bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Risks deter but pleasures allure: Is pleasure more important?
Authors: Chao Li-Wei , Szrek Helena , Leite Rui , Peltzer Karl , Ramlagan Shandir
Published: January 2023

The pursuit of unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking or binge drinking, not only carries various downside risks, but also provides pleasure. A parsimonious model, used in the literature to explain the decision to pursue an unhealthy activity, represents that decision as a tradeoff between risks and benefits. We build on this literature by surveying a rural population in South Africa to elicit the perceived riskiness and the perceived pleasure for various risky activities and to examine how these perceptions relate to the pursuit of four specific unhealthy behaviors: frequent smoking, problem drinking, seatbelt nonuse, and risky sex. We show that perceived pleasure is a significant predictor for three of the behaviors and that perceived riskiness is a significant predictor for two of them. We also show that the correlation between the riskiness rating and behavior is significantly different from the correlation between the pleasure rating and behavior for three of the four behaviors. Finally, we show that the effect of pleasure is significantly greater than the effect of riskiness in determining drinking and risky sex, while the effects of pleasure and riskiness are not different from each other in determining smoking and seatbelt nonuse. We discuss how our findings can be used to inform the design of health promotion strategies.
Contamination without contact: An examination of intention-based contagion
Authors: Stavrova Olga , Newman George E. , Kulemann Anna , Fetchenhauer Detlef
Published: January 2023

Contagion refers to the belief that individuals or objects can acquire the essence of a particular source, such as a disgusting product or an immoral person, through physical contact. This paper documents beliefs in a "contact-free" form of contagion whereby an object is thought to inherit the essence of a person when it was designed, but never actually physically touched, by the individual. We refer to this phenomenon as contagion through creative intent or “intention-based contagion” and distinguish it from more traditional forms of contact-based contagion (Studies 1 and 2), as well as alternative mechanisms such as mere association (Studies 2 and 3a). We demonstrate that, like contact-based contagion, intention-based contagion results from beliefs in transferred essence (Study 1) and involves beliefs in transfer of actual properties (Study 4). However, unlike contact-based contagion, intention-based contagion does not appear to be as strongly related to the emotion of disgust (Study 1) and can influence evaluations in auditory as well as visual modalities (Studies 3a–3c).
The role of cognitive reflection in decision making: Evidence from Pakistani managers
Authors: Sajid Muhammad , Li Matthew C.
Published: January 2023

Assessing how managers discount and evaluate risks is crucial in designing effective managerial policies. In this work, we examine whether risk preferences (RP; both in the domains of gain and loss) and time preferences (TP) are related to managers’ cognitive reflection (CR). To achieve this, the current study focuses on the responses of 601 corporate decision-makers, such as CEO and CFO, of 200 non-financial firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Using the three-item of Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) as a measure of CR, we observe that males perform better on this test than females. Correlation analysis reveals that individuals’ RP in the gain domain are positively associated with their TP, implying that risk-taking individuals are more patient. Our evidence further shows that higher CR is associated with a higher likelihood of increased patience and a lower likelihood of willingness to take risks in the domain of loss. Greater CR is also linked to a higher likelihood of risk-taking in the domain of gain. These findings have important implications regarding the ability of managers to make financial decisions that involve uncertainty and delayed rewards but maximize firm value.
Cognitive integration of recognition information and additional cues in memory-based decisions
Authors: Glöckner Andreas , Bröder Arndt
Published: January 2023

Glöckner and Bröder (2011) have shown that for 77.5% of their participants’ decision making behavior in decisions involving recognition information and explicitly provided additional cues could be better described by weighted-compensatory Parallel Constraint Satisfaction (PCS) Models than by non-compensatory strategies such as recognition heuristic (RH) or Take the Best (TTB). We investigate whether this predominance of PCS models also holds in memory-based decisions in which information retrieval is effortful and cognitively demanding. Decision strategies were analyzed using a maximum-likelihood strategy classification method, taking into account choices, response times and confidence ratings simultaneously. In contrast to the memory-based-RH hypothesis, results show that also in memory-based decisions for 62% of the participants behavior is best explained by a compensatory PCS model. There is, however, a slight increase in participants classified as users of the non-compensatory strategies RH and TTB (32%) compared to the previous study, mirroring other studies suggesting effects of costly retrieval.
Self-reported ethical risk taking tendencies predict actual dishonesty
Authors: Zimerman Liora , Shalvi Shaul , Bereby-Meyer Yoella
Published: January 2023

