bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Observing others’ behavior and risk taking in decisions from experience
Authors: Yechiam Eldad , Druyan Meir , Ert Eyal
Published: January 2023

This paper examines how observing other people’s behavior affects risk taking in repeated decision tasks. In Study 1, 100 participants performed experience-based decision tasks either alone or in pairs, with the two members being exposed to each others’ choices and outcomes. The tasks involved either equiprobable gains and losses or frequent small gains and rare large losses. The results indicated that, in both risk types, the social exposure increased the proportion of risky selection, but its effect was stronger in the rare-loss condition. In Study 2 the rare-loss task was administered to 32 study participants, with a target individual observing the choices of a paired individual. The results showed that observing others, rather than being observed, led to the pattern of increased risk taking. The findings of the two studies indicate the importance of distinguishing different types of risky situations and shed light on contradictory findings in the literature.
The Sharing Game: Fairness in resource allocation as a function of incentive, gender, and recipient types
Authors: Kennelly Arthur , Fantino Edmund
Published: January 2023

Economic games involving allocation of resources have been a useful tool for the study of decision making for both psychologists and economists. In two experiments involving a repeated-trials game over twenty opportunities, undergraduates made choices to distribute resources between themselves and an unseen, passive other either optimally (for themselves) but non-competitively, equally but non-optimally, or least optimally but competitively. Surprisingly, whether participants were told that the anonymous other was another student or a computer did not matter. Using such terms as “game” and “player” in the course of the session was associated with an increased frequency of competitive behavior. Males were more optimal than females: a gender-by-incentive interaction was found in the first experiment. In agreement with prior research, participants whose resources were backed by monetary incentive acted the most optimally. Overall, equality was the modal strategy employed, although it is clear that motivational context affects the allocation of resources.
The effects of attractive but unattainable alternatives on the attractiveness of near and distant future menus
Authors: Borovoi Leah , Liberman Nira , Trope Yaacov
Published: January 2023

We examine how adding an Attractive but Unattainable Alternative (AUA) to a set of available but less attractive alternatives influences evaluations of near vs. distant future sets of alternatives. According to Construal Level Theory (Liberman & Trope, 2008) including an AUA would decrease the attractiveness of near future sets, but may increase the attractiveness of distant future sets. In four studies participants imagined a choice situation with three alternatives. For some participants a fourth alternatives was added, which was attractive but unattainable. Half of the participants in each condition imagined making a decision in the near future whereas others imagined making the decision in the distant future. Participants then evaluated the attractiveness of the entire set of alternatives, as well as of each alternative separately. We examined choices between jobs, computers and roommates. The last study examined negotiations with the landlord about an apartment. Consistent with our hypothesis, an AUA increased the evaluation of the distant set and decreased the evaluation of the near set.
The gambler’s fallacy in retrospect: A supplementary comment on Oppenheimer and Monin (2009)
Authors: Matthews William J.
Published: January 2023

Oppenheimer and Monin (2009) recently found that subjectively rare events are taken to indicate a longer preceding sequence of unobserved trials than subjectively common events, an effect which they refer to as theretrospective gambler’s fallacy. The current paper extends this idea to the situation where participants judge the likelihood of streak continuation. Participants were told about a streak produced by a random process (coin flips) or human performance (basketball shots), and either predicted the next outcome or inferred the immediately preceding outcome. For the coin scenarios, participants tended to expect streak termination – the gambler’s fallacy — and this effect was the same for predictions and retrospective inferences. In the basketball scenarios, no overall bias was found in either prospective or retrospective judgments. The results support Oppenheimer and Monin’s suggestion that reconstruction of the past entails the same heuristics as prediction of the future; they also support the idea that the nature of the data-generating process is a key determinant of whether people fall into the gambler’s fallacy. It is suggested that the term retrospective gambler’s fallacy be used to describe situations where a streak is taken to indicate that the preceding unobserved outcome was of the opposite type, and that the phenomenon discovered by Oppenheimer and Monin be referred to as retrospective representativeness, or a retrospective belief in the law of small numbers.
Incentives in religious performance: a stochastic dominance approach
Authors: García-Muñoz Teresa
Published: January 2023

Using a stochastic dominance approach in an international dataset of about 10,000 Catholic subjects, we show that incentives (based on absolute belief) play a crucial role in religious practice (church attendance and prayer). Furthermore, we find that when both positive (heaven) and negative (hell) incentives are available, the former have a much stronger effect than the latter. The results are confirmed using Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests.
Correlations of cognitive reflection with judgments and choices
Authors: Campitelli Guillermo , Labollita Martín
Published: January 2023

