bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Construal levels and moral judgment: Some complications
Authors: Gong Han , Medin Douglas L.
Published: January 2023

Eyal, T., Liberman, N., & Trope, Y., (2008). Judging near and distant virtue and vice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1204–1209, explored how psychological distance influences moral judgment and found that more extreme moral appraisals were given to distal behaviors rather than proximal behaviors. Contrary to Eyal et al., the current paper presents converging evidence showing that moral judgments become more extreme at lower-level construals compared to higher-level construals. In four experiments using two different priming techniques, we manipulated construal levels and assessed their effects on moral judgment. High-level consturals elicited less moral outrage toward transgressions and less positive ratings of virtuous behaviors than low-level construals. A replication study was also conducted to reconcile the inconsistencies between the current results and those of Eyal et al. Possible explanations for the different results between two studies are discussed.
Web-conferencing as a viable method for group decision research
Authors: Handgraaf Michel J. J. , Milch Kerry F. , Appelt Kirstin C. , Schuette Philip , Yoskowitz Nicole A. , Weber Elke U.
Published: January 2023

Studying group decision-making is challenging for multiple reasons. An important logistic difficulty is studying a sufficiently large number of groups, each with multiple participants. Assembling groups online could make this process easier and also provide access to group members more representative of real-world work groups than the sample of college students that typically comprise lab Face-to-Face (FtF) groups. The main goal of this paper is to compare the decisions of online groups to those of FtF groups. We did so in a study that manipulated gain/loss framing of a risky decision between groups and examined the decisions of both individual group members and groups. All of these dependent measures are compared for an online and an FtF sample. Our results suggest that web-conferencing can be a substitute for FtF interaction in group decision-making research, as we found no moderation effects of communication medium on individual or group decision outcome variables. The effects of medium that were found suggest that the use of online groups may be the preferred method for group research. To wit, discussions among the online groups were shorter, but generated a greater number of thought units, i.e., they made more efficient use of time.
Winning a battle but losing the war: On the drawbacks of using the anchoring tactic in distributive negotiations
Authors: Maaravi Yossi , Pazy Asya , Ganzach Yoav
Published: January 2023

In two experiments, we explored the possible drawbacks of applying the anchoring tactic in a negotiation context. In Study 1, buyers who used the anchoring tactic made higher profits, but their counterparts thought their own results were worse than expected and thus were less willing to engage in future negotiations with them. Study 2 showed that using the anchoring tactic in a market decreased accumulated profits by increasing the rate of impasses and prolonging the negotiations. The implications of these findings are discussed.
When your anchor sinks your boat: Information asymmetry in distributive negotiations and the disadvantage of making the first offer
Authors: Maaravi Yossi , Levy Aharon
Published: January 2023

The literature on behavioral decision-making and negotiations to date usually advocates first-mover advantage in distributive negotiations, and bases this preference on the anchoring heuristic. In the following paper, we suggest that the preference for moving first vs. moving second in negotiations may not be as clear-cut as presumed, especially in situations characterized by information asymmetry between negotiating counterparts. In Study 1, we examined people’s initiation preferences and found that unless taught otherwise, people intuitively often prefer to move second. In Studies 2–4, we experimentally tested the suggested advantage of moving second, and demonstrated that in information-asymmetry scenarios – when one party has perfect background information and the other has none — it is actually preferable for both counterparts not to give the first offer while negotiating. We discuss the implications of our findings on the field of negotiation and decision-making, and lay the groundwork for future studies examining this issue.
“I am uncertain” vs “It is uncertain”. How linguistic markers of the uncertainty source affect uncertainty communication.
Authors: Juanchich Marie , Gourdon-Kanhukamwe Amélie , Sirota Miroslav
Published: January 2023

Two psychological sources of uncertainty bear implications for judgment and decision-making: external uncertainty is seen as stemming from properties of the world, whereas internal uncertainty is seen as stemming from lack of knowledge. The apparent source of uncertainty can be conveyed through linguistic markers, such as the pronoun of probability phrases (e.g., I am uncertain vs. It is uncertain). Here, we investigated whether and when speakers use different pronoun subjects as such linguistic markers (Exp. 1 and 2) and what hearers infer from them (Exp. 3 and 4). Speakers more often described higher probabilities and knowable outcomes with internal probability phrases. In dialogue, speakers mirrored the source of their conversational partner. Markers of the source had a main effect or interacted with the probability conveyed and speaker expertise to shape the judgments and decisions of hearers. For example, experts voicing an internal probability phrase were judged as more knowledgeable than experts using an external probability phrase whereas the result was the opposite for lay speakers. We discuss how these findings inform our understanding of subjective uncertainty and uncertainty communication theories.
Valuing bets and hedges: Implications for the construct of risk preference
Authors: Frederick Shane , Levis Amanda , Malliaris Steven , Meyer Andrew
Published: January 2023