Are people honest about the extent to which they engage in unethical behaviors? We report an experiment examining the relation between self-reported risky unethical tendencies and actual dishonest behavior. Participants’ self-reported risk taking tendencies were assessed using the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) questionnaire, while actual self-serving dishonesty was assessed using a private coin tossing task. In this task, participants predicted the outcome of coin tosses, held the predictions in mind, and reported whether their predictions were correct. Thus, the task allowed participants to lie about whether their predictions were correct. We manipulated whether reporting higher correct scores increased (vs. not) participants monetary payoff. Results revealed a positive relation between self-reported unethical risky tendencies and actual dishonesty. The effect was limited to the condition in which dishonesty was self-serving. Our results suggest liars are aware of their dishonest tendencies and are potentially not ashamed of them.
The wisdom of crowds: Predicting a weather and climate-related event
Authors: Hueffer Karsten , Fonseca Miguel A. , Leiserowitz Anthony , Taylor Karen M.
Published: January 2023

Environmental uncertainty is at the core of much of human activity, ranging from daily decisions by individuals to long-term policy planning by governments. Yet, there is little quantitative evidence on the ability of non-expert individuals or populations to forecast climate-related events. Here we report on data from a 90-year old prediction game on a climate related event in Alaska: the Nenana Ice Classic (NIC). Participants in this contest guess to the nearest minute when the ice covering the Tanana River will break, signaling the start of spring. Previous research indicates a strong correlation between the ice breakup dates and regional weather conditions. We study betting decisions between 1955 and 2009. We find the betting distribution closely predicts the outcome of the contest. We also find a significant correlation between regional temperatures as well as past ice breakups and betting behavior, suggesting that participants incorporate both climate and historical information into their decision-making.
The insurance effect: How the possession of gas masks reduces the likelihood of a missile attack
Authors: Tykocinski Orit E.
Published: January 2023

When a threat looms large in people’s minds, they may seek protective measures that could mitigate the negative outcomes associated with this threat. Paradoxically, the possession of such protective measures may, in turn, inspire a sense of safety and reduce the perceived probability of the very threat that had originally triggered their acquisition. Thus, reminding people that they possess a medical insurance policy attenuated their perceived risk of suffering from health related misfortunes (Tykocinski, 2008). The current study conceptually replicates these findings and extends them to a different form of insurance. Reminding citizens in Israel of the fact that they possess gas masks significantly reduced their subjective estimates of the probability that Israel will be attacked by Iran.
The relationship between intertemporal choice and following the path of least resistance across choices, preferences, and beliefs
Authors: Shenhav Amitai , Rand David G. , Greene Joshua D.
Published: January 2023

The degree to which individuals prefer smaller sooner versus larger delayed rewards serves as a powerful predictor of their impulsivity towards a number of different kinds of rewards. Here we test the limits of its predictive ability within a variety of cognitive and social domains. Across several large samples of subjects, individuals who prefer smaller more immediate rewards (steeper discounters) are less reflective (or more impulsive) in their choices, preferences, and beliefs. First, steeper discounters used more automatic, less controlled choice strategies, giving more intuitive but incorrect responses on the Cognitive Reflection Test (replicating previous findings); employing a suboptimal probability matching heuristic for a one-shot gamble (rather than maximizing their probability of reward); and relying less on optimal planning in a two-stage reinforcement learning task. Second, steeper discounters preferred to consume information that was less complex and multi-faceted, as suggested by their self-reported Need for Cognitive Closure, their use of short-form social media (i.e., Twitter), and their preferred news sources (in particular, whether or not they preferred National Public Radio over other news sources). Third, steeper discounters had interpersonal and religious beliefs that are associated with reduced epistemic complexity: they were more likely to believe that the behavior of others could be explained by fixed rather than dynamic factors, and they believed more strongly in God and in the afterlife. Together these findings provide evidence for a link between individual differences in temporal discounting for monetary rewards and preferences for the path of least resistance (less reflective and/or more automatic modes of processing) across a variety of domains.
Overconfidence over the lifespan
Authors: Prims Julia P. , Moore Don A.
Published: January 2023

This research investigated how different forms of overconfidence correlate with age. Contrary to stereotypes that young people are more overconfident, the results provide little evidence that overestimation of one’s performance or overplacement of one’s performance relative to that of others is correlated with age. Instead, the results suggest that precision in judgment (confidence that one knows the truth) increases with age. This result is strongest for probabilistic elicitations, and not present in quantile elicitations or reported confidence intervals. The results suggest that a lifetime of experience, rather than leading to better calibration, instead may increase our confidence that we know what we’re talking about.
Glad to be sad, and other examples of benign masochism
Authors: Rozin Paul , Guillot Lily , Fincher Katrina , Rozin Alexander , Tsukayama Eli
Published: January 2023

