bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The effect of autism on information sampling during decision-making: An eye-tracking study
Authors: Farmer George D. , Smith Paula , Baron-Cohen Simon , Skylark William J.
Published: January 2023

Recent research has highlighted a tendency for more rational and deliberative decision-making in individuals with autism. We tested this hypothesis by using eye-tracking to investigate the information processing strategies that underpin multi-attribute choice in a sample of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum condition. We found that, as the number of attributes defining each option increased, autistic decision-makers were speedier, examined less of the available information, and spent a greater proportion of their time examining the option they eventually chose. Rather than indicating a more deliberative style, our results are consistent with a tendency for individuals with autism to narrow down the decision-space more quickly than does the neurotypical population.
More is easier? Testing the role of fluency in the more-credible effect
Authors: Skylark William J.
Published: January 2023

People are more likely to endorse statements of the form "A is more than B" than those of the form "B is less than A", even though the ordinal relationship being described is identical in both cases -– a result I dub the "more-credible" effect. This paper reports 9 experiments (totalN= 5643) that probe the generality and basis for this effect. Studies 1–4 replicate the effect for comparative statements relating to environmental change and sustainable behaviours, finding that it is robust to changes in participant population, experimental design, response formats and data analysis strategy. However, it does not generalize to all stimulus sets. Studies 5–9 test the proposition that the effect is based on the greater ease of processing "more than" statements. I find no meaningful effect of warning people not to base their judgments on the fluency of the sentences (Studies 5 and 6), but do find associations between comparative language, credibility, and processing time: when the more-credible effect manifests, the more-than statements are read more quickly than the less-than statements, and this difference partly mediates the effect of comparative on agreement with the statements; in contrast, for a set of comparisons for which changes in the more/less framing did not affect truth judgments, there was no meaningful difference in the time taken to read the more- and less-than versions of the statements. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of comparative language in shaping the credibility of important socio-political messages, and provide some limited support for the idea that the effect of language choice is partly due to differences in how easily the statements can be processed -– although other mechanisms are also likely to be at work.
Misjudgment of interrupted time-series graphs due to serial dependence: Replication of
Authors: Bishara Anthony J. , Peller Jacob , Galuska Chad M.
Published: January 2023

Interrupted time-series graphs are often judged by eye. Such a graph might show, for example, patient symptom severity (y) on each of several days (x) before and after a treatment was implemented (interruption). Such graphs might be prone to systematic misjudgment because of serial dependence, where random error at each timepoint persists into later timepoints. An earlier study (Matyas & Greenwood, 1990) showed evidence of systematic misjudgment, but that study has often been discounted due to methodological concerns. We address these concerns and others in two experiments. In both experiments, serial dependence increased mistaken judgments that the interrupting event led to a change in the outcome, though the pattern of results was less extreme than in previous work. Receiver operating characteristics suggested that serial dependence both decreased discriminability and increased the bias to decide that the interrupting event led to a change. This serial dependence effect appeared despite financial incentives for accuracy, despite feedback training, and even in participants who had graduate training relevant to the task. Serial dependence could cause random error to be misattributed to real change, thereby leading to judgments that interventions are effective even when they are not.
Does a second offer that becomes irrelevant affect fairness perceptions and willingness to accept in the ultimatum game?
Authors: Voslinsky Alisa , Lahav Yaron , Azar Ofer H.
Published: January 2023

We develop a modified ultimatum game, in which the proposer gives two offers, and the responder selects one offer out of the two without seeing them. Then, the selected offer becomes the relevant offer, and the unselected offer becomes the irrelevant one. Finally, the responder evaluates the fairness of the pair of offers and makes a hypothetical decision whether to accept or reject the relevant offer. For most of our subjects, the level of the irrelevant offer positively affects fairness perceptions and willingness to accept, even though the irrelevant offer cannot be accepted. The reason is that the irrelevant offer does signal the proposer’s intentions. Most responders give more weight to the relevant offer than to the irrelevant offer in evaluating fairness and in the willingness to accept. We call this effect therelevance effect. This effect is expected when considering the willingness to accept. However, it is unclear why the relevant offer should carry more weight when evaluating fairness, because the proposer makes the two offers together without knowing which one will become the relevant one. Therefore, this behavior can be considered a bias in fairness evaluations.
Turning up the heat: The impact of indoor temperature on selected cognitive processes and the validity of self-report
Authors: Stroom Martijn , Kok Nils , Strobel Martin , Eichholtz Piet M. A.
Published: January 2023