Risk attitudes implied by valuations of risk-increasing assets depart markedly from those implied by valuations of risk-reducing assets. For instance, many are unwilling to pay the expected value for a risky asset or for its perfect hedge. Although nearly every theory of risk preference (and logic) demands a negative correlation between valuations of bets and hedges, we observe positive correlations. This inconsistency is difficult to expunge.
The impact of actively open-minded thinking on social media communication
Authors: Carpenter Jordan , Preotiuc-Pietro Daniel , Clark Jenna , Flekova Lucie , Smith Laura , Kern Margaret L. , Buffone Anneke , Ungar Lyle , Seligman Martin
Published: January 2023

Online, social media communication is often ambiguous, and it can encourage speed and inattentiveness. We investigated whether Actively Open Minded Thinking (AOT), a dispositional willingness to seek out new or potentially threatening information, may help users avoid these pitfalls. In Study 1, we determined that correctly assessing social media authors’ traits was positively predicted by raters’ AOT. In Study 2, we used data-driven methods to devise a three-dimensional picture of online behaviors of people high or low in AOT, finding that AOT is associated with thoughtful, nuanced, idiosyncratic actions and with resisting the typically fast pace of online interactions. AOT may be an important factor in accurate, socially responsible online behavior.
Why choose wisely if you have already paid? Sunk costs elicit stochastic dominance violations
Authors: Jessup Ryan K. , Assaad Lily B. , Wick Katherine
Published: January 2023

Sunk costs have been known to elicit violations of expected utility theory, in particular, the independence or cancellation axiom. Separately, violations of the stochastic dominance principle have been demonstrated in various settings despite the fact that descriptive models of choice favored in economics deem such violations irrational. However, it is currently unknown whether sunk costs also yield stochastic dominance violations. In two studies using a tri-colored roulette wheel choice task with non-equiprobable events yet equal payoffs, we observed that those who had sunk costs selected a stochastically dominated option significantly more than did those who had no costs. Moreover, a second study revealed that people chose a stochastically dominated option significantly more when the expected value was low compared to high. A model comparison of psychological explanations demonstrated that theories that incorporate a reference shift of the status quo could predict these sunk cost-based violations of stochastic dominance whereas other models could not.
Boundary effects in the Marschak-Machina triangle
Authors: Kontek Krzysztof
Published: January 2023

This paper presents the results of a study that sheds new light on the shape of indifference curves in the Marschak-Machina triangle. The most important observation, obtained non-parametrically, concerns jumps in indifference curves at the triangle legs towards the triangle origin. These jumps, however, do not appear at the hypotenuse. The pattern observed suggests discontinuity in lottery valuation when the range of lottery outcomes changes and is best explained by decision-making models based on the psychological phenomenon of range dependence (Parducci, 1965; Cohen, 1992; Kontek & Lewandowski, 2018). Models founded on other psychological phenomena, e.g., discontinuity in decision weights (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), cumulative probability weighting (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992), attention shifting (Birnbaum, 2008), overweighting of salient payoffs (Bordallo, Gennaioli & Shefrin, 2012), and treating stated probabilities as imperfect information (Viscusi, 1989), predict indifference curve shapes that differ from the one obtained in this study.
Boosting intelligence analysts’ judgment accuracy: What works, what fails?
Authors: Mandel David R. , Karvetski Christopher W. , Dhami Mandeep K.
Published: January 2023

A routine part of intelligence analysis is judging the probability of alternative hypotheses given available evidence. Intelligence organizations advise analysts to use intelligence-tradecraft methods such as Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) to improve judgment, but such methods have not been rigorously tested. We compared the evidence evaluation and judgment accuracy of a group of intelligence analysts who were recently trained in ACH and then used it on a probability judgment task to another group of analysts from the same cohort that were neither trained in ACH nor asked to use any specific method. Although the ACH group assessed information usefulness better than the control group, the control group was a little more accurate (and coherent) than the ACH group. Both groups, however, exhibited suboptimal judgment and were susceptible to unpacking effects. Although ACH failed to improve accuracy, we found that recalibration and aggregation methods substantially improved accuracy. Specifically, mean absolute error (MAE) in analysts’ probability judgments decreased by 61% after first coherentizing their judgments (a process that ensures judgments respect the unitarity axiom) and then aggregating their judgments. The findings cast doubt on the efficacy of ACH, and show the promise of statistical methods for boosting judgment quality in intelligence and other organizations that routinely produce expert judgments.
A novel approach to studying strategic decisions with eye-tracking and machine learning
Authors: Krol Michal , Krol Magdalena
Published: January 2023