We provide systematic evidence for the range and importance of hedonic reversals as a major source of pleasure, and incorporate these findings into the theory of benign masochism. Twenty-nine different initially aversive activities are shown to produce pleasure (hedonic reversals) in substantial numbers of individuals from both college student and Mechanical Turk samples. Hedonic reversals group, by factor analysis, into sadness, oral irritation, fear, physical activity/exhaustion, pain, strong alcohol-related tastes, bitter tastes, and disgust. Liking for sad experiences (music, novels, movies, paintings) forms a coherent entity, and is related to enjoyment of crying in response to sad movies. For fear and oral irritation, individuals also enjoy the body’s defensive reactions. Enjoyment of sadness is higher in females across domains. We explain these findings in terms of benign masochism, enjoyment of negative bodily reactions and feelings in the context of feeling safe, or pleasure at “mind over body”. In accordance with benign masochism, for many people, the favored level of initially negative experiences is just below the level that cannot be tolerated.
Deconstructing the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations
Authors: Weisberg Deena Skolnick , Taylor Jordan C. V. , Hopkins Emily J.
Published: January 2023

Previous work showed that people find explanations more satisfying when they contain irrelevant neuroscience information. The current studies investigate why this effect happens. In Study 1 (N=322), subjects judged psychology explanations that did or did not contain irrelevant neuroscience information. Longer explanations were judged more satisfying, as were explanations containing neuroscience information, but these two factors made independent contributions. In Study 2 (N=255), subjects directly compared good and bad explanations. Subjects were generally successful at selecting the good explanation except when the bad explanation contained neuroscience and the good one did not. Study 3 (N=159) tested whether neuroscience jargon was necessary for the effect, or whether it would obtain with any reference to the brain. Responses to these two conditions did not differ. These results confirm that neuroscience information exerts a seductive effect on people’s judgments, which may explain the appeal of neuroscience information within the public sphere.
An IRT forecasting model: linking proper scoring rules to item response theory
Authors: Emily Bo Yuanchao , Budescu David V. , Lewis Charles , Tetlock Philip E. , Mellers Barbara
Published: January 2023

This article proposes an Item Response Theoretical (IRT) forecasting model that incorporates proper scoring rules and provides evaluations of forecasters’ expertise in relation to the features of the specific questions they answer. We illustrate the model using geopolitical forecasts obtained by the Good Judgment Project (GJP) (see Mellers, Ungar, Baron, Ramos, Gurcay, Fincher, Scott, Moore, Atanasov, Swift, Murray, Stone & Tetlock, 2014). The expertise estimates from the IRT model, which take into account variation in the difficulty and discrimination power of the events, capture the underlying construct being measured and are highly correlated with the forecasters’ Brier scores. Furthermore, our expertise estimates based on the first three years of the GJP data are better predictors of both the forecasters’ fourth year Brier scores and their activity level than the overall Brier scores obtained and Merkle’s (2016) predictions, based on the same period. Lastly, we discuss the benefits of using event-characteristic information in forecasting.
Cynicism in negotiation: When communication increases buyers’ skepticism
Authors: Ert Eyal , Creary Stephanie , Bazerman Max H.
Published: January 2023

The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through communication. We show that there is also a downside of this human interaction: cynicism. Across two studies we focus on a seller-buyer interaction in which the buyer has uncertain knowledge about the goods for sale, but has a positive expected payoff from saying “yes” to the available transaction. Study 1 shows that most buyers accept offers made by computers, but that acceptance rates drop significantly when offers are made by human sellers who communicate directly with buyers. Study 2 clarifies that this effect results from allowing human sellers to communicate with buyers, and shows that such communication focuses the buyers’ attention on the seller’s trustworthiness. The mere situation of negotiated interaction increases buyers’ attention to the sellers’ self-serving motives and, consequently, buyers’ cynicism. Unaware of this downside of interaction, sellers actually prefer to have the opportunity to communicate with buyers.
The effects of mental steps and compatibility on Bayesian reasoning
Authors: Ayal Shahar , Beyth-Marom Ruth
Published: January 2023

