Thought process
Kathleen Vohs, Joseph Redden & Ryan Rahinel
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Order and disorder are prevalent in both nature and culture, which suggests that each environ confers advantages for different outcomes. Three experiments tested the novel hypotheses that orderly environments lead people toward tradition and convention, whereas disorderly environments encourage breaking with tradition and convention — and that both settings can alter preferences, choice, and behavior. Experiment 1 showed that relative to participants in a disorderly room, participants in an orderly room chose healthier snacks and donated more money. Experiment 2 showed that participants in a disorderly room were more creative than participants in an orderly room. Experiment 3 showed a predicted crossover effect: Participants in an orderly room preferred an option labeled as classic, but those in a disorderly room preferred an option labeled as new. Whereas prior research on physical settings has shown that orderly settings encourage better behavior than disorderly ones, the current research tells a nuanced story of how different environments suit different outcomes.
----------------------
The grim reasoner: Analytical reasoning under mortality salience
Bastien Trémolière, Wim De Neys & Jean-François Bonnefon
Thinking & Reasoning, forthcoming
Abstract:
The human species enjoys uniquely developed capacities for analytical reasoning and rational decision making, but these capacities come with a price: They make us aware of our inevitable physical death. Drawing on terror management theory and dual-process theories of cognition, we investigate the impact of mortality awareness on analytical reasoning. Two experiments show that experimentally induced thoughts of death impair analytical reasoning performance, just as cognitive load would. When made aware of their own mortality, reasoners allocate their executive resources to the suppression of this disturbing thought, therefore impairing their performance on syllogisms that require analytic thought. This finding has consequences for all aspects of rational thinking that draw on executive resources, and calls for an integrated approach to existential psychology and the psychology of rational thought.
----------------------
Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance
Chia-Jung Tsay
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 3 September 2013, Pages 14580-14585
Abstract:
Social judgments are made on the basis of both visual and auditory information, with consequential implications for our decisions. To examine the impact of visual information on expert judgment and its predictive validity for performance outcomes, this set of seven experiments in the domain of music offers a conservative test of the relative influence of vision versus audition. People consistently report that sound is the most important source of information in evaluating performance in music. However, the findings demonstrate that people actually depend primarily on visual information when making judgments about music performance. People reliably select the actual winners of live music competitions based on silent video recordings, but neither musical novices nor professional musicians were able to identify the winners based on sound recordings or recordings with both video and sound. The results highlight our natural, automatic, and nonconscious dependence on visual cues. The dominance of visual information emerges to the degree that it is overweighted relative to auditory information, even when sound is consciously valued as the core domain content.
----------------------
Is Poker a Game of Skill or Chance? A Quasi-Experimental Study
Gerhard Meyer et al.
Journal of Gambling Studies, September 2013, Pages 535-550
Abstract:
Due to intensive marketing and the rapid growth of online gambling, poker currently enjoys great popularity among large sections of the population. Although poker is legally a game of chance in most countries, some (particularly operators of private poker web sites) argue that it should be regarded as a game of skill or sport because the outcome of the game primarily depends on individual aptitude and skill. The available findings indicate that skill plays a meaningful role; however, serious methodological weaknesses and the absence of reliable information regarding the relative importance of chance and skill considerably limit the validity of extant research. Adopting a quasi-experimental approach, the present study examined the extent to which the influence of poker playing skill was more important than card distribution. Three average players and three experts sat down at a six-player table and played 60 computer-based hands of the poker variant “Texas Hold’em” for money. In each hand, one of the average players and one expert received (a) better-than-average cards (winner’s box), (b) average cards (neutral box) and (c) worse-than-average cards (loser’s box). The standardized manipulation of the card distribution controlled the factor of chance to determine differences in performance between the average and expert groups. Overall, 150 individuals participated in a “fixed-limit” game variant, and 150 individuals participated in a “no-limit” game variant. ANOVA results showed that experts did not outperform average players in terms of final cash balance. Rather, card distribution was the decisive factor for successful poker playing. However, expert players were better able to minimize losses when confronted with disadvantageous conditions (i.e., worse-than-average cards). No significant differences were observed between the game variants. Furthermore, supplementary analyses confirm differential game-related actions dependent on the card distribution, player status, and game variant. In conclusion, the study findings indicate that poker should be regarded as a game of chance, at least under certain basic conditions, and suggest new directions for further research.