We propose a novel method of using eye-tracking to study strategic decisions. The conventional approach is to hypothesize what eye-patterns should be observed if a given model of decision-making was accurate, and then proceed to verify if this occurs. When such hypothesis specification is difficult a priori, we propose instead to expose subjects to a variant of the original strategic task that should induce processing it in a way consistent with the postulated model. It is then possible to use machine learning pattern recognition techniques to check if the associated eye-patterns are similar to those recorded during the original task. We illustrate the method using simple examples of 2x2 matching-pennies and coordination games with or without feedback about the counterparts’ past moves. We discuss the strengths and limitations of the method in this context.
Accountability and adaptive performance under uncertainty: A long-term view
Authors: Chang Welton , Atanasov Pavel , Patil Shefali , Mellers Barbara A. , Tetlock Philip E.
Published: January 2023

Accountability pressures are a ubiquitous feature of social systems: virtually everyone must answer to someone for something. Behavioral research has, however, warned that accountability, specifically a focus on being responsible for outcomes, tends to produce suboptimal judgments. We qualify this view by demonstrating the long-term adaptive benefits of outcome accountability in uncertain, dynamic environments. More than a thousand randomly assigned forecasters participated in a ten-month forecasting tournament in conditions of control, process, outcome or hybrid accountability. Accountable forecasters outperformed non-accountable ones. Holding forecasters accountable to outcomes (“getting it right”) boosted forecasting accuracy beyond holding them accountable for process (“thinking the right way”). The performance gap grew over time. Process accountability promoted more effective knowledge sharing, improving accuracy among observers. Hybrid (process plus outcome) accountability boosted accuracy relative to process, and improved knowledge sharing relative to outcome accountability. Overall, outcome and process accountability appear to make complementary contributions to performance when forecasters confront moderately noisy, dynamic environments where signal extraction requires both knowledge pooling and individual judgments.
The price of gaining: maximization in decision-making, regret and life satisfaction
Authors: Moyano-Díaz Emilio , Martínez-Molina Agustín , Ponce Fernando P.
Published: January 2023

Maximizers attempt to find the best solution in decision-making, while satisficers feel comfortable with a good enough solution. Recent results pointed out some critical aspects of this decision-making approach and some concerns about its measurement and dimensional structure. In addition to the analysis of these aspects, we tested the possible mediational role of regret in this psychological process. The Maximization Inventory (MI; satisficing, decision difficulty, and alternative search), regret, and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were translated and adapted to Spanish in order to answer these issues with a Chilean sample. Validity and reliability analysis of the MI reports that only two dimensions of the MI have enough dimensional support (decision difficulty, alternative search). The tested structural model shows good fit of partial mediation effect of regret between decision difficulty and SWLS. At the same time, alternative search has a positive relation with SWLS. These results suggest that Regret becomes crucial for prescribing behavior to decision makers.
Validation and invariance across age and gender for the Melbourne Decision-Making Questionnaire in a sample of Portuguese adults
Authors: Filipe Luís , Alvarez Maria-João , Roberto Magda Sofia , Ferreira Joaquim A.
Published: January 2023

The personal pattern of coping with the stress associated with making decisions characterizes the way an individual makes choices and judgments. The Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ) analyses these personal patterns and has been used across various cultures in order to assess four main strategies: vigilance, buck-passing, procrastination, and hypervigilance. We sought to adapt and validate a Portuguese version of the MDMQ. Our study was conducted with a sample of 523 Portuguese people aged 18 or older. The questionnaire retained the original four scales, which represent four different decisional patterns, showing good reliability and validity – concurrent as well as predictive – and invariance for gender and age. The coping pattern with the highest mean was vigilance, while procrastination had the lowest mean. In contrast to other studies of the MDMQ, our sample had a more diversified distribution of age. Young adults were less capable than older adults of managing stress when making decisions, due to their higher levels of buck-passing, hypervigilance, and procrastination. Vigilance showed stronger correlations to positive affect, satisfaction with life, and better decisional self-esteem, while the remaining scales were related to negative affect, reduced decisional self-esteem, and lower satisfaction with life. These decision-making styles are chosen depending on time constraints, pressure, or other contextual characteristics. These results suggest that individuals resort to more convenient patterns according to their situation, and that these patterns of decision-making can be trained, developed, and improved.
Does telling white lies signal pro-social preferences?
Authors: Biziou-van-Pol Laura , Haenen Jana , Novaro Arianna , Occhipinti Liberman Andrés , Capraro Valerio
Published: January 2023