Four laboratory studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that correct Bayesian reasoning can be predicted by two factors of task complexity — the number ofmental stepsrequired to reach the normative solution, and thecompatibilitybetween the framing of data presented and the framing of the question posed. The findings show that participants performed better on frequency format questions only when one mental step was required to solve the task and when the data were in a compatible frequency format. By contrast, participants performed more poorly on more complicated tasks which required more mental steps (in a compatible frequency or probability format) or when the data and question formats were incompatible (Studies 1 and 2). Incompatibility between data and question formats was also associated with higher reaction times (Study 2b). Furthermore, on problems that incorporated incompatibility between the data sample size and the target (question) sample size, participants performed better on the probability question than the frequency question, regardless of data format (Study 3). The latter findings highlight the ecological advantage of translating data into probability terms, which are normalized in a range between 0 and 1, and thus can be transferred from one situation to another.
How do individuals evaluate and respond to pro-equality decision makers? It depends on joint outcome and Social Value Orientation
Authors: Zhang Hong , Deng Weijing , Zhu Jiawei
Published: January 2023

The current studies investigated how a manipulation in joint outcome influenced individuals’ responses to pro-equality/individualistic decision makers. In Study 1 (N= 175), we examined the impact of whether equal distribution led to maximum joint outcome or not on individuals’ evaluations of, and reactions to, partners choosing either equal or individualistic distributions. In Study 2 (N= 164), we further examined the moderating roles of individual differences in general social value orientation (SVO) and preferences for joint outcome (vs. equality). Important findings include: a) individuals evaluated a pro-equality partner as less warm when equal distribution did not afford maximum joint outcome than when it did; b) individuals, especially those who scored high on preferences for joint outcome (relative to equality), were less likely to chose equal distribution when equality did not maximize joint outcome than when it did; and c) individuals who preferred joint outcome to equality evaluated individualistic partners as warmer when equal distribution did not yield maximum joint outcome than when it did. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Better is worse, worse is better: Reexamination of violations of dominance in intertemporal choice
Authors: Jiang Cheng-Ming , Sun Hong-Mei , Zhu Long-Fei , Zhao Lei , Liu Hong-Zhi , Sun Hong-Yue
Published: January 2023

Recently, Scholten and Read (2014) found new violations of dominance in intertemporal choice. Although adding a small receipt before a delayed payment or adding a small delayed receipt after an immediate receipt makes the prospect objectively better, it decreases the preference for that prospect (better is worse). Conversely, although adding a small payment before a delayed receipt or adding a small delayed payment after an immediate payment makes the prospect objectively worse, it increases the preference for that prospect (worse is better). Scholten and Read explained these violations in terms of a preference for improvement. However, to produce violations such as these, we find that the temporal sequences need not be constructed as Scholten and Read suggested. In this study, adding a small receipt before a dated receipt (thus constructed as improving) or adding a receipt after a dated payment (thus constructed as improving) decreases preferences for those prospects. Conversely, adding a small payment after a dated receipt (thus constructed as deteriorating) or adding a small payment before a delayed payment (thus constructed as deteriorating) increases preferences for those prospects.
Is saving lives your task or God’s? Religiosity, belief in god, and moral judgment
Authors: Barak-Corren Netta , Bazerman Max H.
Published: January 2023

Should a Catholic hospital abort a life-threatening pregnancy or let a pregnant woman die? Should a religious employer allow his employees access to contraceptives or break with healthcare legislation? People and organizations of faith often face moral decisions that have significant consequences. Research in psychology found that religion is typically associated with deontological judgment. Yet deontology consists of many principles, which may, at times, conflict. In three studies, we design a conflict between moral principles and find that the relationship between moral judgment and religiosity is more nuanced than currently assumed. Studies 1 and 2 show that, while religious U.S. Christians and Israeli Jews are more likely to form deontological judgments, they divide between the deontological principles of inaction and indirectness. Using textual analysis, we reveal that specific beliefs regarding divine responsibility and human responsibility distinguish inaction from indirectness deontologists. Study 3 exploits natural differences in religious saliency across days of the week to provide causal evidence that religion raises deontological tendencies on Sundays and selectively increases the appeal of inaction deontology for those who believe in an interventionist and responsible God.
It’s not right but it’s permitted: Wording effects in moral judgement
Authors: Barbosa Sergio , Jiménez-Leal William
Published: January 2023

This study aims to provide evidence about two widely held assumptions in the experimental study of moral judgment. First, that different terms used to ask for moral judgment (e.g., blame, wrongness, permissibility…) can be treated as synonyms and hence used interchangeably. Second, that the moral and legal status of the judged action are independent of one another and thus moral judgment have no influence of legal or other conventional considerations. Previous research shows mixed results on these claims. We recruited 660 participants who provided moral judgment to three identical sacrificial dilemmas using seven different terms. We experimentally manipulated the explicit legal status of the judged action. Results suggest that terms that highlight the utilitarian nature of the judged action cause harsher moral judgments as a mechanism of reputation preservation. Also, the manipulation of the legal status of the judged action holds for all considered terms but is larger for impermissibility judgments. Taken as a whole, our results imply that, although subtle, different terms used to ask for moral judgment have theoretically and methodologically relevant differences which calls for further scrutiny.
How to measure time preferences: An experimental comparison of three methods
Authors: Hardisty David J. , Thompson Katherine F. , Krantz David H. , Weber Elke U.
Published: January 2023

