott Hinze & David Rapp
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Readers frequently encounter inaccuracies in texts that contradict what they should know to be true. The current project examined readers' moment-by-moment processing of inaccuracies and whether any difficulty with such material is reduced when readers are already familiar with accurate versions of that content. In two experiments, participants read stories that either accurately or inaccurately described the outcome of a well-known historic event. Preceding story contexts supported accurate outcomes or introduced suspense to create uncertainty about outcome likelihoods. During initial readings, participants took longer to read inaccurate than accurate outcomes. But this difficulty was substantially reduced when suspenseful contexts called into question the likelihood of well-known outcomes. Similar reading patterns emerged when participants read the exact same material after week-long and 5-minute delays. These results indicate that biasing contexts can influence readers' processing of inaccuracies for even familiar events. Rereading proves insufficient for encouraging reliance on accurate prior knowledge.
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Arielle White, James Kaufman & Matt Riggs
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, May 2014, Pages 144-151
Abstract:
What influences our perception of art? Past aesthetics research has covered such variables as theme (e.g., positive, negative), style (e.g., surreal, abstract), and level (e.g., artist eminence). Less research has examined the background of the artist. In this study, 314 participants blind to artist type rated paintings by five different groups of artists (outsider artists: average-deviant artists, prison inmates, serial killers, and nonoutsider artists: average-regular artists and eminent creators) on the following three dimensions: warmth, creativity, and likability. “Average-deviant” artists were rated the highest on all three dimensions, and serial killer artists received the lowest ratings on all three dimensions, suggesting that some element of an artist’s background may impact how their work is perceived.
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Kai Sassenberg, Florian Landkammer & Johann Jacoby
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2014, Pages 153–164
Abstract:
Making good decisions as a group requires the consideration of information exchanged during a discussion, but individuals’ evaluation bias (i.e., discounting of information contradicting and appreciation of information supporting members’ initial preference) works against that. The current research studied motivational preconditions of this bias. It was predicted that pursuing individual goals (e.g., making a good impression or a good decision as an individual after a group discussion) in a prevention focus leads to a stronger evaluation bias than pursuing the same type of goals in a promotion focus or pursuing the goal to perform well as a group with either a promotion or a prevention focus. Four experiments supported this prediction and demonstrated that the evaluation bias is indeed associated with lower memory for critical information and lower decision quality. Hence, group goals are crucial for group decision performance – in particular in contexts inducing a prevention focus (e.g., when security is at stake).
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Livia Thomas et al.
Psychophysiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Aviation security strongly depends on screeners' performance in the detection of threat objects in x-ray images of passenger bags. We examined for the first time the effects of stress and stress-induced cortisol increases on detection performance of hidden weapons in an x-ray baggage screening task. We randomly assigned 48 participants either to a stress or a nonstress group. The stress group was exposed to a standardized psychosocial stress test (TSST). Before and after stress/nonstress, participants had to detect threat objects in a computer-based object recognition test (X-ray ORT). We repeatedly measured salivary cortisol and X-ray ORT performance before and after stress/nonstress. Cortisol increases in reaction to psychosocial stress induction but not to nonstress independently impaired x-ray detection performance. Our results suggest that stress-induced cortisol increases at peak reactivity impair x-ray screening performance.
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The bias in the bias: Comparative optimism as a function of event social undesirability
Steven Sweldens et al.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, July 2014, Pages 229–244
Abstract:
We present a new event-level predictor of comparative optimism: comparative optimism is larger for more socially undesirable events. A meta-analysis shows that event social undesirability predicts comparative optimism effect sizes reported in the literature, over and above the effects of other known predictors. Four experiments corroborate this finding and demonstrate the key role played by respondents’ impression management motives. The effect of social undesirability decreases with stronger than usual anonymity assurances, increases with greater impression management tendencies, and reverses when people want to make a negative impression. Because social undesirability is correlated to other known predictors of comparative optimism (e.g., controllability, severity), it is important to take its effects into account when assessing the effect of other event characteristics. The current research adds to, and bridges, the literatures on event-level predictors and impression management in comparative optimism.