The opportunity to tell a white lie (i.e., a lie that benefits another person) generates a moral conflict between two opposite moral dictates, one pushing towards telling the truth always and the other pushing towards helping others. Here we study how people resolve this moral conflict. What does telling a white lie signal about a person’s pro-social tendencies? To answer this question, we conducted a two-stage 2x2 experiment. In the first stage, we used a Deception Game to measure aversion to telling a Pareto white lie (i.e., a lie that helps both the liar and the listener), and aversion to telling an altruistic white lie (i.e., a lie that helps the listener at the expense of the liar). In the second stage we measured altruistic tendencies using a Dictator Game and cooperative tendencies using a Prisoner’s dilemma. We found three major results: (i) both altruism and cooperation are positively correlated with aversion to telling a Pareto white lie; (ii) both altruism and cooperation are negatively correlated with aversion to telling an altruistic white lie; (iii) men are more likely than women to tell an altruistic white lie, but not to tell a Pareto white lie. Our results shed light on the moral conflict between prosociality and truth-telling. In particular, the first finding suggests that a significant proportion of people have non-distributional notions of what the right thing to do is, irrespective of the economic consequences, they tell the truth, they cooperate, they share their money.
Strategies using recent feedback lead to matching or maximising behaviours
Authors: Cheng Zhenbo , Gao Jingying , Zhang Leilei , Xiao Gang , Mao Hongjing
Published: January 2023

One challenge facing humans (and nonhuman animal) is that some options that appear attractive locally may not turn out best in the long run. To analyse this human learning problem, we explore human performance in a dynamic decision-making task that places local and global rewards in conflict. We found that experiences that included previous choices and rewards are not easily incorporated into people’s strategy to enhance their performance. Our results suggest that humans are easily driven by concerns about recent feedback, and that choice of a suboptimal behaviour option may be overcome by providing informative cues that indicate a clear immediate outcome for a better option.
Crowding-out (-in) Effects of Subsidy Schemes on Individual Donations: An Experimental Study
Authors: Peng Hui-Chun , Liu Wen-Jing
Published: January 2023

We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate whether the rebate and matching subsidy schemes cause crowding-out or crowding-in effects (reductions or increases in amount donated) on individual net donations. We find that when the rebate subsidy scheme is implemented, it does not result in crowding-out or crowding-in effects on individual net donations. However, when the matching subsidy scheme is implemented, it encourages individuals to donate more and generates crowding-in effects on individual net donations.
Resistance to medical artificial intelligence is an attribute in a compensatory decision process: response to Pezzo and Beckstead (2020)
Authors: Longoni Chiara , Bonezzi Andrea , Morewedge Carey K.
Published: January 2023

In Longoni et al. (2019), we examine how algorithm aversion influences utilization of healthcare delivered by human and artificial intelligence providers. Pezzo and Beckstead’s (2020) commentary asks whether resistance to medical AI takes the form of a noncompensatory decision strategy, in which a single attribute determines provider choice, or whether resistance to medical AI is one of several attributes considered in a compensatory decision strategy. We clarify that our paper both claims and finds that, all else equal, resistance to medical AI is one of several attributes (e.g., cost and performance) influencing healthcare utilization decisions. In other words, resistance to medical AI is a consequential input to compensatory decisions regarding healthcare utilization and provider choice decisions, not a noncompensatory decision strategy. People do not always reject healthcare provided by AI, and our article makes no claim that they do.
Gender differences in the trade-off between objective equality and efficiency
Authors: Capraro Valerio
Published: January 2023

Generations of social scientists have explored whether males and females act differently in domains involving competition, risk taking, cooperation, altruism, honesty, as well as many others. Yet, little is known about gender differences in the trade-off between objective equality (i.e., equality of outcomes) and efficiency. It has been suggested that females are more equal than males, but the empirical evidence is relatively weak. This gap is particularly important, because people in power of redistributing resources often face a conflict between equality and efficiency. The recently introduced Trade-Off Game (TOG) – in which a decision-maker has to unilaterally choose between being equal or being efficient – offers a unique opportunity to fill this gap. To this end, I analyse gender differences on a large dataset including N=6,955 TOG decisions. The results show that females prefer objective equality over efficiency to a greater extent than males do. The effect turns out to be particularly strong when the TOG available options are “morally” framed in such a way to suggest that choosing the equal option is the right thing to do.
Prompting deliberation increases base-rate use
Authors: Obrecht Natalie A. , Chesney Dana L.
Published: January 2023

People often base judgments on stereotypes, even when contradictory base-rate information is provided. In a sample of 438 students from two state universities, we tested several hypotheses regarding why people would prefer stereotype information over base-rates when making judgments: A) People believe stereotype information is more diagnostic than base-rate information, B) people find stereotype information more salient than base-rate information, or C) even though people have some intuitive access to base-rate information, they may need to engage in deliberation before they can make full use of it, and often fail to do so. In line with the deliberative failure account, and counter to the diagnosticity account, we found that inducing deliberation by having people evaluate statements supporting the use of base-rates increased the use of base-rate information. Moreover, counter to the salience and diagnosticity accounts, asking people to evaluate statements supporting the use of stereotypes decreased reliance on stereotype information. Additionally, more numerate subjects were more likely to make use of base-rate information.
Overlap of accessible information undermines the anchoring effect
Authors: Bahník Štěpán , Strack Fritz
Published: January 2023