----------------------
Haunted by a Doppelgänger: Irrelevant Facial Similarity Affects Rule-Based Judgments
Bettina von Helversen, Stefan Herzog & Jörg Rieskamp
Experimental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Judging other people is a common and important task. Every day professionals make decisions that affect the lives of other people when they diagnose medical conditions, grant parole, or hire new employees. To prevent discrimination, professional standards require that decision makers render accurate and unbiased judgments solely based on relevant information. Facial similarity to previously encountered persons can be a potential source of bias. Psychological research suggests that people only rely on similarity-based judgment strategies if the provided information does not allow them to make accurate rule-based judgments. Our study shows, however, that facial similarity to previously encountered persons influences judgment even in situations in which relevant information is available for making accurate rule-based judgments and where similarity is irrelevant for the task and relying on similarity is detrimental. In two experiments in an employment context we show that applicants who looked similar to high-performing former employees were judged as more suitable than applicants who looked similar to low-performing former employees. This similarity effect was found despite the fact that the participants used the relevant résumé information about the applicants by following a rule-based judgment strategy. These findings suggest that similarity-based and rule-based processes simultaneously underlie human judgment.
----------------------
Stephanie Tully, Hal Hershfield & Tom Meyvis
NYU Working Paper, August 2013
Abstract:
When deciding how to spend their limited discretionary money, one of the most basic trade-offs consumers must make is between spending on material versus experiential purchases, a trade-off with substantial consequences for well-being. We propose that financially constrained consumers will recognize that a purchase today may inhibit a purchase tomorrow — and that this will heighten their focus on a purchase’s longevity. Across five studies, we find that the consideration of financial constraints shifts consumers’ preferences toward more material (rather than experiential) purchases, and that this systematic shift is due to an increased concern about the longevity of the purchase. Moreover, such preferences persist even when the material options are more frivolous than the experiential ones, indicating that the effect is not driven by an increased desire for sensible and justifiable purchases. Finally, analysis of aggregate U.S. consumer expenditure data indicates that this shift has macro-level consequences on consumer spending.
----------------------
Haste makes waste, but not for all: The speed-accuracy trade-off does not apply to neurotics
James Bell, Lauren Mawn & Rosemary Poynor
Psychology of Sport and Exercise, forthcoming
Objectives: To examine if neurotics are the exception to the speed-accuracy rule and in fact are more accurate when making faster decisions.
Method: One hundred and ninety-six elite young cricketers completed measures of neuroticism before performing a cricket-specific computer-based decision-making task.
Results: Neuroticism significantly moderated the relationship between decision-making time and decision-making accuracy such that decreases in response time were associated with improvements in decision-making accuracy for individuals with high levels of neuroticism. Conversely, decreases in response time were associated with decrements in accuracy for individuals with low levels of neuroticism.
Conclusions: The study presents the first data that confirm that speed accuracy trade-offs do not occur across all individuals; individuals with high levels of neuroticism benefit from making faster decisions.
