bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Does intuitive mindset influence belief in God? A registered replication of
Authors: Saribay S. Adil , Yilmaz Onurcan , Körpe Gülay Gözde
Published: January 2023

In 2012, two independent groups simultaneously demonstrated that intuitive mindset enhances belief in God. However, there is now some mixed evidence on both the effectiveness of manipulations used in these studies and the effect of mindset manipulation on belief in God. Thus, this proposal attempted to replicate one of those experiments (Shenhav, Rand & Greene, 2012) for the first time in a high-powered experiment using an under-represented population (Turkey). In line with the intuitive belief hypothesis, a negative correlation between reflectiveness and religious belief emerged, at least in one of the experimental conditions. In contrast to that hypothesis, however, the results revealed no effect of the cognitive style manipulation on religious belief. Although a self-report measure (Faith in Intuition) provided evidence that the manipulation worked as intended, it did not influence actual performance (Cognitive Reflection Test), suggesting a demand effect problem. Overall, the results failed to provide support for the intuitive belief hypothesis in our non-WEIRD sample, despite generally following the predicted patterns, and suggest that using stronger manipulation techniques are warranted in future studies.
Interpreting politically-charged numerical information: The influence of numeracy and problem difficulty on response accuracy
Authors: Baker S. Glenn , Patel Niraj , Gunten Curtis Von , Valentine K. D. , Scherer Laura D.
Published: January 2023

People who possess greater mathematical skills (i.e., numeracy) are generally more accurate in interpreting numerical data than less numerate people. However, recent evidence has suggested that more numerate people may use their numerical skills to interpret data only if their initial interpretation conflicts with their worldview. That is, if an initial, intuitive (but incorrect) interpretation of data appears to disconfirm one’s beliefs, then numerical skills are used to further process the data and reach the correct interpretation, whereas numerical skills are not used in situations where an initial incorrect interpretation of the data appears to confirm one’s beliefs (i.e., motivated numeracy). In the present study, participants were presented with several data problems, some with correct answers confirming their political views and other disconfirming their views. The difficulty of these problems was manipulated to examine how numeracy would influence the rate of correct responses on easier vs. more difficult problems. Results indicated that participants were more likely to answer problems correctly if the correct answer confirmed rather than disconfirmed their political views, and this response pattern did not depend on problem difficulty or numerical skill. Although more numerate participants were more accurate overall, this was true both for problems in which the correct answer confirmed and disconfirmed participants’ political views.
Training choices toward low value options
Authors: Zoltak Michael J. , Holland Rob W. , Kukken Niels , Veling Harm
Published: January 2023

Food decisions are driven by differences in value of choice alternatives such that high value items are preferred over low value items. However, recent research has demonstrated that by implementing the Cue-Approach Training (CAT) the odds of choosing low value items over high value items can be increased. This effect was explained by increased attention to the low value items induced by CAT. Our goal was to replicate the original findings and to address the question of the underlying mechanism by employing eye-tracking during participants’ choice making. During CAT participants were presented with images of food items and were instructed to quickly respond to some of them when an auditory cue was presented (cued items), and not without this cue (uncued items). Next, participants made choices between two food items that differed on whether they were cued during CAT (cued versus uncued) and in pre-training value (high versus low). As predicted, results showed participants were more likely to select a low value food item over a high value food item for consumption when the low value food item had been cued compared to when the low value item had not been cued. Important, and against our hypothesis, there was no significant increase in gaze time for low value cued items compared to low value uncued items. Participants did spend more time fixating on the chosen item compared to the unchosen alternative, thus replicating previous work in this domain. The present research thus establishes the robustness of CAT as means of facilitating choices for low value over high value food but could not demonstrate that this increased preference was due to increased attention for cued low value items. The present research thus raises the question how CAT may increase choices for low value options.
Biased perceptions about momentum: Do comeback teams have higher chances to win in basketball overtimes?
Authors: Morgulev Elia , Voslinsky Alisa , Azar Ofer H. , Bar-Eli Michael
Published: January 2023

Momentum is often cited in the media and in other sources as an important factor in performance over time in business, politics, sports and other areas. Yet, academic research on whether momentum actually exists is mixed. This study aims to assess momentum perceptions in a context in which momentum could be relevant, but where empirical data have shown that no momentum exists. In particular, we take the scenario of a basketball game that is tied at the end of regulation time. We designed questionnaires where one of the teams closed a moderate or a large score gap during the last few minutes of the fourth quarter (and in a control treatment, the score was balanced during these minutes). In the first study, 107 fans and 73 practitioners answered these questionnaires. Then, in the second study, 250 additional respondents completed questionnaires containing the same game scenarios but with additional “opposite-framing” versions and a set of questions regarding the reasons for momentum-based beliefs. The respondents also answered several questions about their level of knowledge and interest in basketball, which allowed us to categorize them to fans and laymen. The responses revealed that coming back into the game by reducing a significant score gap during the final minutes of regular time was perceived to increase the teams’ chances to win in overtime (which can be interpreted as a positive momentum). Fans exhibit stronger momentum beliefs compared to laymen. Overall, respondents’ perceptions contradict the existing empirical evidence that shows that the comeback team does not have higher chances to win the game in overtime. We discuss possible reasons for the discrepancy between the perceptions we observed and the empirical data.
Why do we overestimate others’ willingness to pay?
Authors: Matthews William J. , Gheorghiu Ana I. , Callan Mitchell J.
Published: January 2023