Indoor climate interventions are often motivated from a worker comfort and productivity perspective. However, the relationship between indoor climate and human performance remains unclear. We assess the effect of indoor climate factors on human performance, focusing on the impact of indoor temperature on decision processes. Specifically, we expect heat to negatively influence higher cognitive rational processes, forcing people to rely more on intuitive shortcuts. In a laboratory setting, participants (N=257) were exposed to a controlled physical environment with either a hot temperature (28° C) or a neutral temperature (22° C) over a two-hour period, in which a battery of validated tests were conducted. We find that heat exposure did not lead to a difference in decision quality. We did find evidence for a strong gender difference in self-report, such that only men expect that high temperature leads to a significant decline in performance, which does in fact not materialize. These results cast doubt on the validity of self-report as a proxy for performance under different indoor climate conditions.
Mycological rationality: Heuristics, perception and decision-making in mushroom foraging
Authors: Kaaronen Roope O.
Published: January 2023

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misidentification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-making in mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging, and how simple heuristics are often complemented by more complex and intuitive decision-making. The results illustrate how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary heuristics to deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers develop selective attention through experience. The study invites us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used simple heuristics to deal with uncertainty.
Attraction comes from many sources: Attentional and comparative processes in decoy effects
Authors: Marini Marco , Ansani Alessandro , Paglieri Fabio
Published: January 2023

The attraction effect emerges when adding a seemingly irrelevant option (decoy) to a binary choice shifts preference towards a target option. This suggests that choice behaviour is dynamic, i.e., choice values are developed during deliberation, rather than manifesting some pre-existing preference set. Whereas several models of multialternative and multiattribute decision making consider dynamic choice processes as crucial to explain the attraction effect, empirically investigating the exact nature of such processes requires complementing choice output with other data. In this study, we focused on asymmetrically dominated decoys (i.e., decoys that are clearly dominated only by the target option) to examine the attentional and comparative processes responsible for the attraction effect. Through an eye-tracker paradigm, we showed that the decoy option can affect subjects’ preferences in two different and not mutually exclusive ways: by focusing the attention on the salient option and the dominance attribute, and by increasing comparisons with the choice dominant pattern. Although conceptually and procedurally distinct, both pathways for decoy effects produce an increase in preferences for the target option, in line with attentional and dynamic models of decision making. Eye-tracking data provide further details to the verification of such models, by highlighting the context-dependent nature of attention and the development of similarity-driven competitive decisional processes.
A cognitive modeling analysis of risk in sequential choice tasks
Authors: Guan Maime , Stokes Ryan , Vandekerckhove Joachim , Lee Michael D.
Published: January 2023

There are many ways to measure how people manage risk when they make decisions. A standard approach is to measure risk propensity using self-report questionnaires. An alternative approach is to use decision-making tasks that involve risk and uncertainty, and apply cognitive models of task behavior to infer parameters that measure people’s risk propensity. We report the results of a within-participants experiment that used three questionnaires and four decision-making tasks. The questionnaires are the Risk Propensity Scale, the Risk Taking Index, and the Domain Specific Risk Taking Scale. The decision-making tasks are the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, the preferential choice gambling task, the optimal stopping problem, and the bandit problem. We analyze the relationships between the risk measures and cognitive parameters using Bayesian inferences about the patterns of correlation, and using a novel cognitive latent variable modeling approach. The results show that people’s risk propensity is generally consistent within different conditions for each of the decision-making tasks. There is, however, little evidence that the way people manage risk generalizes across the tasks, or that it corresponds to the questionnaire measures.
The relation between disgust sensitivity and risk-taking propensity: A domain specific approach
Authors: Sevi Barış , Shook Natalie J.
Published: January 2023

Disgust is a cross-culturally recognized emotion that is characterized by avoidant or cautious tendencies. Accordingly, greater sensitivity to disgust may be related to less willingness to take risks. Relatively little research has examined the association between disgust sensitivity and risk-taking propensity. Further, no research to date has taken a domain specific approach to understanding the association between these constructs. Across two studies (N1=98, N2=390) and a mini-meta analysis utilizing two additional datasets (total N=1981), we assessed the extent to which domain specific disgust sensitivity (i.e., Pathogen, Sexual, and Moral) were related to domain specific risk-taking propensity (i.e., Social, Recreational, Health/Safety, Ethical, and Financial). We conducted two cross-sectional studies, with a community and a student sample. Participants completed surveys that included measures of disgust sensitivity and risk-taking propensity. Bivariate correlations across the two studies indicated that greater disgust sensitivity was related to lower risk-taking propensity across almost all domains. However, when controlling for covariance among the disgust sensitivity domains, regression analyses suggested variability in the association between disgust sensitivity and risk-taking propensity depending on domains. Based on mini meta-analysis, sexual disgust sensitivity had the strongest relationships with social risk-taking propensity and health/safety risk-taking propensity, and moral disgust sensitivity had the strongest relationship with ethical risk-taking propensity. These findings suggest the presence of domain specific relations between disgust sensitivity and risk-taking propensity. The domain specific focus may help in utilizing disgust as a factor to decrease certain risky behaviors (e.g., moral disgust for decreasing plagiarism).
Patterns in manually selected numbers in the Israeli lottery
Authors: Polin Brian A. , Isaac Eyal Ben , Aharon Itzhak
Published: January 2023