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Explaining the alluring influence of neuroscience information on scientific reasoning
Rebecca Rhodes, Fernando Rodriguez & Priti Shah
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous studies have investigated the influence of neuroscience information or images on ratings of scientific evidence quality but have yielded mixed results. We examined the influence of neuroscience information on evaluations of flawed scientific studies after taking into account individual differences in scientific reasoning skills, thinking dispositions, and prior beliefs about a claim. We found that neuroscience information, even though irrelevant, made people believe they had a better understanding of the mechanism underlying a behavioral phenomenon. Neuroscience information had a smaller effect on ratings of article quality and scientist quality. Our study suggests that neuroscience information may provide an illusion of explanatory depth.
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Jana Niemann et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although negative feedback is usually provided with the best of intentions, it often causes unfavorable affective reactions in the receiver such as anger and shame. The purpose of the present research is to identify factors that may attenuate or intensify these reactions to negative feedback. We argue and show across a laboratory experiment and a field study that feedback framing may affect feelings of anger and shame, but only for high (vs. low) power individuals. Given the prevalence of power differences in many feedback situations (e.g., in the organizational context), our findings may provide valuable information for the successful provision of negative feedback.
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Forewarning Reduces Fraud Susceptibility in Vulnerable Consumers
Susanne Scheibe et al.
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, May/June 2014, Pages 272-279
Abstract:
Telemarketing fraud is pervasive, and older consumers are disproportionally targeted. We conducted a field experiment to test whether forewarning could protect people who were victimized in the past. A telemarketer pitched a mock scam 2 or 4 weeks after participants were warned about the same scam or an entirely different scam. Both warnings reduced unequivocal acceptance of the mock scam although outright refusals (as opposed to expressions of skepticism) were more frequent with the same scam warning than the different scam warning. The same scam warning, but not the different scam warning, lost effectiveness over time.
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The effect of compliments on customers’ compliance with a food server's suggestion
Céline Jacob & Nicolas Guéguen
International Journal of Hospitality Management, July 2014, Pages 59–61
Abstract:
Research has shown that compliments addressed to customers by an employee have a positive influence on the customers’ tipping behavior. In this study, we examined whether compliments also enhanced patrons’ compliance with a food server's suggestion. First, a restaurant waitress took the customers’ order for the main course. Then, in the ingratiation condition, the waitress complimented the customer for his/her choice while in the no-compliment condition, she did not give any compliment. Finally, the waitress suggested a dessert to the patron. Results showed that the dessert suggestion was more readily followed in the compliment condition.
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One and Done? Optimal Decisions From Very Few Samples
Edward Vul et al.
Cognitive Science, May/June 2014, Pages 599–637
Abstract:
In many learning or inference tasks human behavior approximates that of a Bayesian ideal observer, suggesting that, at some level, cognition can be described as Bayesian inference. However, a number of findings have highlighted an intriguing mismatch between human behavior and standard assumptions about optimality: People often appear to make decisions based on just one or a few samples from the appropriate posterior probability distribution, rather than using the full distribution. Although sampling-based approximations are a common way to implement Bayesian inference, the very limited numbers of samples often used by humans seem insufficient to approximate the required probability distributions very accurately. Here, we consider this discrepancy in the broader framework of statistical decision theory, and ask: If people are making decisions based on samples — but as samples are costly — how many samples should people use to optimize their total expected or worst-case reward over a large number of decisions? We find that under reasonable assumptions about the time costs of sampling, making many quick but locally suboptimal decisions based on very few samples may be the globally optimal strategy over long periods. These results help to reconcile a large body of work showing sampling-based or probability matching behavior with the hypothesis that human cognition can be understood in Bayesian terms, and they suggest promising future directions for studies of resource-constrained cognition.