People typically overestimate how much others are prepared to pay for consumer goods and services. We investigated the extent to which latent beliefs about others’ affluence contribute to this overestimation. In Studies 1, 2a, and 2b we found that participants, on average, judge the other people taking part in the study to “have more money” and “have more disposable income” than themselves. The extent of these beliefs positively correlated with the overestimation of willingness to pay (WTP). Study 3 shows that the link between income-beliefs and WTP is causal, and Studies 4, 5a, and 5b show that it holds in a between-group design with a real financial transaction and is unaffected by accuracy incentives. Study 6 examines estimates of others’ income in more detail and, in conjunction with the earlier studies, indicates that participants’ reported beliefs about others’ affluence depend upon the framing of the question. Together, the data indicate that individual differences in the overestimation effect are partly due to differing affluence-beliefs, and that an overall affluence-estimation bias may contribute to the net tendency to overestimate other people’s willingness to pay.
Investigating an alternate form of the cognitive reflection test
Authors: Thomson Keela S. , Oppenheimer Daniel M.
Published: January 2023

Much research in cognitive psychology has focused on the tendency to conserve limited cognitive resources. The CRT is the predominant measure of such miserly information processing, and also predicts a number of frequently studied decision-making traits (such as belief bias and need for cognition). However, many subjects from common subject populations have already been exposed to the questions, which might add considerable noise to data. Moreover, the CRT has been shown to be confounded with numeracy. To increase the pool of available questions and to try to address numeracy confounds, we developed and tested the CRT-2. CRT-2 questions appear to rely less on numeracy than the original CRT but appear to measure closely related constructs in other respects. Crucially, substantially fewer subjects from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk have been previously exposed to CRT-2 questions. Though our primary purpose was investigating the CRT-2, we also found that belief bias questions appear suitable as an additional source of new items. Implications and remaining measurement challenges are discussed.
Bullshit for you; transcendence for me. A commentary on “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit”
Authors: Dalton Craig
Published: January 2023

I raise a methodological concern regarding the study performed by Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler & Fugelsang (2015), in which they used randomly generated, but syntactically correct, statements that were rated for profundity by subjects unaware of the source of the statements. The assessment of each statement’s profundity was not based on its impact on the subject but was already predetermined to be “bullshit” based on its random generation by a computer. The statements could nonetheless have been subjectively profound and could have provided glimpses of insight and wisdom to the subjects.
Numbers do not add up! The pragmatic approach to the framing of medical treatments
Authors: Macchi Laura , Zulato Edoardo
Published: January 2023

The risky choice framing effect disclosed that presenting data in a loss scenario lead decision-makers towards risky choices. Conversely, a gain scenario prevents them from taking a risk. Framing effect robustness has been widely confirmed by psychological literature. However, the framing of medical treatments, based on McNeil et al. (1982) paradigm, raised both methodological doubts and contrasting evidence. Our research aimed to investigate the presence and the nature of the framing effect in the McNeil et al. (1982) paradigm. In particular, we thought that the obtained switch of preferences across frames was due to a misleading formulation of the data given in a negative cumulative frequency format. We conducted three studies: (1) we replicated McNeil et al.’s (1982) original study (N=150) with medicine (n=50), statistics (n=50) and lay (n=50) students; (2) we tested (N=180) our hypothesis by comparing a cumulative frequency format with an alternative version, namely a linear progression one; (3) we compared (N=430) the effect of different formats (cumulative frequency, linear progression and interval frequency) on choices. Our results showed that, while the framing effect is present when employing a cumulative frequency format, it disappears when using a linear progression one. Moreover, our results show that decision-makers better understand information when given in a linear progression and an interval frequency format. In the current paper, we argue that the way in which a problem is formulated plays a relevant role in the representation of the decisional task and the decision-making.
Comparing mixed intertemporal tradeoffs with pure gains or pure losses
Authors: Ma Jia-Tao , Wang Lei , Chen Li-Na , He Quan , Sun Qing-Zhou , Sun Hong-Yue , Jiang Cheng-Ming
Published: January 2023