We investigated the role of individual differences in cognitive reflection in decision making. We measured the performance of 157 participants in the cognitive reflection test (Frederick, 2005) and a number of decision-making tasks. We examined the relation of cognitive reflection with performance in tasks that assess correspondence (as distinct from coherence), such as predicting the ratings of chess players. We found significant correlations between cognitive reflection and all the estimation measures in correspondence tasks. Our results suggest that cognitive reflection is a thinking disposition that includes more characteristics than originally proposed by Frederick (2005). We proposed that cognitive reflection is related to the concept of actively open-minded thinking (Baron, 1985, 2008). We concluded that cognitive reflection is a thinking disposition that interacts with knowledge, domain-specific heuristics and characteristics of the environment and that it may play an essential role in the adaptation of the decision maker to different environments and situations.
The retrospective gambler’s fallacy: Unlikely events, constructing the past, and multiple universes
Authors: Oppenheimer Daniel M. , Monin Benoît
Published: January 2023

The gambler’s fallacy (Tune, 1964) refers to the belief that a streak is more likely to end than chance would dictate. In three studies, participants exhibited a retrospective gambler’s fallacy (RGF) in which an event that seems rare appears to come from a longer sequence than an event that seems more common. Study 1 demonstrates this bias for streaks, while Study 2 does so with single rare events and shows that the appearance of rarity is more important than actual rarity. Study 3 extends these findings from abstract gambling domains into real world domains to demonstrate the generalizability of the effects. The RGF follows from the law of small numbers (Tversky & Kahneman, 1971) and has many applications, from perceptions of the social world to philosophical debates about the existence of multiple universes.
How distinct are intuition and deliberation? An eye-tracking analysis of instruction-induced decision modes
Authors: Horstmann Nina , Ahlgrimm Andrea , Glöckner Andreas
Published: January 2023

In recent years, numerous studies comparing intuition and deliberation have been published. However, relatively little is known about the cognitive processes underlying the two decision modes. In two studies, we analyzed the effects of decision mode instructions on processes of information search and integration, using eye-tracking technology in a between-participants (Study 1) and a within-participants (Study 2) design. Our findings indicate that the instruction to deliberate does not necessarily lead to qualitatively different information processing compared to the instruction to decide intuitively. We found no difference in mean fixation duration and the distribution of short, medium and long fixations. Short fixations in particular prevailed under both decision mode instructions, while long fixations indicating a conscious and calculation-based information processing were rarely observed. Instruction-induced deliberation led to a higher number of fixations, a more complete information search and more repeated information inspections. We interpret our findings as support for the hypothesis that intuitive and deliberate decision modes share the same basic processes which are supplemented by additional operations in the deliberate decision mode.
Recalled emotions and risk judgments: Field study of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War
Authors: Shahrabani Shosh , Benzion Uri , Shavit Tal
Published: January 2023

The current study is based on a field study of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war that was conducted in two waves, the first two weeks after the end of the war, and the second 18 months later (2008). The purpose of the study was to examine recalled emotions and perceived risks induced by manipulation using a short videoclip that recalled the sounds of the alarms and the sights of the missile attacks during the war. Before filling in the study questionnaire in 2008, the experimental group watched a short videoclip recalling the events of the war. The control group did not watch the video before filling in the questionnaire. Using the data provided by questionnaires, we analyzed the effect of recalled emotions on perceived risks in two different regions in Israel: the northern region, which was under missile attack daily during the war, and the central region, which was not under missile attacks. The videoclip had a strong effect on the level of recalled emotions in both regions, but it did not affect risk judgments. The results of the analytical framework in the northern region support both the valence approach, in which negative emotion increases pessimism about risk (Johnson & Tversky, 1983), and the modified appraisal tendency theory, which implies different effects for different emotions (Lerner & Keltner, 2000). The current study emphasizes the effects of recalled emotion in the context of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war on perceived risks among those in the northern region who were under direct attack compared to those who were not directly exposed to the war. Understanding people’s responses to stressful events is crucial, not only when these events take place but also over time, since media-induced emotions can influence appraisals and decisions regarding public policies.
Bayesian analysis of deterministic and stochastic prisoner’s dilemma games
Authors: Kunreuther Howard , Silvasi Gabriel , Bradlow Eric T. , Small Dylan
Published: January 2023

This paper compares the behavior of individuals playing a classic two-person deterministic prisoner’s dilemma (PD) game with choice data obtained from repeated interdependent security prisoner’s dilemma games with varying probabilities of loss and the ability to learn (or not learn) about the actions of one’s counterpart, an area of recent interest in experimental economics. This novel data set, from a series of controlled laboratory experiments, is analyzed using Bayesian hierarchical methods, the first application of such methods in this research domain.

