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An Audience of One: Behaviorally Targeted Ads as Implied Social Labels
Christopher Summers, Robert Smith & Rebecca Walker Reczek
Journal of Consumer Research, June 2016, Pages 156-178
Abstract:
“Behavioral targeting” is an Internet-based targeting strategy that delivers digital ads to individuals based on their online behavior (e.g., search, shopping). This research explores the unique ways in which consumers respond to ads using this type of targeting (vs. to ads that use more traditional forms of targeting), demonstrating that a behaviorally targeted ad can act as a social label even when it contains no explicit labeling information. Instead, when consumers recognize that the marketer has made an inference about their identity in order to serve them the ad, the ad itself functions as an implied social label. Across four studies, behaviorally targeted ads lead consumers to make adjustments to their self-perceptions to match the implied label; these self-perceptions then impact behavior including purchase intentions for the advertised product and other behaviors related to the implied label. Importantly, these effects only hold when the label is plausibly connected to consumers’ prior behavior (i.e., when the targeting is at least moderately accurate).
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Ela Oren, Naama Friedmann & Reuven Dar
Consciousness and Cognition, May 2016, Pages 125–134
Abstract:
The study examined the prediction that obsessive–compulsive tendencies are related to an attenuated sense of agency (SoA). As most explicit agency judgments are likely to reflect also motivation for and expectation of control, we examined agency in sentence production. Reduced agency can be expressed linguistically by omitting the agent or by using grammatical framings that detach the event from the entity that caused it. We examined the use of agentic language of participants with high vs. low scores on a measure of obsessive–compulsive (OC) symptoms, using structured linguistic tasks in which sentences are elicited in a conversation-like setting. As predicted, high OC individuals produced significantly more non-agentic sentences than low OC individuals, using various linguistic strategies. The results suggest that OC tendencies are related to attenuated SoA. We discuss the implications of these findings for explicating the SoA in OCD and the potential contribution of language analysis for understanding psychopathology.
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Reducing Stereotype Threat With Embodied Triggers: A Case of Sensorimotor–Mental Congruence
Aïna Chalabaev et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
In four experiments, we tested whether embodied triggers may reduce stereotype threat. We predicted that left-side sensorimotor inductions would increase cognitive performance under stereotype threat, because such inductions are linked to avoidance motivation among right-handers. This sensorimotor–mental congruence hypothesis rests on regulatory fit research showing that stereotype threat may be reduced by avoidance-oriented interventions, and motor congruence research showing positive effects when two parameters of a motor action activate the same motivational system (avoidance or approach). Results indicated that under stereotype threat, cognitive performance was higher when participants contracted their left hand (Study 1) or when the stimuli were presented on the left side of the visual field (Studies 2-4), as compared with right-hand contraction or right-side visual stimulation. These results were observed on math (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and Stroop (Study 3) performance. An indirect effect of congruence on math performance through subjective fluency was also observed.
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Effect of Self-Talk and Imagery on the Response Time of Trained Martial Artists
George Hanshaw & Marlon Sukal
Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive-specific (CS) mental imagery (conditional stimulus) and motivational self-talk (ST) on the response times of trained martial artists. A within-subjects and between-subjects pre–posttreatment design was applied with a power sample of more than 200 participants. The results showed that motivational ST, CS imagery, and the interaction of both significantly reduced the response times of trained martial artists. The effect size of each strategy was very large when compared with the control group. The control group, which did not receive any intervention, generally realized slower response times in the second trial.
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Loss Aversion Around a Fixed Reference Point in Highly Experienced Agents
Mathew Goldman & Justin Rao
Microsoft Working Paper, May 2016
Abstract:
We study how reference dependence and loss aversion motivate highly experienced agents, professional basketball players. Loss aversion predicts losing motivates if the reference point is fixed and losing discourages if it adjusts quickly. We find a "losing motivates effect" so large that an average team scores like a league leader when trailing by ten points. Optical tracking of players' movements shows this effect comes through differential exertion of effort. Betting spreads and lagged score margin show that expectations do not influence the reference point, which is stable around zero, far less malleable than previously found in less experienced agents.
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Clayton Critcher & Melissa Ferguson
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, June 2016, Pages 818-839
Abstract:
To effectively self-regulate, people must persevere on tasks that they deem important, regardless of whether those tasks are enjoyable. Building on past work that has noted the fundamental role of implicit cognition in guiding effective self-regulation, the present paper tests whether an implicit association between goal means and importance predicts self-regulatory persistence and success. Implicit importance predicted markers of effective self-regulation — better grades, more studying and exercise, and stronger standardized testing performance — over and above, and often better than, explicit beliefs about the importance of that self-regulation, as well as implicit evaluations of those means. In particular, those for whom tasks were fairly taxing to complete (i.e., those for whom this self-regulation required effortful self-control) were those who most benefitted from the implicit association between means and importance. Moreover, when participants were reminded of recent self-regulatory failure that they believed could be overcome through hard work, implicit importance toward the means increased as if to prepare them to achieve self-regulatory persistence. A final study sought to reconcile the present findings with previous work showing the key role that implicit evaluations play in effective self-regulation. We reasoned that means are important precisely because they are associated with valued end-states. Consistent with this account, implicit evaluations of end-states predicted the implicit importance of means, which in turn predicted effective self-regulation.
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Brain connectivity reflects human aesthetic responses to music
Matthew Sachs et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, June 2016, Pages 884-891
Abstract:
Humans uniquely appreciate aesthetics, experiencing pleasurable responses to complex stimuli that confer no clear intrinsic value for survival. However, substantial variability exists in the frequency and specificity of aesthetic responses. While pleasure from aesthetics is attributed to the neural circuitry for reward, what accounts for individual differences in aesthetic reward sensitivity remains unclear. Using a combination of survey data, behavioral and psychophysiological measures and diffusion tensor imaging, we found that white matter connectivity between sensory processing areas in the superior temporal gyrus and emotional and social processing areas in the insula and medial prefrontal cortex explains individual differences in reward sensitivity to music. Our findings provide the first evidence for a neural basis of individual differences in sensory access to the reward system, and suggest that social–emotional communication through the auditory channel may offer an evolutionary basis for music making as an aesthetically rewarding function in humans.