Intertemporal choices involve tradeoffs between outcomes that occur at different times. Most of the research has used pure gains tasks and the discount rates yielding from those tasks to explain and predict real-world behaviors and consequences. However, real decisions are often more complex and involve mixed outcomes (e.g., sooner-gain and later-loss or sooner-loss and later-gain). No study has used mixed gain-loss intertemporal tradeoff tasks to explain and predict real-world behaviors and consequences, and studies involving such tasks are also scarce. Considering that tasks involving a combination of gains and losses may yield different discount rates and that existing pure gains tasks do not explain or predict real-world outcomes well, this study conducted two experiments to compare the discount rates of mixed gain-loss intertemporal tradeoffs with those of pure gains or pure losses (Experiment 1) and to examine whether these tasks predicted different real-world behaviors and consequences (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 suggests that the discount rate ordering of the four tasks was, from highest to lowest, pure gains, sooner-loss and later-gain, pure losses, and sooner-gain and later-loss. Experiment 2 indicates that the evidence supporting the claim that the discount rates of the four tasks were related to different real-world behaviors and consequences was insufficient.
Influence of divided attention on the attraction effect in multialternative choice
Authors: Tsuzuki Takashi , Takeda Yuji , Chiba Itsuki
Published: January 2023

The attraction effect in multialternative decision making reflects the context-dependent violation of rational choice axioms. This study examined the effect of concurrent divided attention in three-alternative visual choice tasks. The concurrent divided attention task is considered to consume the mental resources available for the choice task. There were three conditions: (a) the task-relevant condition, in which the auditory task should consume resources across multiple levels; (b) the task-irrelevant condition, in which the auditory stimuli should consume perceptual resources; (c) and the control condition, in which the resources should not be consumed by auditory stimuli. Thirty-three participants solved 24 hypothetical purchase problems with three alternatives that differed in terms of two attributes. The results indicated that the choice proportion of the target was significantly higher in the task-relevant condition than in the task-irrelevant and control conditions, thereby suggesting that a reduction in cognitive (and/or response) resources is critical for the attraction effect.
A reflection on cognitive reflection – testing convergent/divergent validity of two measures of cognitive reflection
Authors: Erceg Nikola , Galić Zvonimir , Ružojčić Mitja
Published: January 2023

The aim of the study was to test convergent/discriminant validity of two measures of cognitive reflection, cognitive reflection test (CRT) and belief bias syllogisms (BBS) and to investigate whether their distinctive characteristic of luring participants into giving wrong intuitive responses explains their relationships with various abilities and disposition measures. Our results show that the same traits largely account for performance on both non-lure task, the Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT), and CRT and explain their correlations with other variables. These results also imply that the predictive validity of CRT for wide range of outcomes does not stem from lures. Regarding the BBS, we found that its correlations with other measures were substantially diminished once we accounted for the effects of BNT. This also implies that the lures are not the reason for the correlation between BBS and these measure. We conclude that the lures are not the reason why cognitive reflection tasks correlate with different outcomes. Our results call into question an original definition of CRT as a measure of ability or disposition to resist reporting first response that comes to mind, as well as the validity of results of studies showing “incremental validity” of CRT over numeracy.
Impact of superstitious beliefs on the timing of marriage and childbirth: Evidence from Denmark
Authors: Antipov Evgeny A. , Pokryshevskaya Elena B.
Published: January 2023

We study the influence of numerological superstitions on family-related choices made by people in Denmark. Using daily data on marriages and births in Denmark in 2007-2019 we test hypotheses associated with positive perception of numbers 7 and 9 and a negative perception of number 13, as well as the impact of February, 29, April 1, St. Valentine’s Day and Halloween. There is significant negative effect of the 13thon the popularity of both wedding and birth dates. However, some other effects associated with special dates and the cultural representations of unofficial holidays have a stronger effect. In addition, after controlling for many factors, February 29 and April 1 turn out to be desirable for weddings, but not for childbirth, implying the context dependence of cultural stereotypes. Evidence of birth scheduling for non-medical reasons is especially worrisome because of the associated adverse health outcomes associated with elective caesarian sections and inductions.
Does pregnancy make women more cautious and calm? The impact of pregnancy on risk decision-making
Authors: Chen Jing , Guo Yinghan , Liao Zongqing , Xia Weihai , She Shengxiang
Published: January 2023