We investigate the manual selection of numbers by lottery participants, with a database consisting of over 800 million selections from 118 consecutive draws of the national lottery in Israel. Our findings replicate results from prior research and introduce novel discoveries. (1) Preference for, and avoidance of, specific numbers 1 through 37 are consistent throughout all the drawings. Strong, but differing preferences are observed in the selection of the “power” number ranging from 1 to 7. (2) The number of guesses entered per draw correlates with the size of the prize, with each additional million in prize money generating 33,000 additional manual guesses. (3) Number preferences are strongly influenced by their location on the form. Numbers in the first of the four horizontal rows are consistently the most popular, while numbers in the fourth rows are consistently unpopular. (4) As the number of guesses increases, popularly chosen numbers tend to become slightly less popular, while unpopular numbers tend to become less unpopular.
Coherence of probability judgments from uncertain evidence: Does ACH help?
Authors: Karvetski Christopher W. , Mandel David R.
Published: January 2023

Although the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses method (ACH) is a structured analytic technique promoted in several intelligence communities for improving the quality of probabilistic hypothesis testing, it has received little empirical testing. Whereas previous evaluations have used numerical evidence assumed to be perfectly accurate, in the present experiment we tested the effectiveness of ACH using a judgment task that presented participants with uncertain evidence varying in source reliability and information credibility. Participants (N= 227) assigned probabilities to two alternative hypotheses across six cases that systematically varied case features. Across multiple tests of coherence, the ACH group showed no advantage over a no-technique control group. Both groups showed evidence of subadditivity, unreliability, and overly conservative non-Bayesian judgments. The ACH group also showed pseudo-diagnostic weighting of evidence. The findings do not support the claim that ACH is effective at improving probabilistic judgment.
Will she give you two cookies for one chocolate? Children’s intuitions about trades
Authors: Echelbarger Margaret , Good Kayla , Shaw Alex
Published: January 2023

Trading is a cornerstone of economic exchange and can take many different forms. In simple trades, one item is often exchanged for another; but in more complex trades, agents can trade different numbers of items, reflecting the differing value of the items being traded. Though young children regularly engage in simple trades, we examine whether they understand a key element involved in more complex trades—the idea that people may subjectively value the same item differently and accept trades that numerically disadvantage themselves in the service of acquiring more of a preferred item. To do so, we ran three studies with 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 314) in which they were asked to predict whether a third party would accept or reject different types of trades. Results revealed that children across this age range predict that a third party will accept a numerically disadvantageous trade when they prefer one resource over another, but not when they have an equal preference for both resources. Importantly, their predictions were not merely a reflection of what they thought was fair, but rather what was in the best interest of the third party—they thought a third party would be more likely to accept an “unfair” trade that benefitted himself rather than someone else. We discuss our findings in terms of what they reveal about children’s early economic intuitions.
Compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines: Active vs. passive risk takers
Authors: Keinan Ruty , Idan Tali , Bereby-Meyer Yoella
Published: January 2023

In 2020, most countries around the world adopted various measures aimed at combating the coronavirus (i.e., COVID-19), or reducing risky behavior which may spread the virus. In the current study (N= 215), we examined compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines using a risk-taking perspective, differentiating active from passive risk taking. In the corona context active risk taking involves actions that may cause disease contraction, such as shaking hands, while passive risk taking involves the acceptance of risk brought on by inaction, as in not using an alco-gel disinfectant. We found that personal tendencies for passive and active risk taking predicted passive and active corona related risk taking, respectively. Furthermore, compliance with COVID-19 prevention measures was also related to differences in self-control, with low Initiation self-control predicting passive corona risk taking and low levels of Inhibition self-control predicting active corona risk taking. Thus, while not complying with Covid-19 prevention measures put people at risk, differentiating between active and passive risks is helpful for accurate prediction of each type of risk behavior.
Accentuation and compatibility: Replication and extensions of Shafir (1993) to rethink choosing versus rejecting paradigms
Authors: Chandrashekar Subramanya Prasad , Weber Jasmin , Chan Sze Ying , Cho Won Young , Chu Tsz Ching Connie , Cheng Bo Ley , Feldman Gilad
Published: January 2023