----------------------
It’s Simple and I Know It!: Abstract Construals Reduce Causal Uncertainty
Jae-Eun Namkoong & Marlone Henderson
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
When negative events occur (e.g., a mass shooting, product failure, breakup), individuals naturally ask themselves why such things happen. Indeed, the search for explanations appears to be a fundamental aspect of humanity. The present research explores the role that more abstract, higher level construals play in individuals’ feelings of causal uncertainty. Specifically, we demonstrate that participants who were led to construe a negative event in a more abstract manner felt less uncertain about why that event happened (Experiments 1 and 2). Further, we demonstrate that participants who were led to construe a negative event more abstractly exhibited a more simplified understanding of the event (Experiment 3a) and that adopting a more simplified understanding of an event decreased participants’ causal uncertainty about the event (Experiment 3b). Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
----------------------
Clayton Critcher & Emily Rosenzweig
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
In estimating whether they are likely to improve on a performance task, people lean on a performance heuristic. That is, people rely on their previous performance success as a positive cue when estimating their prospects for performance improvement. Participants whose initial performance was better — either at a darts game (Study 1) or an anagram task (Study 2) — bet more money (Study 1) or estimated a higher subjective likelihood (Study 2) that their subsequent performance would show a specified amount of improvement. Reliance on the heuristic was unwise, for initial performance did not positively predict (and, in fact, negatively predicted) performance improvement. Study 2 suggests that the performance heuristic emerges because forecasters engage in attribute substitution, naturally focusing on their demonstrated performance instead of whether they have already maxed out their potential for improvement on the task. Self-assessments of their initial performance mediated the performance heuristic, but focusing participants on how much performance potential lay before them disrupted it (Study 2). Study 3 showed that the performance heuristic is a general-purpose heuristic that is used not merely to predict one’s own prospects for improvement, but the prospects for other improvement (e.g., mutual funds’ rate of return) as well.
----------------------
Conservative When Crowded: Social Crowding and Consumer Choice
Ahreum Maeng, Robin Tanner & Dilip Soman
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Might the mere crowdedness of the environment affect individuals' choices and preferences? In six studies, the authors show that social crowdedness not only leads to greater accessibility of safety-related constructs, but also results in individuals showing a greater preference for safety-oriented options (e.g., preferring to visit a pharmacy to a convenience store), being more receptive towards prevention (rather than promotion) framed messages, and being more risk averse with real money gambles. Supporting the authors' underlying avoidance motivation perspective, these effects are mediated by participants' net-prevention focus and are attenuated when the crowd in question consists of in-group members. Both practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
----------------------
Reference Points and Contractual Choices: An Experimental Examination
Yuval Feldman, Amos Schurr & Doron Teichman
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, September 2013, Pages 512–541
Abstract:
This article focuses on the influence of framing on the way people understand their contractual obligations. A large body of both psychological and economic studies suggests that people treat payoffs framed as gains and payoffs framed as losses distinctly. Building on these studies, we hypothesize that the ways parties understand their duties are affected by the way in which they are framed. More specifically, we expect that promisors will tend to adopt a more self-serving interpretation when they are making decisions in the domain of losses. To test this prediction, we run a series of four experiments that are all based on a between-subject design. The first two studies utilize experimental surveys that measure and compare participants' attitudes toward a contract interpretation dilemma. The third and fourth studies are incentive-compatible experiments, in which participants' actual interpretive decisions determine their payoff. All four experiments confirm our basic hypothesis and show that framing contractual payoffs as losses rather than as gains raises parties' tendency to interpret their obligations selfishly. These findings refine some of the previous understanding regarding the ability of penalties to optimize parties' contractual behavior, especially in situations in which monitoring is limited. Based on these findings, the article revisits some of the basic questions of contract law, shedding new light on an array of issues such as the law of liquidated damages and the optimal design of contracts.
----------------------
People believe that they are prototypically good or bad
Michael Roy, Michael Liersch & Stephen Broomell
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2013, Pages 200–213
Abstract:
People have been shown to view their beliefs as being prototypical (modal) but their abilities as (falsely) unique (above or below average). It is possible that these two viewpoints – self as prototypical and self as unique – can be reconciled. If the distribution of ability for a given skill is skewed such that many others have high (low) ability and few others have low (high) ability, it is possible that a majority of peoples’ self-assessments can be above (below) average. Participants in 5 studies demonstrated an understanding that various skills have skewed ability distributions and their self-assessments were related to distribution shape: high when negatively skewed and low when positively skewed. Further, participants tended to place themselves near the mode of their perceived skill distribution. Participants were most likely to think that they were good at skills for which they thought that most others were also good.