According to the Selective Accessibility Model of anchoring, the comparison question in the standard anchoring paradigm activates information that is congruent with an anchor. As a consequence, this information will be more likely to become the basis for the absolute judgment which will therefore be assimilated toward the anchor. However, if the activated information overlaps with information that is elicited by the absolute judgment itself, the preceding comparative judgment should not exert an incremental effect and should fail to result in an anchoring effect. The present studies find this result when the comparative judgment refers to a general category and the absolute judgment refers to a subset of the general category that was activated by the anchor value. For example, participants comparing the average annual temperature in New York City to a high 102 °F judged the average winter, but not summer temperature to be higher than participants making no comparison. On the other hand, participants comparing the annual temperature to a low –4 °F judged the average summer, but not winter temperature to be lower than control participants. This pattern of results was shown also in another content domain. It is consistent with the Selective Accessibility Model but difficult to reconcile with other main explanations of the anchoring effect.
Psychometric characteristics of two forms of the Slovak version of the Indecisiveness Scale
Authors: Bavolar Jozef
Published: January 2023

The study investigates the psychometric characteristics of the Slovak version of the original and short form of the Indecisiveness Scale on three samples of university students and one general population sample. An exploratory as well as confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the one factor structure of the scale with a satisfactory internal consistency and time stability of scores. The criterion validity was examined through relationships with thinking styles, decision-making styles, the Big Five factors, decision outcomes, well-being and perceived stress, as well as through a comparison of the general population sample with a sample with an obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis. Subjects who self-reported as undecided in their future intentions regarding migration tendencies had higher scores in indecisiveness. Both examined forms of the Slovak version of the Indecisiveness Scale were demonstrated to be reliable and valid instruments for the measurement of indecisiveness with the short form being favorited as more appropriately tapping into the core aspect of indecisiveness.
Still no compelling evidence that Americans overestimate upward socio-economic mobility rates: Reply to Davidai & Gilovich (2018)
Authors: Nero Sondre S. , Swan Lawton K. , Chambers John R. , Heesacker Martin
Published: January 2023

Davidai and Gilovich (2018) contend that (a) Americans tend to think about their nation’s income distribution in terms of quintiles (fifths), and (b) when Americans’ perceptions of socio-economic mobility rates are measured properly (e.g., by asking online survey respondents to guess upward-mobility rates across quintiles), a trend of overestimation (too much optimism concerning the number of people who manage to transcend poverty) will emerge. In this reply, we hail Davidai and Gilovich’s new data as novel, important, and relevant to the former (a), but we doubt that they can support the latter (b) claim about population-level (in)accuracy. Namely, we note that even if mobility-rate perceptions could be measured perfectly, inferences about the accuracy of those perceptions still depend on aparticularcomparator—a point-estimate of the "true" rate of upward social mobility in the U.S. against which survey respondents’ guesses are evaluated—that isitselfan error-prone estimate. Applying different established comparators to survey respondents’ guesses changes both the direction and magnitude of previously observed overestimation effects. We conclude with a challenge: researchers who wish to compute the average distance between socio-economic perceptions and socio-economic reality must first select and justify a fair comparator.
The delay-reward heuristic: What do people expect in intertemporal choice tasks?
Authors: Skylark William J. , Chan Kieran T. F. , Farmer George D. , Gaskin Kai W. , Miller Amelia R.
Published: January 2023

Recent research has shown that risk and reward are positively correlated in many environments, and that people have internalized this association as a “risk-reward heuristic”: when making choices based on incomplete information, people infer probabilities from payoffs and vice-versa, and these inferences shape their decisions. We extend this work by examining people’s expectations about another fundamental trade-off — that between monetary reward and delay. In 2 experiments (total N = 670), we adapted a paradigm previously used to demonstrate the risk-reward heuristic. We presented participants with intertemporal choice tasks in which either the delayed reward or the length of the delay was obscured. Participants inferred larger rewards for longer stated delays, and longer delays for larger stated rewards; these inferences also predicted people’s willingness to take the delayed option. In exploratory analyses, we found that older participants inferred longer delays and smaller rewards than did younger ones. All of these results replicated in 2 large-scale pre-registered studies with participants from a different population (total N = 2138). Our results suggest that people expect intertemporal choice tasks to offer a trade-off between delay and reward, and differ in their expectations about this trade-off. This “delay-reward heuristic” offers a new perspective on existing models of intertemporal choice and provides new insights into unexplained and systematic individual differences in the willingness to delay gratification.
Asymmetry and symmetry of acts and omissions in punishment, norms, and judged causality
Authors: Handfield Toby , Thrasher John , Corcoran Andrew , Nichols Shaun
Published: January 2023