We conducted a replication of Shafir (1993) who showed that people are inconsistent in their preferences when faced with choosing versus rejecting decision-making scenarios. The effect was demonstrated using an enrichment paradigm, asking subjects to choose between enriched and impoverished alternatives, with enriched alternatives having more positive and negative features than the impoverished alternative. Using eight different decision scenarios, Shafir found support for a compatibility principle: subjects chose and rejected enriched alternatives in choose and reject decision scenarios (d= 0.32 [0.23,0.40]), respectively, and indicated greater preference for the enriched alternative in the choice task than in the rejection task (d= 0.38 [0.29,0.46]). In a preregistered very close replication of the original study (N= 1026), we found no consistent support for the hypotheses across the eight problems: two had similar effects, two had opposite effects, and four showed no effects (overalld= −0.01 [−0.06,0.03]). Seeking alternative explanations, we tested an extension, and found support for the accentuation hypothesis.
Risky choice framing by experience: A methodological note
Authors: Kühberger Anton
Published: January 2023

In classic research on judgment and decision making under risk, risk is described by providing participants with the respective outcomes and probabilities in a summary format. Recent research has introduced a different paradigm – decisions-by-experience – where participants learn about risk by sampling from the outcomes, rather than by summary descriptions. This latter research reports a description-experience gap, indicating that some of the classic patterns of risk attitude reverse when people experience the risk. Recent research has attempted to investigate risky choice framing in the decisions-by-experience paradigm. I discuss how this research runs into problems in properly manipulating framing in decisions by experience. Drawing from framing research with animals, I argue that framing effects also exist in experience tasks. The classic Asian Disease task, however, awaits proper translation into an experience paradigm.
Expert and novice sensitivity to environmental regularities in predicting NFL games
Authors: Montgomery Lauren E. , Lee Michael D.
Published: January 2023

We study whether experts and novices differ in the way they make predictions about National Football League games. In particular, we measure to what extent their predictions are consistent with five environmental regularities that could support decision making based on heuristics. These regularities involve the home team winning more often, the team with the better win-loss record winning more often, the team favored by the majority of media experts winning more often, and two others related to surprise wins and losses in the teams’ previous game. Using signal detection theory and hierarchical Bayesian analysis, we show that expert predictions for the 2017 National Football League (NFL) season generally follow these regularities in a near optimal way, but novice predictions do not. These results support the idea that using heuristics adapted to the decision environment can support accurate predictions and be an indicator of expertise.
Development of decision making based on internal and external information: A hierarchical Bayesian approach
Authors: Zadelaar Jacqueline N. , Rentergem Joost A. Agelink van , Schaaf Jessica V. , Dekkers Tycho J. , Vent Nathalie de , Dekkers Laura M. S. , Olthof Maria C. , Jansen Brenda R. J. , Huizenga Hilde M.
Published: January 2023

In decision making, people may rely on their own information as well as on information from external sources, such as family members, peers, or experts. The current study investigated how these types of information are used by comparing four decision strategies: 1) an internal strategy that relies solely on own information; 2) an external strategy that relies solely on the information from an external source; 3) a sequential strategy that relies on information from an external source only after own information is deemed inadequate; 4) an integrative strategy that relies on an integration of both types of information. Of specific interest were individual and developmental differences in strategy use. Strategy use was examined via Bayesian hierarchical mixture model analysis. A visual decision task was administered to children and young adolescents (N=305, ages 9–14). Individual differences but no age-related changes were observed in either decision accuracy or strategy use. The internal strategy was dominant across ages, followed by the integrative and sequential strategy, respectively, while the external strategy was extremely rare. This suggests a reluctance to rely entirely on information provided by external sources. We conclude that there are individual differences but not developmental changes in strategy use pertaining to perceptual decision-making in 9- through 14-year-olds. Generalizability of these findings is discussed with regard to different forms of social influence and varying perceptions of the external source. This study provides stepping stones in better understanding and modeling decision making processes in the presence of both internal and external information.
Success stories cause false beliefs about success
Authors: Lifchits George , Anderson Ashton , Goldstein Daniel G. , Hofman Jake M. , Watts Duncan J.
Published: January 2023