During pregnancy, a variety of psychological and physical changes occur in women, which may have different impacts on risk decision-making involving different processes systems. Based on the dual-process theories of decision-making, using the Columbia Card Task (CCT) as the experimental paradigm, which can trigger deliberative versus affective decision-makings respectively, this study recruited 240 pregnant women and non-pregnant women aged 20-40 as the experimental group and control group respectively, investigated how pregnancy impacted on women’s risk decision-making, as well as the possible roles played by a series of psychological factors (impulsivity; sensation seeking; emotional state) and physiological factors (gestational age; human Chorionic Gonadotropin, hCG; progesterone) in the above process. The results were as follows: (a) Compared with non-pregnant women, pregnant women tended to choose fewer cards, indicating a higher risk aversion consistent with a more conservative strategy, both in cold and hot CCTs; in both cold and hot CCTs, compared with pregnant women in the second trimester of pregnancy, pregnant women in the first and the third trimesters of pregnancy had a higher risk aversion tendency. (b) Pregnant women had lower levels of all dimensions of sensation seeking than did non-pregnant women, pregnant women in the third trimester of pregnancy had lower levels of Disinhibition (DIS) and Boredom Susceptibility (BS) of sensation seeking than pregnant women in the first and the second trimesters of pregnancy, but there was no significant difference in levels of emotional state or impulsivity between pregnant woman and non-pregnant women. (c) DIS of sensation seeking played a fully mediating role in the impact of pregnancy on hot CCT performance. (d) Both hCG and progesterone levels were negatively correlated with pregnant women’s hot CCT performances. (e) Positive emotion played a partial mediating role in the effect of progesterone on hot CCT performance of pregnant women.
The individual true and error model: Getting the most out of limited data
Authors: Schramm Pele
Published: January 2023

True and Error Theory (TET) is a modern latent variable modeling approach for analyzing sets of preferences held by people. Individual True and Error Theory (iTET) allows researchers to estimate the proportion of the time an individual truly holds a particular underlying set of preferences without assuming complete response independence in a repeated measures experimental design. iTET is thus suitable for investigating research questions such as whether an individual ever is truly intransitive in their preferences (i.e., they prefer a to b, b to c, and c to a). While current iTET analysis methods provide the means of investigating such questions they require a lot of data to achieve satisfactory power for hypothesis tests of interest. This paper overviews the performance and shortcomings of the current analysis methods in efficiently using data, while providing new analysis methods that offer substantial gains in power and efficiency.
Number preferences in selected Nigerian lottery games
Authors: Otekunrin Oluwaseun A. , Folorunso Adesola G. , Alawode Kehinde O.
Published: January 2023

In this paper, we examined two pairs of datasets from selected Nigerian lottery games to determine players’ number preferences. Data explorations were conducted in the first pair of datasets to identify patterns in players’ choices of lottery numbers. The question whether players preferred number combinations that are well-spread out regardless of their true theoretical probabilities was examined in the second pair. In the first pair of datasets, we find that most players have a preference for small numbers especially 1 and 9. They also prefer numbers with repeated digits and tend to avoid multiples of 7 and numbers containing 7 (except 7 and 77). The most popular numbers are 90 and 1. In the second pair of the datasets, more than 50% of the players preferred selecting well-spread out number combinations than expected by chance.
Does pain make people short-sighted? The impacts of physical and psychological pains on intertemporal choice
Authors: Chen Jing , He Zhican , Sun Yue , Xia Weihai , Liao Zongqing , Yuan Jiaqi
Published: January 2023

We conducted three experiments to investigate the effects of physical and psychological pains on intertemporal choices. In Experiments 1 and 2, physical pain was induced by the self-created Shiatsu sheet treading method (SSTM) and the classical cold pressor task (CPT), respectively. In Experiment 3, psychological pain was induced by the video induction method. All types of pain increased preference for smaller immediate rewards. Theoretical implications and practical implications are discussed.
Carryover of domain-dependent risk preferences in a novel decision-making task
Authors: Shapiro Martin S. , Price Paul C. , Mitchell Edward
Published: January 2023

We investigated whether people’s risk taking tendency established in one domain (gains or losses) carries over to the other domain. Participants played a game in which they made repeated decisions between a fixed payoff and a risky option, where the outcome of the risky option depended on whether they had responded correctly on a difficult perceptual-memory task. In some trials, participants played to gain points; on others, they played to avoid losing points. In two studies, we observed the following pattern of results. 1) Participants risked less on gain trials than on loss trials. 2) This difference in risk taking persisted (carried over) when the domain changed from gains to losses and vice versa (with the effect of experiencing losses first being stronger than the effect of experiencing gains first). 3) There was no analogous carryover effect on responses to a delay discounting measure, but there was a carryover effect on responses on a risk attitude measure. We compare these results with those from other recent studies and discuss various ways of explaining them.
The effects of tool comparisons when estimating the likelihood of task success
Authors: Li Shuqi , Miller Jane E. , O’Rourke Stuart Jillian , Jules Sean J. , Scherer Aaron M. , Smith Andrew R. , Windschitl Paul D.
Published: January 2023