We find that individuals are much more likely to be cooperative when payoffs are deterministic than when the outcomes are probabilistic. A key factor explaining this difference is that subjects in a stochastic PD game respond not just to what their counterparts did but also to whether or not they suffered a loss. These findings are interpreted in the context of behavioral theories of commitment, altruism and reciprocity. The work provides a linkage between Bayesian statistics, experimental economics, and consumer psychology.
Recognition-based judgments and decisions: What we have learned (so far)
Authors: Marewski Julian N. , Pohl Rüdiger F. , Vitouch Oliver
Published: January 2023

This special issue on recognition processes in inferential decision making represents an adversarial collaboration among the three guest editors. This introductory article to the special issue’s third and final part comes in three sections. In Section 1, we summarize the six papers that appear in this part. In Section 2, we give a wrap-up of the lessons learned. Specifically, we discuss (i) why studying the recognition heuristic has led to so much controversy, making it difficult to settle on mutually accepted empirically grounded assumptions, (ii) whether the development of the recognition heuristic and its theoretical descriptions could explain some of the past controversies and misconceptions, (iii) how additional cue knowledge about unrecognized objects could enter the decision process, (iv) why recognition heuristic theory should be complemented by a probabilistic model of strategy selection, and (v) how recognition information might be related to other information, especially when considering real-world applications. In Section 3, we present an outlook on the thorny but fruitful road to cumulative theory integration. Future research on recognition-based inferences should (i) converge on overcoming past controversies, taking an integrative approach to theory building, and considering theories and findings from neighboring fields (such as marketing science and artificial intelligence), (ii) build detailed computational process models of decision strategies, grounded in cognitive architectures, (iii) test existing models of such strategies competitively, (iv) design computational models of the mechanisms of strategy selection, and (v) effectively extend its scope to decision making in the wild, outside controlled laboratory situations.
Recognising the recognition heuristic for what it is (and what it’s not)
Authors: Newell Ben R.
Published: January 2023

The diversity, ingenuity and differences of opinion displayed in the articles of the recent special issues on the recognition heuristic are testament to the power and theoretical fertility of a simple idea about the role of recognition in decision making. In this brief comment I mention a number of these papers, but my focus is on points of agreement and disagreement with the conclusions drawn by Gigerenzer and Goldstein (2011) in their review of a decade’s worth of research on the recognition heuristic.
Contingency inferences driven by base rates: Valid by sampling
Authors: Kutzner Florian , Vogel Tobias , Freytag Peter , Fiedler Klaus
Published: January 2023

Fiedler et al. (2009), reviewed evidence for the utilization of a contingency inference strategy termed pseudocontingencies (PCs). In PCs, the more frequent levels (and, by implication, the less frequent levels) are assumed to be associated.PCs have been obtained using a wide range of task settings and dependent measures. Yet, the readiness with which decision makers rely onPCs is poorly understood. A computer simulation explored two potential sources of subjective validity ofPCs. First,PCs are shown to perform above chance level when the task is to infer the sign of moderate to strong population contingencies from a sample of observations. Second, contingency inferences based on PCs and inferences based on cell frequencies are shown to partially agree across samples. Intriguingly, this criterion and convergent validity are by-products of random sampling error, highlighting the inductive nature of contingency inferences.
Frequency formats, probability formats, or problem structure? A test of the nested-sets hypothesis in an extensional reasoning task
Authors: Neace William P. , Michaud Steven , Bolling Lauren , Deer Kate , Zecevic Ljiljana
Published: January 2023

Five experiments addressed a controversy in the probability judgment literature that centers on the efficacy of framing probabilities as frequencies. The natural frequency view predicts that frequency formats attenuate errors, while the nested-sets view predicts that highlighting the set-subset structure of the problem reduces error, regardless of problem format. This study tested these predictions using a conjunction task. Previous studies reporting that frequency formats reduced conjunction errors confounded reference class with problem format. After controlling this confound, the present study’s findings show that conjunction errors can be reduced using either a probability or a frequency format, that frequency effects depend upon the presence of a reference class, and that frequency formats do not promote better statistical reasoning than probability formats.
Intuitive numbers guide decisions
Authors: Peters Ellen , Slovic Paul , Västfjäll Daniel , Mertz C. K.
Published: January 2023