Many popular books and articles that purport to explain how people, companies, or ideas succeed highlight a few successes chosen to fit a particular narrative. We investigate what effect these highly selected “success narratives” have on readers’ beliefs and decisions. We conducted a large, randomized, pre-registered experiment, showing participants successful firms with founders that all either dropped out of or graduated college, and asked them to make incentive-compatible bets on a new firm. Despite acknowledging biases in the examples, participants’ decisions were very strongly influenced by them. People shown dropout founders were 55 percentage points more likely to bet on a dropout-founded company than people who were shown graduate founders. Most reported medium to high confidence in their bets, and many wrote causal explanations justifying their decision. In light of recent concerns about false information, our findings demonstrate how true but biased information can strongly alter beliefs and decisions.
Incentivized and non-incentivized liking ratings outperform willingness-to-pay in predicting choice
Authors: Hascher Joshua , Desai Nitisha , Krajbich Ian
Published: January 2023

A core principle in decision science is that people choose according to their subjective values. These values are often measured using unincentivized scales with arbitrary units (e.g., from 0 to 10) or using incentivized willingness-to-pay (WTP) with dollars and cents. What is unclear is whether using WTP actually improves choice predictions. In two experiments, we compare the effects of three different subjective valuation procedures: an unincentivized rating scale, the same scale with incentives, and incentivized WTP. We use these subjective values to predict behavior in a subsequent binary food-choice task. The unincentivized rating task performed better than the incentivized WTP task and no worse than the incentivized rating task. These findings challenge the view that subjective valuation tasks need to be incentivized. At least for low-stakes decisions, commonly used measures such as WTP may reduce predictive power.
Selection effects on dishonest behavior
Authors: Houdek Petr , Bahník Štěpán , Hudík Marek , Vranka Marek
Published: January 2023

In many situations people behave ethically, while elsewhere dishonesty reigns. Studies of the determinants of unethical behavior often use random assignment of participants in various conditions to identify contextual or psychological factors influencing dishonesty. However, in many real-world contexts, people deliberately choose or avoid specific environments. In three experiments (total N = 2,124) enabling self-selection of participants in two similar tasks, one of which allowed for cheating, we found that participants who chose the task where they could lie for financial gain reported a higher number of correct predictions than those who were assigned it at random. Introduction of financial costs for entering the cheating-allowing task led to a decrease in interest in the task; however, it also led to more intense cheating. An intervention aimed to discourage participants from choosing the cheating-enabling environment based on social norm information did not have the expected effect; on the contrary, it backfired. In summary, the results suggest that people low in moral character are likely to eventually dominate cheating-enabling environments, where they then cheat extensively. Interventions trying to limit the preference of this environment may not have the expected effect as they could lead to the selection of the worst fraudsters.
Beyond “fake news”: Analytic thinking and the detection of false and hyperpartisan news headlines
Authors: Ross Robert M. , Rand David G. , Pennycook Gordon
Published: January 2023

Why is misleading partisan content believed and shared? An influential account posits that political partisanship pervasively biases reasoning, such that engaging in analytic thinking exacerbates motivated reasoning and, in turn, the acceptance of hyperpartisan content. Alternatively, it may be that susceptibility to hyperpartisan content is explained by alackof reasoning. Across two studies using different participant pools (total N = 1,973 Americans), we had participants assess true, false, and hyperpartisan news headlines taken from social media. We found no evidence that analytic thinking was associated with judging politically consistent hyperpartisan or false headlines to be accurate and unbiased. Instead, analytic thinking was, in most cases, associated with an increased tendency to distinguish true headlines from both false and hyperpartisan headlines (and was never associated with decreased discernment). These results suggest that reasoning typically helps people differentiate between low and high quality political news, rather than facilitate belief in misleading content. Because social media play an important role in the dissemination of misinformation, we also investigated willingness to share headlines on social media. We found a similar pattern whereby analytic thinking was not generally associated with increased willingness to share hyperpartisan or false headlines. Together, these results suggest a positive role for reasoning in resisting misinformation.
Do discounts mitigate numerological superstitions? Evidence from the Russian real estate market
Authors: Burakov Dmitry
Published: January 2023

In this paper I investigate the impact of numerological superstitions and discounts’ effect on the buyers’ behavior in the apartment market using actual sales data. Based on the dataset from Moscow primary real estate market, which includes 40 buildings, we test the apartments buyers’ demand on lucky 7thfloor and unlucky 13thfloor in comparison to neighboring floors and its response to developers’ discount policy for the apartments on the 13thfloor. Results of the random-effects model for the preference towards 7thfloor show that that “good luck” effect is present at the 90% confidence interval. Results of the mixed-effects model for the preference towards the 13thfloor’s apartments show that in case of discount moderation, the “bad luck” effect of the 13thfloor is mitigated, while in case of “no discount” buildings we find the clear negative effect of the 13thfloor.
Kenneth R. Hammond’s contributions to the study of judgment and decision making
Authors: Dhami Mandeep K. , Mumpower Jeryl L.
Published: January 2023