People often use tools for tasks, and sometimes there is uncertainty about whether a given task can be completed with a given tool. This project explored whether, when, and how people’s optimism about successfully completing a task with a given tool is affected by the contextual salience of a better or worse tool. In six studies, participants were faced with novel tasks. For each task, they were assigned a tool but also exposed to a comparison tool that was better or worse in utility (or sometimes similar in utility). In some studies, the tool comparisons were essentially social comparisons, because the tool was assigned to another person. In other studies, the tool comparisons were merely counterfactual rather than social. The studies revealed contrast effects on optimism, and the effect worked in both directions. That is, worse comparison tools boosted optimism and better tools depressed optimism. The contrast effects were observed regardless of the general type of comparison (e.g., social, counterfactual). The comparisons also influenced discrete decisions about which task to attempt (for a prize), which is an important finding for ruling out superficial scaling explanations for the contrast effects. It appears that people fail to exclude irrelevant tool-comparison information from consideration when assessing their likelihood of success on a task, resulting in biased optimism and decisions.
Multiattribute judgment: Acceptance of a new COVID-19 vaccine as a function of price, risk, and effectiveness
Authors: Birnbaum Michael H.
Published: January 2023

This paper illustrates how to apply the RECIPE design to evaluate multiattribute judgment, reporting an experiment in which participants judged intentions to receive a new vaccine against COVID-19. The attributes varied were Price of the vaccine, Risks of side effects as reported in trials, and Effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing COVID. The RECIPE design is a union of factorial designs in which each of three attributes is presented alone, in pairs with each of the other attributes, and in a complete factorial with all other information. Consistent with previous research with analogous judgment tasks, the additive and relative weight averaging models with constant weights could be rejected in favor of a configural weight averaging model in which the lowest-valued attribute receives additional weight. That is, people are unlikely to accept vaccination if Price is too high, Risk is too high, or Effectiveness is too low. The attribute with the greatest weight was Effectiveness, followed by Risk of side-effects, and Price carried the least weight.
Consumers’ ability to identify a surplus when returns to attributes are nonlinear
Authors: Lunn Peter D. , Somerville Jason
Published: January 2023

Previous research in multiple judgment domains has found that nonlinear functions are typically processed less accurately than linear ones. This empirical regularity has potential implications for consumer choice, given that nonlinear functions (e.g., diminishing returns) are commonplace. In two experimental studies we measured precision and bias in consumers’ ability to identify surpluses when returns to product attributes were nonlinear. We hypothesized that nonlinear functions would reduce precision and induce bias toward linearization of nonlinear relationships. Neither hypothesis was supported for monotonic nonlinearities. However, precision was greatly reduced for products with nonmonotonic attributes. Moreover, assessments of surplus were systematically and strongly biased, regardless of the shape of returns and despite feedback and incentives. The findings imply that consumers use a flexible but coarse mechanism to compare attributes against prices, with implications for the prevalence of costly mistakes.
Judging fast and slow: The truth effect does not increase under time-pressure conditions
Authors: Nadarevic Lena , Schnuerch Martin , Stegemann Marlena J.
Published: January 2023

Due to the information overload in today’s digital age, people may sometimes feel pressured to process and judge information especially fast. In three experiments, we examined whether time pressure increases the repetition-based truth effect — the tendency to judge repeatedly encountered statements more likely as “true” than novel statements. Based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model, a dual-process model in the field of persuasion research, we expected that time pressure would boost the truth effect by increasing reliance on processing fluency as a presumably heuristic cue for truth, and by decreasing knowledge retrieval as a presumably slow and systematic process that determines truth judgments. However, contrary to our expectation, time pressure did not moderate the truth effect. Importantly, this was the case for difficult statements, for which most people lack prior knowledge, as well as for easy statements, for which most people hold relevant knowledge. Overall, the findings clearly speak against the conception of fast, fluency-based truth judgments versus slow, knowledge-based truth judgments. In contrast, the results are compatible with a referential theory of the truth effect that does not distinguish between different types of truth judgments. Instead, it assumes that truth judgments rely on the coherence of localized networks in people’s semantic memory, formed by both repetition and prior knowledge.
Norm shifts under the strategy method
Authors: Columbus Simon , Böhm Robert
Published: January 2023

The strategy method is a powerful method for eliciting conditional cooperation in strategic interactions. Theoretically, players’ cooperation conditional on a specific level of others’ cooperation using the strategy method should be equal to their unconditional cooperation given an equivalent belief about others’ cooperation. However, using the Prisoner’s Dilemma, we show that decisions using the strategy method are more selfish than decisions under a simultaneous decision protocol predicted from players’ beliefs. This is driven entirely by lower cooperation among conditional cooperators with low expectations about others’ cooperation. We further show that relative to simultaneous choice, the strategy method shifts salient norms from an egalitarian fairness norm (‘give half’) to a reciprocity norm (‘match others’ behaviour’). This undermines cooperation among players with low beliefs about others’ cooperation. These results thus show that the strategy method does not merely hold beliefs constant, but also shifts which salient norms influence choice behaviour. This has important implications for the use of the strategy method in eliciting social preferences.
Agency and self-other asymmetries in perceived bias and shortcomings: Replications of the Bias Blind Spot and link to free will beliefs
Authors: Chandrashekar Subramanya Prasad , Yeung Siu Kit , Yau Ka Chai , Cheung Chung Yee , Agarwal Tanay Kulbhushan , Wong Cho Yan Joan , Pillai Tanishka , Thirlwell Thea Natasha , Leung Wing Nam , Tse Colman , Li Yan Tung , Cheng Bo Ley , Chan Hill Yan Cedar , Feldman Gilad
Published: January 2023