Measuring reaction times to number comparisons is thought to reveal a processing stage in elementary numerical cognition linked to internal, imprecise representations of number magnitudes. These intuitive representations of the mental number line have been demonstrated across species and human development but have been little explored in decision making. This paper develops and tests hypotheses about the influence of such evolutionarily ancient, intuitive numbers on human decisions. We demonstrate that individuals with more precise mental-number-line representations are higher in numeracy (number skills) consistent with previous research with children. Individuals with more precise representations (compared to those with less precise representations) also were more likely to choose larger, later amounts over smaller, immediate amounts, particularly with a larger proportional difference between the two monetary outcomes. In addition, they were more likely to choose an option with a larger proportional but smaller absolute difference compared to those with less precise representations. These results are consistent with intuitive number representations underlying: a) perceived differences between numbers, b) the extent to which proportional differences are weighed in decisions, and, ultimately, c) the valuation of decision options. Human decision processes involving numbers important to health and financial matters may be rooted in elementary, biological processes shared with other species.
Does unconscious thought outperform conscious thought on complex decisions? A further examination
Authors: Thorsteinson Todd J. , Withrow Scott
Published: January 2023

Two experiments examined the benefits of unconscious thought on complex decisions (Dijksterhuis, 2004). Experiment 1 attempted to replicate and extend past research by examining the effect of providing reasons prior to rating the options. Results indicated no significant differences between the conditions. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate the findings of Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, and van Baaren (2006) and determine if a memory aid could overcome the limitations of conscious thought on complex tasks. Results revealed that a memory aid improved decisions compared to the conscious thought condition. Participants in the unconscious thought condition did not perform significantly better than did participants in the conscious thought condition.
Why are lotteries valued less? Multiple tests of a direct risk-aversion mechanism
Authors: Newman George E. , Mochon Daniel
Published: January 2023

Recent studies have identified the uncertainty effect (UE), whereby risky prospects (e.g., a binary lottery that offers either a $50 or $100 gift certificate) are valued less than their worst possible outcome (a $50 certificate). This effect has been proposed to result from “direct risk-aversion” which posits that the mere uncertainty of a lottery directly decreases its value. However, this effect may also be driven by the potential disappointment inherent in not receiving the better of the two outcomes (disappointment aversion), or the mere fact that the risky prospect is referred to as a “lottery”. The results of two experiments do not support either of these two alternatives. Specifically, the results of Experiment 1 indicate that the UE is observed even when the values of the two lottery outcomes are similar, or even identical. Experiment 2 further replicates the UE in a context in which the word “lottery” is never used (a company promotional). These results are consistent with a direct risk-aversion mechanism (Gneezy et al., 2006; Simonsohn, 2009) and suggest that the UE obtains across a number of different contexts.
The default pull: An experimental demonstration of subtle default effects on preferences
Authors: Dhingra Nikhil , Gorn Zach , Kener Andrew , Dana Jason
Published: January 2023

The impact of default options on choice is a reliable, well-established behavioral finding. However, several different effects may lend to choosing defaults in an often indistinguishable manner, including loss aversion, inattention, information leakage, and transaction costs associated with switching. We introduce the notion of the “default pull” as the effect that even subtle default options have on decision makers’ uncertainty about their own preferences. The default pull shapes what a decision maker prefers by causing her to consider whether she prefers the default. We demonstrate default pull effects using a simple decision making task that strips away many of the usual reasons that defaults could affect choices, and we show that defaults can have substantial effects on choice, even when the default itself was not chosen.
Cultural differences in risk: The group facilitation effect
Authors: Kim Do-Yeong , Park Junsu
Published: January 2023

We compared South Koreans with Australians in order to characterize cultural differences in attitudes and choices regarding risk, at both the individual and group levels. Our results showed that Australians, when assessed individually, consistently self-reported higher preference for risk than South Koreans, regardless of gender. The data revealed that South Koreans, regardless of gender composition, were willing to take greater risks when making decisions in group decision-making situations than when they were alone. This is a different pattern from that seen in the Australian sample, in which a risky shift was noted only among males. This difference was attributed to the influence of various cultural orientations (independent vs. interdependent relationship styles). This study also provides a discussion of the implications of these results in terms of cultural differences in attitudes and decisions regarding risk.
Image Theory’s counting rule in clinical decision making: Does it describe how clinicians make patient-specific forecasts?
Authors: Falzer Paul R. , Garman D. Melissa
Published: January 2023