----------------------
Bias neglect: A blind spot in the evaluation of scientific results
Brent Strickland & Hugo Mercier
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Experimenter bias occurs when scientists' hypotheses influence their results, even if involuntarily. Meta-analyses have suggested that in some domains, such as psychology, up to a third of the studies could be unreliable due to such biases. A series of experiments demonstrates that while people are aware of the possibility that scientists can be more biased when the conclusions of their experiments fit their initial hypotheses, they robustly fail to appreciate that they should also be more sceptical of such results. This is true even when participants read descriptions of studies that have been shown to be biased. Moreover, participants take other sources of bias — such as financial incentives — into account, showing that this bias neglect may be specific to theory-driven hypothesis testing. In combination with a common style of scientific reporting, bias neglect could lead the public to accept premature conclusions.
----------------------
Moving to Solution: Effects of Movement Priming on Problem Solving
K. Werner & M. Raab
Experimental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Embodied cognition theories suggest a link between bodily movements and cognitive functions. Given such a link, it is assumed that movement influences the two main stages of problem solving: creating a problem space and creating solutions. This study explores how specific the link between bodily movements and the problem-solving process is. Seventy-two participants were tested with variations of the two-string problem (Experiment 1) and the water-jar problem (Experiment 2), allowing for two possible solutions. In Experiment 1 participants were primed with arm-swing movements (swing group) and step movements on a chair (step group). In Experiment 2 participants sat in front of three jars with glass marbles and had to sort these marbles from the outer jars to the middle one (plus group) or vice versa (minus group). Results showed more swing-like solutions in the swing group and more step-like solutions in the step group, and more addition solutions in the plus group and more subtraction solutions in the minus group. This specificity of the connection between movement and problem-solving task will allow further experiments to investigate how bodily movements influence the stages of problem solving.
----------------------
Evolutionary justifications for non-Bayesian beliefs
Hanzhe Zhang
Economics Letters, November 2013, Pages 198–201
Abstract:
This paper suggests that the evolutionarily optimal belief of an agent’s intrinsic reproductive ability is systematically different from the posterior belief obtained by the perfect Bayesian updating. In particular, the optimal belief depends on how risk averse the agent is. Although the perfect Bayesian updating remains evolutionarily optimal for a risk-neutral agent, it is not for any other. Specifically, the belief is always positively biased for a risk-averse agent, and the more risk-averse an agent is, the more positively biased the optimally updated belief is. Such biased beliefs align with experimental findings and also offer an alternative explanation to the empirical puzzle that people across the population appear overconfident by consistently overestimating their personal hereditary traits.
----------------------
Rational Inattentiveness in a Forecasting Experiment
Henry Goecke, Wolfgang Luhan & Michael Roos
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
While standard theory assumes rational, optimizing agents under full information, the latter is rarely found in reality. Information has to be acquired and processed — both involving costs. In rational-inattentiveness models agents update their information set only when the benefit outweighs the information cost. We test the rational-inattentiveness model in a controlled laboratory environment. Our design is a forecasting task with costly information and a clear cost-benefit structure. While we find numerous deviations from the model predictions on the individual level, the aggregate results are consistent with rational-inattentiveness and sticky information models rejecting simpler behavioral heuristics.
----------------------
The Malleable Influence of Social Consensus on Attitude Certainty
Joshua Clarkson et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2013, Pages 1019–1022
Abstract:
People often reflect on the opinions of others and express greater attitude certainty when they perceive their attitudes to be shared by others (high attitude consensus). The present research tests the possibility that either high or low attitude consensus can increase attitude certainty depending on people’s salient social identification needs. In particular, high attitude consensus with a target group is found to be more validating when people seek to belong to the group, as this identification motive promotes a search for similarities between themselves and the group. In contrast, low attitude consensus with a target group is found to be more validating when people seek to be unique from a group, as this identification motive promotes a search for dissimilarities between themselves and the group. Two experiments support these hypotheses, offering insight into the intra-personal motives that alter the diagnostic value of social consensus information.