Bias Blind Spot (BBS) is the phenomenon that people tend to perceive themselves as less susceptible to biases than others. In three pre-registered experiments (overall N = 969), we replicated two experiments of the first demonstration of the phenomenon by Pronin et al. (2002). We found support of the BBS hypotheses, with effects in line with findings in the original study: Participants rated themselves as less susceptible to biases than others (d= –1.00 [–1.33, –0.67]). Deviating from the original, we found an unexpected effect that participants rated themselves as having fewer shortcomings (d= –0.34 [–0.46, –0.23]), though there was support for the target’s main premise that BBS was stronger for biases than for shortcomings (d= –0.43 [–0.56, –0.29]). Extending the replications, we found that beliefs in own free will were positively associated with BBS (r ∼ 0.17–0.22) and that beliefs in both own and general free will were positively associated with self-other asymmetry related to personal shortcomings (r∼ 0.16–0.24). Materials, datasets, and code are available on https://osf.io/3df5s/.
Webcam-based online eye-tracking for behavioral research
Authors: Yang Xiaozhi , Krajbich Ian
Published: January 2023

Experiments are increasingly moving online. This poses a major challenge for researchers who rely on in-lab techniques such as eye-tracking. Researchers in computer science have developed web-based eye-tracking applications (WebGazer; Papoutsaki et al., 2016) but they have yet to see them used in behavioral research. This is likely due to the extensive calibration and validation procedure, inconsistent temporal resolution (Semmelmann & Weigelt, 2018), and the challenge of integrating it into experimental software. Here, we incorporate WebGazer into a JavaScript library widely used by behavioral researchers (jsPsych) and adjust the procedure and code to reduce calibration/validation and improve the temporal resolution (from 100–1000 ms to 20–30 ms). We test this procedure with a decision-making study on Amazon MTurk, replicating previous in-lab findings on the relationship between gaze and choice, with little degradation in spatial or temporal resolution. This provides evidence that online web-based eye-tracking is feasible in behavioral research.
How far is the suffering? The role of psychological distance and victims’ identifiability in donation decisions
Authors: Kogut Tehila , Ritov Ilana , Rubaltelli Enrico , Liberman Nira
Published: January 2023

We are regularly told about people at various locations around the globe, both near and far, who are in distress or in dire need. In the present research, we examined how the prospective donor’s psychological distance from a given victim may interact with the victim’s identification to determine the donor’s willingness to accede to requests for donations to help the victim in question. In three studies, we measured willingness to donate (Studies 1 & 2) and actual donations (Study 3) to identified or unidentified victims, while measuring (Study 1) or manipulating (Studies 2 & 3) the psychological distance between prospective donors and the recipients. Results indicate that increasing the psychological distance between prospective donors and victims decreases willingness to help — but only when the victims are unidentified, not when they are identified. This suggests that victim’s identification mitigates the effect of distance on donor’s willingness to help.
Cross-national in-group favoritism in prosocial behavior: Evidence from Latin and North America
Authors: Fiedler Susann , Hellmann Dshamilja Marie , Dorrough Angela Rachael , Glöckner Andreas
Published: January 2023

As individuals from different nations increasingly interact with each other, research on national in-group favoritism becomes particularly vital. In a cross-national, large-scale study (N = 915) including representative samples from four Latin American nations (Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela) and the USA, we explore differences regarding nationality-based in-group favoritism. In-group favoritism is assessed through differences in prosocial behavior toward persons from the own nation as compared to persons from other nations in fully incentivized one-shot dictator games. We find strong evidence for national in-group favoritism for the overall sample, but also significant differences among national subsamples. Latin Americans show more national in-group favoritism compared to US Americans (interacting with Latin Americans). While US Americans mainly follow an equal split norm (for both in- and out-group interactions), Latin Americans do so only in in-group interactions. The magnitude of in-group favoritism increases with social distance toward the out-group.
Preference for playing order in games with and without replacement:
Motivational biases and probability misestimations
Authors: Suk Kwanho , Koo Jieun
Published: January 2023