The field of clinical decision making is polarized by two predominate views. One holds that treatment recommendations should conform with guidelines; the other emphasizes clinical expertise in reaching case-specific judgments. Previous work developed a test for a proposed alternative, that clinical judgment should systematically incorporate both general knowledge and patient-specific information. The test was derived from image theory’s two phase-account of decision making and its “simple counting rule”, which describes how possible courses of action are pre-screened for compatibility with standards and values. The current paper applies this rule to clinical forecasting, where practitioners indicate how likely a specific patient will respond favorably to a recommended treatment. Psychiatric trainees evaluated eight case vignettes that exhibited from 0 to 3 incompatible attributes. They made two forecasts, one based on a guideline recommendation, the other based on their own alternative. Both forecasts were predicted by equally- and unequally-weighted counting rules. Unequal weighting provided a better fit and exhibited a clearer rejection threshold, or point at which forecasts are not diminished by additional incompatibilities. The hypothesis that missing information is treated as an incompatibility was not confirmed. There was evidence that the rejection threshold was influenced by clinician preference. Results suggests that guidelines may have a de-biasing influence on clinical judgment. Subject to limitations pertaining to the subject sample and population, clinical paradigm, guideline, and study procedure, the data support the use of a compatibility test to describe how clinicians make patient-specific forecasts.
Description-based and experience-based decisions: individual analysis
Authors: Kudryavtsev Andrey , Pavlodsky Julia
Published: January 2023

We analyze behavior in two basic classes of decision tasks: description-based and experience-based. In particular, we compare the prediction power of a number of decision learning models in both kinds of tasks. Unlike most previous studies, we focus on individual, rather than aggregate, behavioral characteristics. We carry out an experiment involving a battery of both description- and experience-based choices between two mixed binary prospects made by each of the participants, and employ a number of formal models for explaining and predicting participants’ choices: Prospect theory (PT) (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979); Expectancy-Valence model (EVL) (Busemeyer & Stout, 2002); and three combinations of these well-established models. We document that the PT and the EVL models are best for predicting people’s decisions in description- and experience-based tasks, respectively, which is not surprising as these two models are designed specially for these kinds of tasks. Furthermore, we find that models involving linear weighting of gains and losses perform better in both kinds of tasks, from the point of view of generalizability and individual parameter consistency. We therefore, conclude that, overall, when both prospects are mixed, the assumption of diminishing sensitivity does not improve models’ prediction power for individual decision-makers. Finally, for some of the models’ parameters, we document consistency at the individual level between description- and experience-based tasks.
A new intuitionism: Meaning, memory, and development in Fuzzy-Trace Theory
Authors: Reyna Valerie F.
Published: January 2023

Combining meaning, memory, and development, the perennially popular topic of intuition can be approached in a new way. Fuzzy-trace theory integrates these topics by distinguishing between meaning-based gist representations, which support fuzzy (yet advanced) intuition, and superficial verbatim representations of information, which support precise analysis. Here, I review the counterintuitive findings that led to the development of the theory and its most recent extensions to the neuroscience of risky decision making. These findings include memory interference (worse verbatim memory is associated with better reasoning); nonnumerical framing (framing effects increase when numbers are deleted from decision problems); developmental decreases in gray matter and increases in brain connectivity; developmental reversals in memory, judgment, and decision making (heuristics and biases based on gist increase from childhood to adulthood, challenging conceptions of rationality); and selective attention effects that provide critical tests comparing fuzzy-trace theory, expected utility theory, and its variants (e.g., prospect theory). Surprising implications for judgment and decision making in real life are also discussed, notably, that adaptive decision making relies mainly on gist-based intuition in law, medicine, and public health.
Counterfactual thinking and regulatory fit
Authors: Markman Keith D. , McMullen Matthew N. , Elizaga Ronald A. , Mizoguchi Nobuko
Published: January 2023

According to regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000), when people make decisions with strategies that sustain their regulatory focus orientation, they “feel right” about what they are doing, and this “feeling-right” experience then transfers to subsequent choices, decisions, and evaluations. The present research was designed to link the concept of regulatory fit to functional accounts of counterfactual thinking. In the present study, participants generated counterfactuals about their anagram performance, after which persistence on a second set of anagrams was measured. Under promotion framing (i.e., find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward counterfactual thinking in general elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward counterfactual thinking in general, but under prevention framing (i.e., avoid failing to find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward evaluation (comparing reality to a better reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did upward reflection (focusing on a better reality), whereas downward reflection (focusing on a worse reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward evaluation (comparing reality to a worse reality). In all, the present findings suggest that the generation of counterfactuals enhances the likelihood that individuals will engage in courses of action that fit with their regulatory focus orientation.
It must be awful for them: Perspective and task context affects ratings for health conditions
Authors: Lacey Heather P. , Fagerlin Angela , Loewenstein George , Smith Dylan M. , Riis Jason , Ubel Peter A.
Published: January 2023