Harmful acts are punished more often and more harshly than harmful omissions. This asymmetry has variously been ascribed to differences in how individuals perceive the causal responsibility of acts versus omissions and to social norms that tend to proscribe acts more frequently than omissions. This paper examines both of these hypotheses, in conjunction with a new hypothesis: that acts are punished more than omissions because it is usually more efficient to do so. In typical settings, harms occur as a result of relatively few harmful actions, but many individuals may have had the opportunity to prevent or rectify the harm. Penalising actors therefore requires relatively few punishment events compared to punishing omitters. We employ a novel group paradigm in which harm occurs only if both actors and omitters contribute to the harm. Subjects play a repeated economic game in fixed groups involving a social dilemma (total N = 580): on each round self-interest favours harmful actions (taking from another) and harmful omissions (failing to repair the victim’s loss), but the group payoff is maximized if individuals refrain from these behaviors. In one treatment harm occurs as a result of one action and two omissions; in the other, it is the result of two actions and one omission. In the second treatment, the more efficient strategy to maximize group benefit is to punish omissions. We find that subjects continue to prefer to punish acts rather than omissions, with two important caveats. There is still a substantial level of punishment of omissions, and there is also evidence of some responsiveness to the opportunity to enforce a more efficient rule. Further analysis addresses whether the omission effect is associated with asymmetric norm-based attitudes: a substantial proportion of subjects regard it as equally fair to punish harmful acts and omissions, while another portion endorse an asymmetry; and punishment behavior correlates with these attitudes in both groups.
A hierarchy of mindreading strategies in joint action participation
Authors: Landes Todd Larson , Howe Piers Douglas , Kashima Yoshihisa
Published: January 2023

This paper introduces the Hierarchical Mindreading Model (HMM), a new model of mindreading in two-person, mixed-motive games such as the Prisoners’ Dilemma. The HMM proposes that the strategies available to decision makers in these games can be classified on a hierarchy according to the type of mindreading involved. At Level 0 of the HMM, there is no attempt to infer the intentions of the other player from any of the context-specific information (i.e., signals, payoffs, or partner reliability). At Level 1, decision makers rely on signals to infer the other’s intention, without considering the possibility that those signals might not reflect the other’s true intention. Finally, in Level 2 strategies, decision makers infer the other player’s intended choice by integrating information contained in their signals with the apparent reliability of the other participant and/or the game’s payoffs. The implications of the HMM were tested across four studies involving 962 participants, with results consistently indicating the presence of strategies from all three levels of the HMM’s hierarchy.
Visual attention and time preference reversals
Authors: Zhou Yan-Bang , Li Qiang , Liu Hong-Zhi
Published: January 2023

Time preference reversal refers to systematic inconsistencies between preferences and bids for intertemporal options. From the two eye-tracking studies (N1 = 60, N2 = 110), we examined the underlying mechanisms of time preference reversal. We replicated the reversal effect in which individuals facing a pair of intertemporal options choose the smaller-sooner option but assign a higher value to the larger-later one. Results revealed that the mean fixation duration and the proportion of gaze time on the outcome attribute varied across the choice and bid tasks. In addition, time preference reversals correlated with individual differences in maximizing tendencies. Findings support the contingent weighting hypothesis and strategy compatibility hypothesis and allow for improved theoretical understanding of the potential mechanisms and processes involved in time preference reversals.
Without a mask: Judgments of Corona virus exposure as a function of inter personal distance
Authors: Svenson Ola , Appelbom Sophia , Mayorga Marcus , Lindholm Öjmyr Torun
Published: January 2023

In order to minimize the risk of infection during the Covid-19 pandemic, people are recommended to keep interpersonal distance (e.g., 1 m, 2 m, 6 feet), wash their hands frequently, limit social contacts and sometimes to wear a face mask. We investigated how people judge the protective effect of interpersonal distance against the Corona virus. The REM model, based on earlier empirical studies, describes how a person’s virus exposure decreases with the square of the distance to another person emitting a virus in a face to face situation. In a comparison with model predictions, most participants underestimated the protective effect of moving further away from another person. Correspondingly, most participants were not aware of how much their exposure would increase if they moved closer to the other person. Spectral analysis of judgments showed that a linear ratio model with the independent variable = (initial distance)/(distance to which a person moves) was the most frequently used judgment rule. It leads to insensitivity to change in exposure compared with the REM model. The present study indicated a need for information about the effects of keeping interpersonal distance and about the importance of virus carrying aerosols in environments with insufficient air ventilation. Longer conversations emitting aerosols in a closed environment may lead to ambient concentrations of aerosols in the air that no distance can compensate for. The results of the study are important for risk communications in countries where people do not wear a mask and when authorities consider removal of a recommendation or a requirement to wear a face mask.
“Quick and dirty”: Intuitive cognitive style predicts trust in Didier Raoult and his hydroxychloroquine-based treatment against COVID-19
Authors: Fuhrer Joffrey , Cova Florian
Published: January 2023