This research explores the preference for playing order in games in
which each of several players draws a random event (e.g., a ball from an
urn), with and without replacement after each draw. Three studies show that
people tend to prefer to draw early regardless of whether the game is with
or without replacement, although the expected probability of winning is the
same irrespective of the draw order. The reasons for preferring earlier
draws differ depending on the game type. For games without replacement, the
biased preference for earlier draws is related to multiple motivational
factors such as aversion to uncertainty, ambiguity, and uncontrollability.
Game valence also affects draw order preference through the misestimation of
winning probabilities: people tend to prefer earlier draws in a
gain-dominant game (i.e., a higher probability of winning) but prefer later
draws in a loss-dominant game (i.e., a higher probability of losing). For
games with replacement, preference for earlier draws is mainly explained by
uncertainty aversion, with little bias in probability estimations.
Violations of economic rationality due to irrelevant information during
learning in decision from experience
Authors: Spektor Mikhail S. , Seidler Hannah
Published: January 2023

According to normative decision-making theories, the composition of a
choice set should not affect people’s preferences regarding the different
options. This assumption contrasts with decades of research that have
identified multiple situations in which this principle is violated, leading
to context effects. Recently, research on context effects has been extended
to the domain of experience-based choices, where it has been shown that
forgone outcomes from irrelevant alternatives affect preferences — an
accentuation effect. More specifically, it has been shown that an option
presented in a situation in which its outcomes are salient across several
trials is evaluated more positively than in a context in which its outcomes
are less salient. In the present study, we investigated whether irrelevant
information affects preferences as much as relevant information. In two
experiments, individuals completed a learning task with partial feedback. We
found that past outcomes from non-chosen options, which contain no relevant
information at all, led to the same accentuation effect as did
counterfactual outcomes that provided new and relevant information. However,
if the information is entirely irrelevant (from options that could not have
been chosen), individuals ignored it, thus ruling out a purely perceptual
account of the accentuation effect. These results provide further support
for the influence of salience on learning and highlight the necessity of
mechanistic accounts in decision-making research.
Testing the ability of the surprisingly popular method to predict NFL games
Authors: Lee Michael D. , Danileiko Irina , Vi Julie
Published: January 2023

We consider the recently-developed “surprisingly popular” method for aggregating decisions across a group of people (Prelec, Seung and McCoy, 2017). The method has shown impressive performance in a range of decision-making situations, but typically for situations in which the correct answer is already established. We consider the ability of the surprisingly popular method to make predictions in a situation where the correct answer does not exist at the time people are asked to make decisions. Specifically, we tested its ability to predict the winners of the 256 US National Football League (NFL) games in the 2017–2018 season. Each of these predictions used participants who self-rated as “extremely knowledgeable” about the NFL, drawn from a set of 100 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). We compare the accuracy and calibration of the surprisingly popular method to a variety of alternatives: the mode and confidence-weighted predictions of the expert AMT participants, the individual and aggregated predictions of media experts, and a statistical Elo method based on the performance histories of the NFL teams. Our results are exploratory, and need replication, but we find that the surprisingly popular method outperforms all of these alternatives, and has reasonable calibration properties relating the confidence of its predictions to the accuracy of those predictions.
Scientific contagion heuristic: Judgments about the acceptability of water for religious use after potential scientific treatment
Authors: Mukherjee Sumitava , Mukherjee Payel C.
Published: January 2023

We propose the concept of ‘scientific contagion’ — a mental heuristic through which any form of scientific treatment transfers some essence of ‘science’ to the processed substance, thereby affecting its nature and social acceptability. This was tested regarding the potential treatment of water from natural sources before it is used for religious purposes, as many such sources have dangerous pollutants. For an ancient natural well having a religious narrative, most participants judged that the acceptability of water would be reduced for religious purposes but not for drinking if local officials scientifically treat the water. That is not the case if religious rituals are conducted on the water instead (Study 1). If water from a “holy river” is processed scientifically, most participants predicted that it would reduce acceptability for religious use while increasing acceptability for drinking (Study 2). Potential scientific treatment without altering the composition of water from a natural spring also decreased acceptability for religious use but there was no effect on acceptability for drinking or on willingness to pay money for the water (Study 3). A follow-up study comparing acceptability for different kinds of water sources — from a holy well, natural spring, and household tap water sourced from either underground wells or rivers found lower acceptability for religious usage compared to drinking after potential scientific treatment for all these waters, but more so for holy and natural waters (Study 4). These studies establish the phenomena of scientific contagion that could have significant social implications and open future directions.
Australia’s first case of glyphosate-resistant tall fleabane (Conyza sumatrensis) and alternative herbicide options for its control
Authors: Chauhan Bhagirath S.
Published: January 2023