Kenneth R. Hammond (1917–2015) made several major contributions to the science of human judgment and decision making. As a student of Egon Brunswik, he kept Brunswik’s legacy alive – advancing his theory of probabilistic functionalism and championing his method of representative design. Hammond pioneered the use of Brunswik’s lens model as a framework for studying how individuals use information from the task environment to make clinical judgments, which was the precursor to much ‘policy capturing’ and ‘judgment analysis’ research. Hammond introduced the lens model equation to the study of judgment processes, and used this to measure the utility of different forms of feedback in multiple-cue probability learning. He extended the scope of analysis to contexts in which individuals interact with one another – introducing the interpersonal learning and interpersonal conflict paradigms. Hammond developed social judgment theory which provided a comprehensive quantitative approach for describing and improving judgment processes. He proposed cognitive continuum theory which states that quasi-rationality is an important middle-ground between intuition and analysis and that cognitive performance is dictated by the match between task properties and mode of cognition. Throughout his career, Hammond moved easily from basic laboratory work to applied settings, where he resolved policy disputes, and in doing so, he pointed to the dichotomy between theories of correspondence and coherence. In this paper, we present Hammond’s legacy to a new generation of judgment and decision making scholars.
Learning psychology from riddles: The case of stumpers
Authors: Bar-Hillel Maya , Noah Tom , Frederick Shane
Published: January 2023

Riddles can teach us psychology when we stop to consider the psychological principles that make them “work”. This paper studies a particular class of riddles that we callstumpers, and provides analysis of the various principles (some familiar, some novel) that inhibit most people from finding the correct solution – oranysolution – even though they find the answers obvious ex post. We restrict our analysis to four stumpers, propose the psychological antecedents of each, and provide experimental support for our conjectures.
Affect and prosocial behavior: The role of decision mode and individual
processing style
Authors: Gärtner Manja , Andersson David , Västfjäll Daniel , Tinghög Gustav
Published: January 2023

We study the effects of experimental manipulation of decision mode
(rational “brain” vs. affective “heart”) and individual difference in
processing styles (intuition vs. deliberation) on prosocial behavior. In a
survey experiment with a diverse sample of the Swedish population
(n = 1,828), we elicited the individuals’
processing style and we experimentally manipulated reliance on affect or
reason, regardless of subjects’ preferred mode. Prosocial behavior was
measured across a series of commonly used and incentivized games (prisoner’s
dilemma game, public goods game, trust game, dictator game). Our results
show that prosocial behavior increased for the affective (“heart”) decision
mode. Further, individual differences in processing style did not predict
prosocial behavior and did not interact with the experimental
manipulation.
“When in Rome”: Identifying social norms using coordination games
Authors: Krupka Erin L. , Weber Roberto , Crosno Rachel T. A. , Hoover Hanna
Published: January 2023

Previous research in economics, social psychology, and sociology has produced compelling evidence that social norms influence behavior. In this paper we apply the Krupka and Weber (2013) norm elicitation procedure and present U.S. and non-U.S. born subjects with two scenarios for which tipping and punctuality norms are known to vary across countries. We elicit shared beliefs by having subjects match appropriateness ratings of different actions (such as arriving late or on time) to another randomly selected participant from the same university or to a participant who is born in the same country. We also elicit personal beliefs without the matching task. We test whether the responses from the coordination task can be interpreted as social norms by comparing responses from the coordination game with actual social norms (as identified using independent materials such as tipping guides for travelers). We compare responses elicited with the matching tasks to those elicited without the matching task to test whether the coordination device itself is essential for identifying social norms. We find that appropriateness ratings for different actions vary with the reference group in the matching task. Further, the ratings obtained from the matching task vary in a manner consistent with the actual social norms of that reference group. Thus, we find that shared beliefs correspond more closely to externally validated social norms compared to personal beliefs. Second, we highlight the importance that reference groups (for the coordination task) can play.
Does the evaluability bias hold when giving to animal charities?
Authors: Spiteri Glen William
Published: January 2023