In two studies, time preferences for financial gains and losses at delays of up to 50 years were elicited using three different methods: matching, fixed-sequence choice titration, and a dynamic “staircase” choice method. Matching was found to create fewer demand characteristics and to produce better fits with the hyperbolic model of discounting. The choice-based measures better predicted real-world outcomes such as smoking and payment of credit card debt. No consistent advantages were found for the dynamic staircase method over fixed-sequence titration.
Reasons for cooperation and defection in real-world social dilemmas
Authors: Attari Shahzeen Z. , Krantz David H. , Weber Elke U.
Published: January 2023

Interventions to increase cooperation in social dilemmas depend on understanding decision makers’ motivations for cooperation or defection. We examined these in five real-world social dilemmas: situations where private interests are at odds with collective ones. An online survey (N = 929) asked respondents whether or not they cooperated in each social dilemma and then elicited both open-ended reports of reasons for their choices and endorsements of a provided list of reasons. The dilemmas chosen were ones that permit individual action rather than voting or advocacy: (1) conserving energy, (2) donating blood, (3) getting a flu vaccination, (4) donating to National Public Radio (NPR), and (5) buying green electricity. Self-reported cooperation is weakly but positively correlated across these dilemmas. Cooperation in each dilemma correlates fairly strongly with self-reported altruism and with punitive attitudes toward defectors. Some strong domain-specific behaviors and beliefs also correlate with cooperation. The strongest example is frequency of listening to NPR, which predicts donation. Socio-demographic variables relate only weakly to cooperation. Respondents who self-report cooperation usually cite social reasons (including reciprocity) for their choice. Defectors often give self-interest reasons but there are also some domain-specific reasons—some report that they are not eligible to donate blood; some cannot buy green electricity because they do not pay their own electric bills. Cooperators generally report that several of the provided reasons match their actual reasons fairly well, but most defectors endorse none or at most one of the provided reasons for defection. In particular, defectors often view cooperation as costly but do not endorse free riding as a reason for defection. We tentatively conclude that cooperation in these settings is based mostly on pro-social norms and defection on a mixture of self-interest and the possibly motivated perception that situational circumstances prevent cooperation in the given situation.
Testing transitivity of preferences using linked designs
Authors: Birnbaum Michael H. , Bahra Jeffrey P.
Published: January 2023

Three experiments tested if individuals show violations of transitivity in choices between risky gambles in linked designs. The binary gambles varied in the probability to win the higher (better) prize, the value of the higher prize, and the value of the lower prize. Each design varied two factors, with the third fixed. Designs are linked by using the same values in different designs. Linked designs allow one to determine if a lexicographic semiorder model can describe violations of transitivity in more than one design using the same parameters. In addition, two experiments tested interactive independence, a critical property implied by all lexicographic semiorder models. Very few people showed systematic violations of transitivity; only one person out of 136 showed violations of transitivity in two designs that could be linked by a lexicographic semiorder. However, that person violated interactive independence, as did the majority of other participants. Most individuals showed systematic violations of the assumptions of stochastic independence and stationarity of choice responses. That means that investigators should evaluate models with respect to response patterns (response combinations) rather than focusing entirely on choice proportions.
Social preferences shaped by conflicting motives: When enhancing social welfare creates unfavorable comparisons for the self
Authors: Choshen-Hillel Shoham , Yaniv Ilan
Published: January 2023

The construction of social preferences often requires one to reconcile various social motives, such as concern with unfavorable inequality and maximization of social welfare. We propose a novel theory whereby people’s level of agency influences the relative intensities of their social motives, and thus their social preferences. Agency in this context refers to decision makers’ active involvement in the processes that produce social outcomes. Nonagentic decision makers are not involved in creating the outcomes. Therefore, the comparison between self and others is highly informative for them and they shun settings in which their outcome appears to be inferior. Conversely, agentic decision makers, who take action to influence social outcomes, care more about others’ outcomes and are more inclined to promote social welfare. We report five studies testing the agency hypothesis. Participants were presented with realistic scenarios involving outcomes for themselves and another person. In each scenario, the outcome for oneself was fixed, while the outcome for the other person varied. The participants’ task was to indicate their satisfaction with the other person obtaining either the same outcome as their own or a better one. We found that participants who were involved in creating the outcomes (agentic condition) were more satisfied with the other getting the better option than were participants who were not involved (nonagentic condition). Even low levels of influence on the outcomes were sufficient for a strong agency effect to occur. We discuss the agency hypothesis in relation to theories of social preference, the effects of voicing and participation in decision processes, and trade-offs in public policy.
Decisions in moral dilemmas: The influence of subjective beliefs in outcome probabilities
Authors: Shou Yiyun , Song Fei
Published: January 2023