When survey respondents rate the quality of life (QoL) associated with a health condition, they must not only evaluate the health condition itself, but must also interpret the meaning of the rating scale in order to assign a specific value. The way that respondents approach this task depends on subjective interpretations, resulting in inconsistent results across populations and tasks. In particular, patients and non-patients often give very different ratings to health conditions, a discrepancy that raises questions about the objectivity of either groups’ evaluations. In this study, we found that the perspective of the raters (i.e., their own current health relative to the health conditions they rated) influences the way they distinguish between different health states that vary in severity. Consistent with prospect theory, a mild and a severe lung disease scenario were rated quite differently by lung disease patients whose own health falls between the two scenarios, whereas healthy non-patients, whose own health was better than both scenarios, rated the two scenarios as much more similar. In addition, we found that the context of the rating task influences the way participants distinguish between mild and severe scenarios. Both patients and non-patients gave less distinct ratings to the two scenarios when each were presented in isolation than when they were presented alongside other scenarios that provided contextual information about the possible range of severity for lung disease. These results raise continuing concerns about the reliability and validity of subjective QoL ratings, as these ratings are highly sensitive to differences between respondent groups and the particulars of the rating task.
Sequential evidence accumulation in decision making: The individual desired level of confidence can explain the extent of information acquisition
Authors: Hausmann Daniel , Läge Damian
Published: January 2023

Judgments and decisions under uncertainty are frequently linked to a prior sequential search for relevant information. In such cases, the subject has to decide when to stop the search for information. Evidence accumulation models from social and cognitive psychology assume an active and sequential information search until enough evidence has been accumulated to pass a decision threshold. In line with such theories, we conceptualize the evidence threshold as the “desired level of confidence” (DLC) of a person. This model is tested against a fixed stopping rule (one-reason decision making) and against the class of multi-attribute information integrating models. A series of experiments using an information board for horse race betting demonstrates an advantage of the proposed model by measuring the individual DLC of each subject and confirming its correctness in two separate stages. In addition to a better understanding of the stopping rule (within the narrow framework of simple heuristics), the results indicate that individual aspiration levels might be a relevant factor when modelling decision making by task analysis of statistical environments.
Why do professional athletes have different time preferences than non-athletes?
Authors: Krumer Alex , Shavit Tal , Rosenboim Mosi
Published: January 2023

The objective of this paper is to measure and compare the subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. By using a questionnaire, we found higher subjective discounting for professional athletes than for non-athletes. We also found that the professional athletes’ win-orientation positively affected their present preferences. On the other hand, professional athletes’ play- orientation, which reflects their attitude towards the game itself, negatively affected their present preferences. No such effects were found in non-athletes. We argue that the “win-at-all-costs” competitive approach that leads athletes to sacrifice everything in order to win may cause (or reflect) their higher preference for the present.
Studies of the dimensionality, correlates, and meaning of measures of the maximizing tendency
Authors: Rim Hye Bin , Turner Brandon M. , Betz Nancy E. , Nygren Thomas E.
Published: January 2023

This series of four studies was designed to clarify the underlying dimensionality and psychological well-being correlates of the major extant measures of the maximization tendency: the Maximization Scale (MS; Schwarz et al., 2002) and the Maximization Tendency Scale (MTS; Diab et al., 2008). Four studies using psychometric and factor analysis, item response theory (IRT), and an experimental manipulation all supported the following conclusions. The MS does measure three separate factors as postulated by its authors, but only two of them (alternative search and decisional difficulty) are correlated with each other and (negatively) with indices of well-being as postulated by the scale authors; high standards, the third factor, correlated strongly with the MTS, and both of these were strongly correlated with positive indices of well-being (optimism and happiness) and functioning (e.g., self-esteem and self-efficacy). The high standards subscale and MTS were related to analytical decision making style, while alternative search and decision difficulty were related to the regret-based decision making style and to procrastination. The IRT analysis indicated serious weaknesses in the measurement capabilities of existing scales, and the findings of the experimental study confirmed that alternative search and decision difficulty are related to the maximization tendency while high standards and MTS are not. Implications for further research and scale development are discussed.
Coherence and correspondence in medicine
Authors: Tape Thomas G.
Published: January 2023

