Journal of Behavioral Decision Making最新文献

The present research investigates how changes in the extent to which decision-makers rely on concrete or abstract thinking (i.e., construal level) influence responses to ethical scenarios as well as the relationship between those responses and actual, recalled, unethical behavior. Using 18 different scenarios, across three studies, simultaneous changes in construal level are employed to reveal the importance of social distance—whether the decision-maker is described as the self or a hypothetical stranger—as a moderator of the effects of other changes in construal level. Study 1 also investigates a potential alternative mechanism, and Study 2 provides evidence for the mediating role of thoughts that are associated with changes in considerations related to the means and activities required to behave unethically and the benefits of behaving unethically. In the final study, self-reported prior bad behavior is compared to predictions about the same behaviors in order to investigate the role of construal level and social distance on the correlations between predicted and recalled unethical behavior. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the present research.

A product's printed quantity information (e.g., 12 oz) is thought to provide meaningful information for product evaluations. However, previous research suggests that consumers often do not weigh this information. It remains unclear whether some people, in fact, do weigh the information and what factors (e.g., package design) might increase or decrease such a consideration. In one lab experiment and one eye-tracking experiment, we examined the influence of individual differences in objective numeric abilities on the perception and use of quantity information. In both experiments, participants indicated willingness-to-pay judgments for consumer goods (e.g., chocolate and cereals) that varied in their quantity (e.g., 100 vs. 200 g). In each case, we observed an interaction between objective numeracy and quantity on willingness-to-pay judgments. More numerate individuals were more likely to look at quantity information and to use this information in their willingness-to-pay judgments, whereas people with lower numeracy often did not differentiate between quantities. Variations in package design did not change this effect, but the presence of additional quantity indicators increased the use of the original quantity information for people who were more and less numerate. Implications for consumer protection are discussed.

This paper examines approaches for influencing people's confidence in their knowledge without influencing knowledge. Three studies examined the relative effectiveness of training and false feedback approaches. Participants chose which of two IKEA products they thought was more expensive and indicated their confidence in that judgment for 50 product pairs. In Study 1, participants took part in one of five conditions designed to manipulate their confidence: false feedback-increasing, false feedback-decreasing, training-increasing, training-decreasing, or control. For false feedback, we told participants they did very well or poorly on the task. For training-increasing, we gave participants information about IKEA pricing that appeared useful but was difficult to implement. For training-decreasing, we developed an automated calibration training technique that provided personalized calibration feedback consisting of a calibration diagram accompanied by textual summary information and advice. Neither the false feedback nor training approach increased confidence on 50 subsequent knowledge-confidence judgments. However, both manipulations designed to reduce confidence were successful, with a substantially larger effect in the calibration training condition. In Study 2, we adapted the calibration training approach to provide false feedback indicating participants were either underconfident or overconfident. Both the original calibration training pproach and the new false feedback approach indicating overconfidence reduced confidence, and the false feedback approach indicating underconfidence increased confidence. Study 3 tested the effectiveness of this new false feedback approach on an on-line rather than student sample, finding essentially the same results as those in Study 2. Throughout the three studies, the effects of the manipulations extended to overconfidence, overall calibration, and the Brier score. The results provide a potential tool for research and practice regarding confidence in knowledge.

We identify a novel moral licensing mechanism: a spillover effect whereby seemingly altruistic acts increase subsequent self-serving dishonesty. Study 1 established this spillover effect, showing that initial altruistic cheating sustains later egoistic cheating at a higher level compared to when both acts are self-serving. Study 2 demonstrated that this effect is unidirectional. While the effect of altruistic cheating was replicated, initial egoistic cheating did not reduce later altruistic cheating. Study 3 found initial support for a moral credentials account over desensitization as the underlying mechanism. Study 4 confirmed this by showing that retroactively removing the altruistic justification eliminated the effect. The asymmetry of the spillover effect uncovers a more troubling aspect of moral licensing that undermines ethical boundaries and sustains dishonesty rather than simply enabling moral balance. Our findings expand current models of moral licensing by introducing a justification-based process that perpetuates unethical behavior. This helps explain how well-intentioned misconduct can escalate in individual and organizational contexts.