When evaluating a charity by itself, people tend to overweight overhead
costs in relation to cost-effectiveness. However, when evaluating charities
side by side, they base their donations on cost-effectiveness. I conducted a
replication and extension of Caviola et al. (2014; Study 1) using a 3 (High
Overhead/Effectiveness, Low Overhead/Effectiveness, Both) x 2 (Humans,
Animals) between-subjects design. I found that the overhead ratio is an
easier attribute to evaluate than cost-effectiveness in separate evaluation,
and, in joint evaluation, people allocate donations based on
cost-effectiveness. This effect was observed for human charities, and to a
lesser extent, for animal charities.
Effects of icon arrays to communicate risk in a repeated risky
decision-making task
Authors: Price Paul C. , Carlock Grace A. , Crouse Sarah , Arciga Mariana Vargas
Published: January 2023

In two experiments, participants decided on each of several trials
whether or not to take a risk. If they chose to take the risk, they had a
relatively high probability (from 75% to 95%) of winning a small number of
points and a relatively low probability (5% to 25%) of losing a large number
of points. The loss amounts varied so that the expected value of taking the
risk was positive on some trials, zero on others, and negative on the rest.
The main independent variable was whether the probability of losing was
communicated using numerical percentages or icon arrays. Both experiments
included random icon arrays, in which the icons representing losses were
randomly distributed throughout the array. Experiment 2 also included
grouped icon arrays, in which the icons representing losses were grouped at
the bottom of the array. Neither type of icon array led to better
performance in the task. However, the random icon arrays led to less risk
taking than the numerical percentages or the grouped icon arrays, especially
at the higher loss probabilities. In a third experiment, participants made
direct judgments of the percentages and probabilities represented by the
icon arrays from Experiment 2. The results supported the idea that random
arrays lead to less risk taking because they are perceived to represent
greater loss probabilities. These results have several implications for the
study of icon arrays and their use in risk communication.
Who lies? A large-scale reanalysis linking basic personality traits to unethical decision making
Authors: Heck Daniel W. , Thielmann Isabel , Moshagen Morten , Hilbig Benjamin E.
Published: January 2023

Previous research has established that higher levels of trait Honesty-Humility (HH) are associated with less dishonest behavior in cheating paradigms. However, only imprecise effect size estimates of this HH-cheating link are available. Moreover, evidence is inconclusive on whether other basic personality traits from the HEXACO or Big Five models are associated with unethical decision making and whether such effects have incremental validity beyond HH. We address these issues in a highly powered reanalysis of 16 studies assessing dishonest behavior in an incentivized, one-shot cheating paradigm (N= 5,002). For this purpose, we rely on a newly developed logistic regression approach for the analysis of nested data in cheating paradigms. We also test theoretically derived interactions of HH with other basic personality traits (i.e., Emotionality and Conscientiousness) and situational factors (i.e., the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome) as well as the incremental validity of HH over demographic characteristics. The results show a medium to large effect of HH (odds ratio = 0.53), which was independent of other personality, situational, or demographic variables. Only one other trait (Big Five Agreeableness) was associated with unethical decision making, although it failed to show any incremental validity beyond HH.
Failing to ignore the ignorant: Mistaking ignorance for error
Authors: Vaz André , Mata André
Published: January 2023

Expertise is a reliable cue for accuracy – experts are often correct in their judgments and opinions. However, the opposite is not necessarily the case – ignorant judges are not guaranteed to err. Specifically, in a question with a dichotomous response option, an ignorant responder has a 50% chance of being correct. In five studies, we show that people fail to understand this, and that they overgeneralize a sound heuristic (expertise signals accuracy) to cases where it does not apply (lack of expertise does not imply error). These studies show that people 1) tend to think that the responses of an ignorant person to dichotomous-response questions are more likely to be incorrect than correct, and 2) they tend to respond the opposite of what the ignorant person responded. This research also shows that this bias is at least partially intuitive in nature, as it manifests more clearly in quick gut responses than in slow careful responses. Still, it is not completely corrected upon careful deliberation. Implications are discussed for rationality and epistemic vigilance.
Base rate neglect and conservatism in probabilistic reasoning: Insights from eliciting full distributions
Authors: Howe Piers Douglas Lionel , Perfors Andrew , Walker Bradley , Kashima Yoshihisa , Fay Nicolas
Published: January 2023

Bayesian statistics offers a normative description for how a person should combine their original beliefs (i.e., their priors) in light of new evidence (i.e., the likelihood). Previous research suggests that people tend to under-weight both their prior (base rate neglect) and the likelihood (conservatism), although this varies by individual and situation. Yet this work generally elicits people’s knowledge as single point estimates (e.g.,xhas a 5% probability of occurring) rather than as a full distribution. Here we demonstrate the utility of eliciting and fitting full distributions when studying these questions. Across three experiments, we found substantial variation in the extent to which people showed base rate neglect and conservatism, which our method allowed us to measure for the first time simultaneously at the level of the individual. While most people tended to disregard the base rate, they did so less when the prior was made explicit. Although many individuals were conservative, there was no apparent systematic relationship between base rate neglect and conservatism within each individual. We suggest that this method shows great potential for studying human probabilistic reasoning.
On the descriptive value of the reliance on small-samples assumption
Authors: Erev Ido , Cohen Doron , Yakobi Ofir
Published: January 2023