Previous studies have found that the proportions of people who endorsed utilitarian decisions varied across different variants of the trolley dilemma. In this paper, we explored whether moral choices were associated with beliefs about outcome probabilities in different moral dilemmas. Results of two experiments showed that participants’ perceptions of outcome probabilities were different between two dilemmas that were similar to the classical switch case and footbridge case. Participants’ judgments of the outcome probabilities were associated with their moral choices. The results suggested that participants might not accept task instructions and thus did not perceive the outcomes in the dilemmas as certain. We argued that researchers who endorse descriptive tasks in moral reasoning research should be cautious about the findings and should take participants’ beliefs in the outcomes into account.
How should we measure Americans’ perceptions of socio-economic mobility?
Authors: Swan Lawton K. , Chambers John R. , Heesacker Martin , Nero Sondre S.
Published: January 2023

Several scholars have suggested that Americans’ (distorted) beliefs about the rate of upward social mobility in the United States may affect political judgment and decision-making outcomes. In this article, we consider the psychometric properties of two different questionnaire items that researchers have used to measure these subjective perceptions. Namely, we report the results of a new set of experiments (N= 2,167 U.S. MTurkers) in which we compared the question wording employed by Chambers, Swan and Heesacker (2015) with the question wording employed by Davidai and Gilovich (2015). Each (independent) research team had prompted similar groups of respondents to estimate the percentage of Americans born into the bottom of the income distribution who improved their socio-economic standing by adulthood, yet the two teams reached ostensibly irreconcilable conclusions: that Americans tend tounderestimate (Chambers et al.) andoverestimate (Davidai & Gilovich) the true rate of upward social mobility in the U.S. First, we successfully reproduced both contradictory results. Next, we isolated and experimentally manipulated one salient difference between the two questions’ response-option formats: asking participants to divide the population into either (a) “thirds” (tertiles) or (b) “20%” segments (quintiles). Inverting this tertile-quintile factor significantly altered both teams’ findings, suggesting that these measures are inappropriate (too vulnerable to question-wording and item-formulation artifacts) for use in studies of perceptual (in)accuracy. Finally, we piloted a new question for measuring subjective perceptions of social mobility. We conclude with tentative recommendations for researchers who wish to model the causes and consequences of Americans’ mobility-related beliefs.
Children’s application of decision strategies in a compensatory environment
Authors: Betsch Tilmann , Lehmann Anne , Jekel Marc , Lindow Stefanie , Glöckner Andreas
Published: January 2023

Adaptive actors must be able to use probabilities as decision weights. In a computerized multi-attribute task, the authors examined the decisions of children (5–6 years, n = 44; 9–10 y., n = 39) and adults (21–22 y., n = 31) in an environment that fosters the application of a weighted-additive strategy that uses probabilities as weights (WADD: choose option with highest sum of probability-value products). Applying a Bayesian outcome-based strategy classification procedure from adult research, we identified the utilization of WADD and several other strategies (lexicographic, equal weight, naïve Bayes, guessing, and saturated model) on the individual level. As expected based on theory, the prevalence of WADD-users in adults was high. In contrast, no preschoolers could be classified as users of probability-sensitive strategies. Nearly one-third of third-graders used probability-sensitive strategies.
Between me and we: The importance of self-profit versus social justifiability for ethical decision making
Authors: Klein Sina A. , Thielmann Isabel , Hilbig Benjamin E. , Zettler Ingo
Published: January 2023

Current theories of dishonest behavior suggest that both individual profits and the availability of justifications drive cheating. Although some evidence hints that cheating behavior is most prevalent when both self-profit and social justifications are present, the relative impact of each of these factors is insufficiently understood. This study provides a fine-grained analysis of the trade-off between self-profit versus social justifiability. In a non-student online sample, we assessed dishonest behavior in a coin-tossing task, involving six conditions which systematically varied both self-profit and social justifiability (in terms of social welfare), such that a decrease in the former was associated with the exact same increase in the latter. Results showed that self-profit outweighed social justifiability, but that there was also an effect of social justifications.
Are additives unnatural? Generality and mechanisms of additivity dominance
Authors: Scott Sydney E. , Rozin Paul
Published: January 2023