Many controversies in medical science can be framed as tension between a coherence approach (which seeks logic and explanation) and a correspondence approach (which emphasizes empirical correctness). In many instances, a coherence-based theory leads to an understanding of disease that is not supported by empirical evidence. Physicians and patients alike tend to favor the coherence approach even in the face of strong, contradictory correspondence evidence. Examples include the management of atrial fibrillation, treatment of acute bronchitis, and the use of Vitamin E to prevent heart disease. Despite the frequent occurrence of controversy stemming from coherence-correspondence conflicts, medical professionals are generally unaware of these terms and the philosophical traditions that underlie them. Learning about the coherence-correspondence distinction and using the best of both approaches could not only help reconcile controversy but also lead to striking advances in medical science.
Trolley problems in context
Authors: Shallow Christopher , Iliev Rumen , Medin Douglas
Published: January 2023

Would you redirect a trolley to save five people even if it means that the trolley will run over a person on the side track? Most people say they would. Would you push that same person into the path of the trolley in order to save the five? Most people say they would not. These sorts of intuitive moral judgments are made rapidly and seem almost automatic. Now imagine a combined choice context where one can redirect a trolley, push a person in its path or do nothing. The number of lives lost from intervening can be varied. The most straightforward interpretations of current theories of moral judgment predict either no effect or that the combined context will lead to greater focus on lives lost. In contrast, we observe a similarity effect such that utilitarian choice may become less attractive in the combined choice context.
Behind the veil of ignorance: Self-serving bias in climate change negotiations
Authors: Kriss Peter H. , Loewenstein George , Wang Xianghong , Weber Roberto A.
Published: January 2023

Slowing climate change will almost certainly require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but agreement on who should reduce emissions by how much is difficult, in part because of the self-serving bias—the tendency to believe that what is beneficial to oneself is also fair. Conducting surveys among college students in the United States and China, we show that each of these groups displays a nationalistic self-serving bias in judgments of a fair distribution of economic burdens resulting from mitigation. Yet, we also show, by disguising the problem and the identity of the parties, that it is possible to elicit perceptions of fairness that are not influenced by national interests. Our research reveals that the self-serving bias plays a major role in the difficulty of obtaining agreement on how to implement emissions reductions. That is, the disagreement over what constitutes fair climate policy does not appear to be due to cross-national differences in what constitutes a fair distribution of burdens. Interventions to mitigate the self-serving bias may facilitate agreement.
Separating response variability from structural inconsistency to test models of risky decision making
Authors: Birnbaum Michael H. , Bahra Jeffrey P.
Published: January 2023

Individual true and error theory assumes that responses by the same person to the same choice problem within a block of trials are based on the same true preferences but may show preference reversals due to random error. Between blocks, a person’s true preferences may differ or stay the same. This theory is illustrated with studies testing two critical properties that distinguish models of risky decision making: (1) restricted branch independence, which is implied by original prospect theory and violated in a specific way by both cumulative prospect theory and the priority heuristic; and (2) stochastic dominance, which is implied by cumulative prospect theory. Corrected for random error, most individuals systematically violated stochastic dominance, ruling out cumulative prospect theory. Furthermore, most people violated restricted branch independence in the opposite way predicted by that theory and the priority heuristic. Both violations are consistent with the transfer of attention exchange model. No one was found whose data were compatible with cumulative prospect theory, except for those that were also compatible with expected utility, and no one satisfied the priority heuristic.
The impact of purchase quantity on the compromise effect: The balance heuristic
Authors: Cheng Yin-Hui , Chang Shin-Shin , Chuang Shih-Chieh , Yu Ming-Wei
Published: January 2023

Most prior research on the compromise effect has focused on single rather than multiple choices. This research investigates the potential effects of purchase quantity on the compromise effect. We propose that the share of the middle option in a trinary choice set decreases as the purchase quantity increases, because people tend to employ a balance heuristic to distribute their multiple choices among the available options to achieve a balanced state and to satisfy their variety-seeking tendency. Furthermore, we propose that the need for justification and an optimal stimulation level moderate the relationship between the number of purchase items and the compromise effect. These proposed hypotheses are supported by results from three experiments.
Improving acceptability of nudges: Learning from attitudes towards opt-in and opt-out policies
Authors: Yan Haoyang , Yates J. Frank
Published: January 2023