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, French public opinion has been divided about Pr. Didier Raoult and his hydroxychloroquine-based treatment against COVID-19. In this paper, our aim is to contribute to the understanding of this polarization of public opinion by investigating the relationship between (analytic vs. intuitive) cognitive style and trust in Didier Raoult and his treatment. Through three studies (totalNafter exclusion = 950), we found that a more intuitive cognitive style predicted higher trust in Didier Raoult and his treatment. Moreover, we found that Trust in Raoult was positively associated with belief that truth is political, belief in conspiracy theories, belief in pseudo-medicines and pseudo-medical and conspiratorial beliefs regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. We also found a negative association with knowledge of scientific methods and regard for scientific method over personal experience. However, higher trust in Didier Raoult was not associated with self-reported compliance with official regulations concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.
Inducing feelings of ignorance makes people more receptive to expert (economist) opinion
Authors: Meyers Ethan A. , Turpin Martin H. , Białek Michał , Fugelsang Jonathan A. , Koehler Derek J.
Published: January 2023

While they usually should, people do not revise their beliefs more to expert (economist) opinion than to lay opinion. The present research sought to better understand the factors that make it more likely for an individual to change their mind when faced with the opinions of expert economists versus the general public. Across five studies we examined the role that overestimation of knowledge plays in this behavior. We replicated the finding that people fail to privilege the opinion of experts over the public across two different (Study 1) and five different (Study 5) economic issues. We further find that undermining an illusion of both topic-relevant (Studies 2–4) and -irrelevant knowledge (Studies 3 and 4) leads to greater normative belief revision in response to expert rather than lay opinion. We suggest one reason that people fail to revise their beliefs more in response to experts is because people think they know more than they really do.
Unit Asking — a method for increasing donations: A replication and extension
Authors: Karlsson Hulda , Hellström Simon , Moche Hajdi , Västfjäll Daniel
Published: January 2023

We replicate and extend unit asking – a method to increase donations by first asking donors for their willingness to donate for one unit and then asking for donations for multiple units (Hsee, Zhang & Xu, 2013) We conducted a large scale replication and extension using a 2 (unit asking, control) × 3 (domains; children (original), animals, environment) between-subjects design. Across three domains, we find that unit asking increased donations, suggesting that this method can be used to increase giving to different charitable causes.
Input-dependent noise can explain magnitude-sensitivity in optimal value-based decision-making
Authors: Pirrone Angelo , Reina Andreagiovanni , Gobet Fernand
Published: January 2023

Recent work has derived the optimal policy for two-alternative value-based decisions, in which decision-makers compare the subjective expected reward of two alternatives. Under specific task assumptions — such as linear utility, linear cost of time and constant processing noise — the optimal policy is implemented by a diffusion process in which parallel decision thresholds collapse over time as a function of prior knowledge about average reward across trials. This policy predicts that the decision dynamics of each trial are dominated by the difference in value between alternatives and are insensitive to the magnitude of the alternatives (i.e., their summed values). This prediction clashes with empirical evidence showing magnitude-sensitivity even in the case of equal alternatives, and with ecologically plausible accounts of decision making. Previous work has shown that relaxing assumptions about linear utility or linear time cost can give rise to optimal magnitude-sensitive policies. Here we question the assumption of constant processing noise, in favour of input-dependent noise. The neurally plausible assumption of input-dependent noise during evidence accumulation has received strong support from previous experimental and modelling work. We show that including input-dependent noise in the evidence accumulation process results in a magnitude-sensitive optimal policy for value-based decision-making, even in the case of a linear utility function and a linear cost of time, for both single (i.e., isolated) choices and sequences of choices in which decision-makers maximise reward rate. Compared to explanations that rely on non-linear utility functions and/or non-linear cost of time, our proposed account of magnitude-sensitive optimal decision-making provides a parsimonious explanation that bridges the gap between various task assumptions and between various types of decision making.
COVID-19 as infodemic: The impact of political orientation and open-mindedness on the discernment of misinformation in WhatsApp
Authors: Bonafé-Pontes Andressa , Couto Cleno , Kakinohana Regis , Travain Mariana , Schimidt Luísa , Pilati Ronaldo
Published: January 2023