Naturalness is important and valued by most lay Western individuals. Yet, little is known about the lay meaning of “natural”. We examine the phenomenon of additivity dominance: adding something to a natural product (additive) reduces naturalness more than removing an equivalent entity (“subtractive”). We demonstrate additivity dominance for the first time using equivalent adding and subtracting procedures. We find that adding something reduces naturalness more than removing thesamething (e.g., adding pulp to orange juice reduces naturalness more than removing pulp from orange juice; Study 1); an organism with a gene added is less natural than one with a gene removed (Study 2); and framing a product as an additive (versus as a subtractive) reduces naturalness (Study 3). We begin to examine accounts of additivity dominance. We find that it is not due to the connotations of the word “additive” (Study 4). However, data are consistent with an extra processing account — where additives involve more processing (extracting and adding) than subtractives (only removing) — and with a contagion account — where adding is more contaminating than removing (Study 5).
Multi-attribute utility models as cognitive search engines
Authors: Analytis Pantelis P. , Kothiyal Amit , Katsikopoulos Konstantinos
Published: January 2023

In optimal stopping problems, decision makers are assumed to search randomly to learn the utility of alternatives; in contrast, in one-shot multi-attribute utility optimization, decision makers are assumed to have perfect knowledge of utilities. We point out that these two contexts represent the boundaries of a continuum, of which the middle remains uncharted: How should people search intelligently when they possess imperfect information about the alternatives? We assume that decision makers first estimate the utility of each available alternative and then search the alternatives in order of their estimated utility until expected benefits are outweighed by search costs. We considered three well-known models for estimating utility: (i) a linear multi-attribute model, (ii) equal weighting of attributes, and (iii) a single-attribute heuristic. We used 12 real-world decision problems, ranging from consumer choice to industrial experimentation, to measure the performance of the three models. The full model (i) performed best on average but its simplifications (ii and iii) also had regions of superior performance. We explain the results by analyzing the impact of the models’ utility order and estimation error.
This way, please: Uncovering the directional effects of attribute translations on decision making
Authors: Mertens Stephanie , Hahnel Ulf J. J. , Brosch Tobias
Published: January 2023

The translation of choice attributes into more meaningful information (e.g., from kWh to costs) is a form of choice architecture that is thought to facilitate decision making by providing decision signposts that activate personally relevant but latent objectives and guide decisions towards options that are most congruent with the activated objectives. Here, we investigated the psychological mechanisms that underlie and drive the directional effects of attribute translations on decision making. Across two choice experiments (totalN= 973), we provide empirical support for our proposition that attribute translations operate via pre-decisional attention processes. Specifically, we demonstrate that attribute translations focus individuals’ attention on choice options that are most congruent with the concerns highlighted by translations, and that this attentional prioritization of alternatives predicts choice. In addition to the cognitive mechanisms underlying attribute translations, we highlight the choice architectural principles that moderate the effectiveness of translations. We show that the directional effects of attribute translations are driven by the information that translations provide rather than by contextual changes in the decision environment. In line with previous research on evaluability, we find the effectiveness of attribute translations to depend on information format, with translations conveying evaluative information having a larger impact on decision making than translations providing numerical information. The present study is among the first to investigate the decision making processes underlying a choice architectural intervention. It provides insights into the mechanisms that drive and facilitate the signpost effect and renders recommendations for the implementation of attribute translations in policy making.
Robust consistency of choice switching in decisions from experience
Authors: Yechiam Eldad
Published: January 2023

Decision making is a multifaceted process but studies of individual differences in decision behavior typically use only the proportions of choices from different options as behavioral indices. I examine whether the probability of choice switching in decisions from experience, reflecting one’s exploration strategy, is consistent across sessions and tasks. In Study 1, I re-analyzed an experiment in which participants performed six decision tasks in two sessions that were 45 days apart. Choice switching rates were highly consistent across sessions and tasks, and their consistency exceeded that of rates of risky choices. In Study 2 I conducted a similar analysis for the Technion Prediction Tournament, and also found higher consistency across tasks in switching rates than in choice rates. Additionally, in both studies, there were moderate to high correlations between switching rates at the beginning and towards the end of the task. The results thus highlight an often overlooked but highly consistent and independent aspect of human behavior.
Are buyers of apartments superstitious? Evidence from the Russian real estate market
Authors: Antipov Evgeny A. , Pokryshevskaya Elena B.
Published: January 2023