Policy makers should understand people’s attitudes towards opt-out nudges to smoothly promote and implement the policies. Our research compares people’s perceptions of opt-in and three improved versions of opt-out (transparency, emphasis on the low-cost opt-out option, education) in pro-social and pro-self policy domains, e.g., organ donation (N=610), carbon emission offset (N=613), and retirement saving (N=602). We found that people acknowledged more practical and societal benefits of opt-out than opt-in in organ donation and retirement saving but less so in carbon emission offset. Improved opt-out policies failed to address ethical concerns and most emotional discomfort concerns in organ donation whereas opt-out transparency and emphasis on low-cost opt-out were more successful than education at addressing concerns in retirement saving and carbon emission offset. Nonetheless, transparency and education may raise consciousness of policies’ aims. The results suggest that 1) acceptability of opt-out approaches may be more difficult to enhance in some domains than others; 2) policy makers should ensure the public understands that opt-out is a convenient choice and may consider combining all forms of improvement to increase people’s acceptance of opt-out nudges.
Religion, group threat and sacred values
Authors: Sheikh Hammad , Ginges Jeremy , Coman Alin , Atran Scott
Published: January 2023

Sacred or protected values have important influences on decision making, particularly in the context of intergroup disputes. Thus far, we know little about the process of a value becoming sacred or why one person may be more likely than another to hold a sacred value. We present evidence that participation in religious ritual and perceived threat to the group lead people to be more likely to consider preferences as protected or sacred values. Specifically, three studies carried out with Americans and Palestinians show: (a) that the more people participate in religious ritual the more likely they are to report a preference to be a sacred value (Studies 1–3); (b) that people claim more sacred values when they are reminded of religious ritual (Study 2); and (c) that the effect of religious ritual on the likelihood of holding a sacred value is amplified by the perception of high threat to the in-group (Study 3). We discuss implications of these findings for understanding intergroup conflicts, and suggest avenues for future research into the emergence and spread of sacred values.
Validation of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale in Chinese college students
Authors: Hu Xiaoxiao , Xie Xiaofei
Published: January 2023

Using college student samples, two studies were conducted to validate the Chinese version of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) Scale. The results replicated important findings reported by Weber et al. (2002) in the Chinese culture. Risk-taking and risk perception were domain-specific, whereas perceived-risk attitudes were relatively stable across domains, supporting the risk-return model of risk taking. Results of both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the ethical, recreational, health/safety, and gambling domains were preserved in the Chinese version of DOSPERT and that the items from social and investment domains formed one factor. This result may be explained by Weber and Hsee's (1998) cushion hypothesis. Other possible reasons for this cross-cultural difference in the factor structure were also discussed.
Procedural priming of a numerical cognitive illusion
Authors: Eriksson Kimmo , Jansson Fredrik
Published: January 2023

A strategy activated in one task may be transferred to subsequent tasks and prevent activation of other strategies that would otherwise come to mind, a mechanism referred to as procedural priming. In a novel application of procedural priming we show that it can make or break cognitive illusions. Our test case is the 1/killusion, which is based on the same unwarranted mathematical shortcut as the MPG illusion and the time-saving bias. The task is to estimate distances between values of fractions on the form 1/k. Most people given this task intuitively base their estimates on the distances between the denominators (i.e., the reciprocals of the fractions), which may yield very poor estimations of the true distances between the fractions. As expected, the tendency to fall for this illusion is related to cognitive style (Study 1). In order to apply procedural priming we constructed versions of the task in which the illusion is weak, in the sense that most people do not fall for it anymore. We then gave participants both “strong illusion” and “weak illusion” versions of the task (Studies 2 and 3). Participants who first did the task in the weak illusion version would often persist with the correct strategy even in the strong illusion version, thus breaking the otherwise strong illusion in the latter task. Conversely, participants who took the strong illusion version first would then often fall for the illusion even in the weak illusion version, thus strengthening the otherwise weak illusion in the latter task.
An attempt to clarify the link between cognitive style and political ideology: A non-western replication and extension
Authors: Yilmaz Onurcan , Saribay S. Adil
Published: January 2023

Previous studies relating low-effort or intuitive thinking to political conservatism are limited to Western cultures. Using Turkish and predominantly Muslim samples, Study 1 found that analytic cognitive style (ACS) is negatively correlated with political conservatism. Study 2 found that ACS correlates negatively with political orientation and with social and personal conservatism, but not with economic conservatism. It also examined other variables that might help to explain this correlation. Study 3 tried to manipulate ACS via two different standard priming procedures in two different samples, but our manipulation checks failed. Study 4 manipulated intuitive thinking style via cognitive load manipulation to see whether it enhances conservatism for contextualized political attitudes but we did not find a significant effect. Overall, the results indicate that social liberals tend to think more analytically than conservatives and people’s long term political attitudes may be resistant to experimental manipulations.