Messaging applications are changing the communication landscape in emerging countries. While offering speed and affordability, these solutions have also opened the way for the spread of misinformation. Aiming to better understand the dynamics of COVID-19 as infodemic, we asked Brazilian participants (n=1007) to report the perceived accuracy of 20 messages (10 true and 10 false). Each message was randomly presented within five fictitious WhatsApp group chats of varying political orientation. Correlational analyses revealed that right-wing participants had lower levels of truth discernment as did those with greater trust in social media as a reliable source of coronavirus information. Conversely, open-minded thinking about evidence and trust in the WHO and traditional media was positively associated with truth discernment. Familiarity with the content consistently increased perceived truthness for both true and false messages. Results point to the nefarious effects of COVID-19 politicization and underline the importance of promoting the ability to recognize and value new evidence as well as enhancing trust in international agencies and traditional media.
Social mindfulness is normative when costs are low, but rapidly declines with increases in costs
Authors: Engel Christoph , Van Lange Paul A. M.
Published: January 2023

As a complement to high-cost cooperation as assessed in economic games, the concept of social mindfulness focuses on low-cost acts of kindness. While social mindfulness seems quite natural, performed by many most of the time (reaching a level of 60–70 percent), what happens if such acts become more costly, and if costs become more salient? The present research replicates the prevalence of social mindfulness when costs are salient, but low. Yet we show that, with small increments in costs, the vast majority no longer exhibits social mindfulness. This holds even if we keep the outcomes for self high in comparison with the beneficiary. We conclude that the literature on social mindfulness should pay attention to cost. Clearly, if being socially mindful comes with high costs, this is not what most people are prepared to do. In contrast as long as costs are low and not salient, social mindfulness seems natural and normative.
Judgments of frequency and duration: One or two underlying dimensions?
Authors: Titz Johannes , Sedlmeier Peter
Published: January 2023

Howoftenand for howlonga certain object was encountered are two distinct questions, requiring two distinct answers. But when humans judge an object to have been presented often, they usually also judge it to have been presented for a long duration. Under certain conditions the reverse is also true: When an object has been presented for a long time, humans think it has been presented often. These mutual influences hint at a single underlying dimension on which judgments of frequency and duration are based. But the judgments also differ in certain respects, which instead speaks for two independent dimensions. In this article, from a novel formal perspective, we revisit arguments for and against unidimensional and two-dimensional models. To determine which of these models is supported empirically, we analyzed all available studies and tested an overlooked but critical condition that would allow us to draw a definitive conclusion. Our evidence speaks against a unidimensional model in all variants.
Randomization and serial dependence in professional tennis matches: Do strategic considerations, player rankings and match characteristics matter?
Authors: Spiliopoulos Leonidas
Published: January 2023

In many sports contests, the equilibrium requires players to randomize across repeated rounds, i.e., exhibit no temporal predictability. Such sports data present a window into the (in)efficiency of random sequence generation in a natural competitive environment, where the decision makers (tennis players) are both highly experienced and incentivized compared to laboratory studies. I resolve a long-standing debate about whether professional players’ tennis serve directions are serially independent (Hsu, Huang & Tang, 2007) or not (Walker & Wooders, 2001) using a new dataset that is two orders of magnitude larger than those studies. I examine both between- and within-player determinants of the degree of serial (in)dependence. Evidence of the existence of significant serial dependence across serves is presented, even among players ranked Number 1 in the world. Furthermore, significant heterogeneity was found with respect to the strength of serial dependence and also its sign. A novel finding is that Number 1 and Number 2 ranked players tend to under-alternate on average, whereas in line with previous findings, the lower-ranked the players, the greater their tendency to over-alternate. Within-player analyses show that high-ranked players do not condition their randomization behavior on their opponent’s ranking. However, the under-alternation of top players would be consistent with a best-response to beliefs that the population of opponents over-alternates on average. Finally, the degree of observed serial dependence is not systematically related to other match variables proxying for match difficulty, fatigue, and psychological pressure.
Choosing victims: Human fungibility in moral decision-making
Authors: Białek Michał , Fugelsang Jonathan , Friedman Ori
Published: January 2023

In considering moral dilemmas, people often judge the acceptability of exchanging individuals’ interests, rights, and even lives. Here we investigate the related, but often overlooked, question of how people decide who to sacrifice in a moral dilemma. In three experiments (total N = 558), we provide evidence that these decisions often depend on the feeling that certain people are fungible and interchangeable with one another, and that one factor that leads people to be viewed this way is shared nationality. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants read vignettes in which three individuals’ lives could be saved by sacrificing another person. When the individuals were characterized by their nationalities, participants chose to save the three endangered people by sacrificing someone who shared their nationality, rather than sacrificing someone from a different nationality. Participants do not show similar preferences, though, when individuals were characterized by their age or month of birth. In Experiment 3, we replicated the effect of nationality on participant’s decisions about who to sacrifice, and also found that they did not show a comparable preference in a closely matched vignette in which lives were not exchanged. This suggests that the effect of nationality on decisions of who to sacrifice may be specific to judgments about exchanges of lives.