We study the influence of numerological superstitions on people’s buying behavior in the apartment market using unique actual sales data. Based on the dataset from Saint-Petersburg primary real estate market we compare the share of sold apartments on floor 7 with that on floors 6 and 8, whereas floor 13 is benchmarked to floors 12 and 14. As floor plans are absolutely identical we manage to isolate the effects of the “lucky” and “unlucky” floors. The data we use allows clean identification of superstition effects, while being publicly available. We have found a clear negative effect of the 13th floor on demand for apartments, and a significant effect of preference towards the 7th floor compared to the two neighboring floors. Possible applications of our approach to other areas of consumer research are discussed.
Comparative evaluation of the forecast accuracy of analysis reports and a prediction market
Authors: Stastny Bradley J. , Lehner Paul E.
Published: January 2023

This paper summarizes an empirical comparison of the accuracy of forecasts included in analysis reports developed by professional intelligence analysts to comparable forecasts in a prediction market that has broad participation from across an intelligence community. To compare forecast accuracy, 99 event forecasts were extracted from qualitative descriptions found in 41 analysis reports and posted on the prediction market. Quantitative probabilities were imputed from the qualitative forecasts by asking seasoned professional analysts, who did not participate in the prediction market, to read the reports and to infer a quantitative probability based on what was written. These readers were also asked to provide their personal probabilities before and after reading the reports. There were two statistically significant results of particular interest. First, the primary result is that the prediction market forecasts were more accurate than the analysis reports. On average prediction market probabilities were 0.114 closer to ground truth than the analysis report probabilities. Second, in cases where analysts (readers) updated their personal probabilities in a direction opposite to what the reports implied, analysts tended to update their probabilities in the correct direction. This occurred even though, on average, reading the reports did not make readers more accurate.
An experimental guide to vehicles in the park
Authors: Struchiner Noel , Hannikainen Ivar R. , de Almeida Guilherme da F. C. F.
Published: January 2023

Prescriptive rules guide human behavior across various domains of community life, including law, morality, and etiquette. What, specifically, are rules in the eyes of their subjects, i.e., those who are expected to abide by them? Over the last sixty years, theorists in the philosophy of law have offered a useful framework with which to consider this question. Some, following H. L. A. Hart, argue that a rule’s text at least sometimes suffices to determine whether the rule itself covers a case. Others, in the spirit of Lon Fuller, believe that there is no way to understand a rule without invoking its purpose — the benevolent ends which it is meant to advance. In this paper we ask whether people associate rules with their textual formulation or their underlying purpose. We find that both text and purpose guide people’s reasoning about the scope of a rule. Overall, a rule’s text more strongly contributed to rule infraction decisions than did its purpose. The balance of these considerations, however, varied across experimental conditions: In conditions favoring a spontaneous judgment, rule interpretation was affected by moral purposes, whereas analytic conditions resulted in a greater adherence to textual interpretations. In sum, our findings suggest that the philosophical debate between textualism and purposivism partly reflects two broader approaches to normative reasoning that vary within and across individuals.
Inducing alternative-based and characteristic-based search procedures in risky choice
Authors: Mittone Luigi , Papi Mauro
Published: January 2023

We propose a novel experimental design aimed at investigating whether inducing individuals to use certain choice procedures has an effect on the outcome of their decision. Specifically, by implementing a modification of the mouse-tracing method, we induce subjects to use either alternative-based or characteristic-based search procedures in a between-subject lottery-choice experiment. We find that encouraging subjects to search by characteristic systematically makes them choose riskier options. Consistently with existing literature, our evidence indicates that individuals typically look up information within alternatives. However, when induced to search by characteristic, high prizes receive more attention, leading individuals to switch to non-compensatory heuristics and – consequently – make riskier choices. Our findings are robust to variations in the complexity of the choice problem and individual differences in risk-attitudes, CRT scores, and gender.
Delay discounting and risky choice: Meta-analytic evidence regarding single-process theories
Authors: Johnson Kelli L. , Bixter Michael T. , Luhmann Christian C.
Published: January 2023

Preferences about delayed rewards and preferences about risk are central to the literature on decision making. Several proposals suggest that such preferences arise from a single process and thus predict strong associations between preferences about delay and risk. Although there is a wealth of data on this association, the evidence is inconclusive; some studies have reported significant associations but many have not. Consequently, it is unclear whether the association between delay preferences and risk preferences is strong enough to support single-process theories. To further explore this question, we took a meta-analytic approach surveying 26 studies totaling 32 effect sizes. Results reveal a small to moderate association between risk preferences and delay preferences. This result provides little support for existing proposals because the observed relationship is no stronger than associations observed between either delay preferences or risk preferences and other variables. Moderating variables provide some explanation for inconsistencies across studies. Implications, including the apparent discrepancy between this literature and the conventional construct of impulsivity, are also discussed.