Experience is the best teacher. Yet, in the context of repeated decisions, experience was found to trigger deviations from maximization in the direction of underweighting of rare events. Evaluations of alternative explanations for this bias led to contradicting conclusions. Studies that focused on the aggregate choice rates, including a series of choice prediction competitions, favored the assumption that this bias reflects reliance on small samples. In contrast, studies that focused on individual decisions suggest that the bias reflects a strong myopic tendency by a significant minority of participants. The current analysis clarifies the apparent inconsistency by reanalyzing a data set that previously led to contradicting conclusions. Our analysis suggests that the apparent inconsistency reflects the differing focus of the cognitive models. Specifically, sequential adjustment models (that assume sensitivity to the payoffs’ weighted averages) tend to find support for the hypothesis that the deviations from maximization are a product of strong positive recency (a form of myopia). Conversely, models assuming random sampling of past experiences tend to find support to the hypothesis that the deviations reflect reliance on small samples. We propose that the debate should be resolved by using the assumptions that provide better predictions. Applying this solution to the data set we analyzed shows that the random sampling assumption outperforms the weighted average assumption both when predicting the aggregate choice rates and when predicting the individual decisions.
Do people believe that you can have too much money? The relationship between hypothetical lottery wins and expected happiness
Authors: Haesevoets Tessa , Dierckx Kim , Van Hiel Alain
Published: January 2023

Do people think that there is such a thing as too much money? The present research investigated this question in the context of hypothetical lottery wins. By employing a mental simulation approach, we were able to examine how people respond to increasing envisioned jackpot amounts, and whether there are individual differences in people’s reactions. Across five empirical studies (total N = 1,504), we consistently found that, overall, the relationship between imagined lottery wins and expected happiness is characterized by an inverted U-shaped curve, with expected happiness being highest around an envisioned win of roughly 10 million pounds. Both lower and higher envisioned wins reduced participants’ overall expected happiness. In addition to this overall pattern, we identified three clusters of participants who react differently to expected increases in wealth. These clusters mainly differed in terms of how soon the top of the expected happiness curve was reached, and if and when the curve started to drop. Finally, we also found some interesting cluster differences in terms of participants’ prosocial and proself motivations.
Maternal obesity, gestational diabetes mellitus, and diet in association with neurodevelopment of 2-year-old children
Authors: Saros Lotta , Lind Annika , Setänen Sirkku , Tertti Kristiina , Koivuniemi Ella , Ahtola Annarilla , Haataja Leena , Shivappa Nitin , Hébert James R. , Vahlberg Tero , Laitinen Kirsi
Published: January 2023

Background

Maternal metabolic disturbances and diet may influence long-term infantile neurodevelopment. We investigated whether maternal gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), obesity, and diet could affect the neurodevelopment of 2-year-old children.

Methods

Neurodevelopment of children (n = 243) born to mothers with overweight or obesity was assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development–Third Edition, and the Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination. Maternal adiposity was determined by air displacement plethysmography, and GDM with an oral glucose tolerance test. Dietary assessment included diet quality and fish consumption questionnaires, and three-day food diaries, from which dietary inflammatory index (DII®) scores were computed.

Results

GDM was associated with weaker expressive language skills (adj.β = −1.12, 95% CI = −2.10;−0.15), and higher maternal adiposity with weaker cognitive, language, and motor skills in children (adj.p < 0.05). Maternal good dietary quality (adj.β = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.004;1.73) and higher fish consumption (adj.p = 0.02) were related to better expressive language skills. DII scores were not associated with children’s neurodevelopment.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that GDM and higher maternal adiposity may lead to weaker neurodevelopmental skills, although still within the mean normative range in this population of children. Good dietary quality and higher fish consumption during pregnancy could benefit a child’s language development.

Impact

Gestational diabetes mellitus and maternal higher adiposity may have unfavorable effects on a 2-year-old child’s neurodevelopment.

An overall good quality of diet and higher fish consumption during pregnancy may result in more favorable cognitive and language skills when the child is 2-year-old.

Our findings reveal that women with overweight or obesity, a risk group for pregnancy complications, could benefit from dietary counseling to support their children’s neurodevelopment.