----------------------
Bryan Bonner & Alexander Bolinger
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2013, Pages 214–221
Abstract:
Groups often struggle to distinguish expert members from others who stand out for various reasons but may not be particularly knowledgeable (Littlepage & Mueller, 1997). We examined an intervention designed to improve group decision making and performance through instructing group members to search for information they already possessed that was relevant to a problem. Participants estimated values and expressed their confidence in their estimates individually and then a second time either individually or in a group. This was done with or without the intervention. Results indicated that: (1) groups were more confident than, and out-performed, individuals, (2) group decision making was best captured by models predicting more influence for more accurate members when the intervention was used and more influence for more confident members in its absence, and (3) groups that received the intervention out-performed groups that did not.
----------------------
Sensitivity to reward and punishment: Horse race and EGM gamblers compared
S.R.S. Balodis, A.C. Thomas & S.M. Moore
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Horse race and electronic gaming machine (EGM) gambling are popular forms of gambling, however the key motivational drivers to participation in these different forms are not clear. and Reward Sensitivity theory (RST) and Blaszczynski and Nower’s (2002) cognitive behavioural pathways model of pathological gambling (PG) provide potential frameworks for examining these drivers. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between gambling choice, gambling frequency and personality factors deriving from the models of Gray (sensitivity to reward, sensitivity to punishment), and Blaszczynski and Nower (sensation seeking, impulsivity, escapist motivation). The sample comprised 118 current gamblers who gambled twice or more per year on either horse racing or EGMs (77 male, 41 female, Mage 26.93 years). Horse race and EGM gamblers showed very different patterns of correlates. Horse race gambling frequency was independently predicted by male gender and sensitivity to reward, while the significant independent predictors of EGM gambling were escapist motivation and sensitivity to punishment. Results provide support for conceptualising frequent gamblers as a heterogeneous group with respect to their motivational drivers, with gambling preferences offering an important indicator of underlying motivations for gambling.
----------------------
Evaluating the Message or the Messenger? Implications for Self-Validation in Persuasion
Jason Clark et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Characteristics of persuasive message sources have been extensively studied. However, little attention has been paid to situations when people are motivated to form an evaluation of the communicator rather than the communicated issue. We postulated that these different foci can affect how a source validates message-related cognitions. Participants focused on the source (Studies 1 and 2) or the issue (Study 2) while reading weak or strong message arguments. Later, the communicator was described as low or high in credibility. When focused on the source, highly motivated participants were more confident and their attitudes were more reflective of thoughts when argument quality matched (e.g., weak arguments-low credibility) rather than mismatched (e.g., weak arguments-high credibility) source credibility. Conversely, when participants were focused on the issue, self-validation was greater when credibility was high rather than low — regardless of argument quality. Implications of these findings for the study and practice of persuasion are discussed.
----------------------
Do Framing Effects Reveal Irrational Choice?
David Mandel
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Framing effects have long been viewed as compelling evidence of irrationality in human decision making, yet that view rests on the questionable assumption that numeric quantifiers used to convey the expected values of choice options are uniformly interpreted as exact values. Two experiments show that when the exactness of such quantifiers is made explicit by the experimenter, framing effects vanish. However, when the same quantifiers are given a lower bound (at least) meaning, the typical framing effect is found. A 3rd experiment confirmed that most people spontaneously interpret the quantifiers in standard framing tests as lower bounded and that their interpretations strongly moderate the framing effect. Notably, in each experiment, a significant majority of participants made rational choices, either choosing the option that maximized expected value (i.e., lives saved) or choosing consistently across frames when the options were of equal expected value.
----------------------
A big fish or a small pond? Framing effects in percentages
Meng Li & Gretchen Chapman
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2013, Pages 190–199
Abstract:
This paper presents three studies that demonstrate people’s preference for a large percentage of a small subset over a small percentage of a large subset, when the net overall quantity is equated. Because the division of a set into subsets is often arbitrary, this preference represents a framing effect. The framing effect is particularly pronounced for large percentages. We propose that the effect has two causes: A partial neglect of the subset information, and a non-linear shaped function in the way people perceive percentages.