Tall fleabane is emerging as a problematic weed species in the eastern cropping region of Australia. Recently, growers indicated poor control of tall fleabane to the field rate of glyphosate in fallow fields. Pot studies were conducted in an open field at the Gatton farm of the University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia, to confirm the level of glyphosate resistance in a putative glyphosate-resistant (GR) tall fleabane population and to evaluate the performance of alternative postemergence herbicides to control GR tall fleabane. Compared with a glyphosate-susceptible (GS) population, the level of resistance in the GR population was 4-fold and 3.5-fold greater based on plant survival and biomass, respectively. The target-site resistance mechanism was not present because both the GR and GS populations had the same gene sequence. There were several effective alternative herbicides for the control of small (4-leaf stage) plants of tall fleabane, but to control large (12- to 14-leaf stage) plants, the sole application of saflufenacil + trifludimoxazin or its mixtures with glyphosate, glufosinate, or paraquat were the best herbicide treatments. This is the first published report on the occurrence of GR tall fleabane in Australia. Growers need to use integrated management strategies to mitigate the further spread of GR tall fleabane in fallow fields as well as glyphosate-resistant crops.
Skalen zur Erfassung der selbstbestimmten Motivation von Grundschulkindern (SESMO)
Authors: Lohbeck Annette
Published: January 2023

Zusammenfassung. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war es, die Messqualität und valide Interpretierbarkeit der Testwerte der Skalen zur Erfassung der selbstbestimmten Motivation von Grundschulkindern (SESMO) zu überprüfen, die fünf motivationale Regulationstypen nach der Selbstbestimmungstheorie erfassen können (intrinsisch, identifiziert, introjiziert, extrinsisch, amotiviert). Es handelt sich um ein Selbstbeurteilungsverfahren, das erstmalig in dieser Studie an einer Stichprobe von N = 679 Grundschulkindern der 3. und 4. Jahrgangsstufe in den Fächern Mathematik und Deutsch untersucht werden sollte. Zur Überprüfung der Faktorenstruktur wurden verschiedene konfirmatorische Faktorenmodelle (CFA) mit einem exploratorischen Strukturgleichungsmodell (ESEM) und zwei Bi-Faktorenmodellen (B-CFA und B-ESEM) verglichen und die Messinvarianz über das Geschlecht und die Jahrgangsstufen hinweg analysiert. Die kriterienbezogene Interpretierbarkeit der Testwerte wurde zudem anhand der Zusammenhänge mit diversen Außenkriterien (selbstberichtete Noten, Selbstkonzept, Konzentration, Schülerinnen- und Schüler-Lehrkraft-Beziehung, Freude und Angst im Unterricht) überprüft. Die Ergebnisse der CFA wiesen auf die Angemessenheit einer 5-Faktorenstruktur in beiden Fächern hin. Das B-ESEM-Modell zeigte jedoch im Vergleich zu allen anderen Modellen die beste Anpassung an die Daten. Die Messinvarianz konnte sowohl über das Geschlecht als auch über die Jahrgangsstufen hinweg hinreichend nachgewiesen werden. Die beiden selbstbestimmten Motivationstypen (intrinsisch und identifiziert) hingen mit günstigeren Außenkriterien zusammen als die beiden fremdbestimmten Motivationstypen (introjiziert und extrinsisch) oder die Amotivation.
Non-invasive photoacoustic computed tomography of rat heart anatomy and function
Authors: Lin Li , Tong Xin , Cavallero Susana , Zhang Yide , Na Shuai , Cao Rui , Hsiai Tzung K. , Wang Lihong V.
Published: January 2023

Complementary to mainstream cardiac imaging modalities for preclinical research, photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) can provide functional optical contrast with high imaging speed and resolution. However, PACT has not been demonstrated to reveal the dynamics of whole cardiac anatomy or vascular system without surgical procedure (thoracotomy) for tissue penetration. Here, we achieved non-invasive imaging of rat hearts using the recently developed three-dimensional PACT (3D-PACT) platform, demonstrating the regulated illumination and detection schemes to reduce the effects of optical attenuation and acoustic distortion through the chest wall; thereby, enabling unimpeded visualization of the cardiac anatomy and intracardiac hemodynamics following rapidly scanning the heart within 10 s. We further applied 3D-PACT to reveal distinct cardiac structural and functional changes among the healthy, hypertensive, and obese rats, with optical contrast to uncover differences in cardiac chamber size, wall thickness, and hemodynamics. Accordingly, 3D-PACT provides high imaging speed and nonionizing penetration to capture the whole heart for diagnosing the animal models, holding promises for clinical translation to cardiac imaging of human neonates.
All-perovskite tandems go bifacial
Authors: Mahesh Suhas , Chen Bin , Sargent Edward H.
Published: January 2023

All-perovskite tandem cells are attractive candidates for next-generation photovoltaic technology as they hold the potential to combine high-efficiency with low weight and reduced energy-payback times. Now, researchers show that such tandem cells can be engineering to be bifacial, allowing them to utilize stray light reflected off the surrounding environment, resulting in a 17% boost in the power output.