Cooperation and trust are critical parts of many relationships. However, such relationships are often studied in siloed ways, leading to incomplete explanations of behavior (e.g., from the point of view of a buyer or a seller, but not necessarily both). This paper makes three contributions to broadening this perspective. First, the authors develop a model incorporating individual differences (genetics), environmental (interpersonal touch), and psychological (empathy and trust) elements to shed light on when and how cooperation is influenced in dyadic relationships. Empathy was predicted to be elicited by the interaction of human touch and the COMT gene to induce, in turn, felt trust and cooperative behaviors. Second, the centipede game is used as a behaviorally relevant context to study how and under what conditions players cooperate while competing with each other. The results of a conditional serial mediation demonstrate that cooperative responses are guided by the interaction of touch and the COMT gene, where empathy and trust are mediators. Actual actions of players are recorded and real behaviors explained. In an additional registered experiment, the mediator, empathy, was manipulated to show that it had a positive effect on trust.

It is increasingly recognized that new information is filtered through the lens of prior experience. Research has shown descriptive probability information (“description”) often does not impact decisions for people who have previously observed a sample of outcomes related to the choice (“experience”). However, the effect of description on mental representations of risk probability in the presence of experience has rarely been examined. In two experiments, participants (n = 263 college students and n = 1032 MTurk workers) played a game that exposed them to a predetermined rate of wins and losses, after which some participants received information about the game's expected rate of losses. Description strongly impacted participants' verbatim estimates of the risk of losing the game. However, description had little or no detectable impact on participants' gist risk estimates. Further analysis showed that lower gist risk estimates were associated with later decisions to continue playing the game. Verbatim risk estimates were correlated with later decisions, but no effect was observed while controlling for the effects of gist on decisions. This research additionally tested two approaches to strengthening the effect of description on gist, finding a small effect of one approach but not the other. Results suggest that descriptive information materials delivered after experience may be less likely to alter future decisions if the information does not alter gist representations of risk.

When resource allocation decisions involve marginal underperformers (MUs)—individuals or parties who underperform only “by inches” relative to a threshold—allocators may adopt the consolatory approach, compensating MUs with a small portion of the total resource. Seven studies (N = 2585) revealed that the consolatory approach, albeit often well intended, may backfire. Specifically, when compared with the non-consolatory, binary approach (allocating all the resource to outperformers and nothing to MUs), the consolatory approach can be perceived as less fair, even by MUs themselves who economically benefit from it. As the consolatory approach is objectively more equitable than the binary approach, this effect contradicts the prediction of proportional equity, thereby demonstrating its discontinuity at zero. The underlying mechanism is grounded in people's fundamental perception of zero as unique relative to other numbers, which leads them to adopt different criteria to evaluate fairness depending on whether the allocation outcomes involve zero. This work suggests that the common practice of offering MUs a small “consolation prize” may backfire, harming fairness without mitigating MUs' negative feelings of losing.

Fetchenhauer, D., Dunning, D., Ehlebracht, D., Graczyk, T., Schlosser, T., Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 38(4), e70037. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdm.70037.

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Polarization has become a major concern in behavioral science and popular media, as it may affect many important areas of life. For instance, how polarized are people's perceptions of risks, such as regarding (not) imposing mitigation measures during a pandemic? Answering this question is surprisingly challenging: Whereas multiple theoretical views of polarization and their respective mathematical operationalizations coexist, the latter are often used interchangeably as measures of “polarization.” This may be indicative of a jingle fallacy, because it is unknown whether the diverse ways of quantifying polarization in people's perceptions of important societal matters empirically converge. In study 1, we thus ran a reanalysis of a large dataset from the World Values Survey covering diverse topics of societal relevance (N = 93,214), finding only moderate empirical convergence between six operationalizations of polarization. In study 2, we applied the same approach focusing specifically on people's risk perceptions of COVID-19 mitigation measures (N = 768) and found a similar pattern of low convergence between different operationalizations of polarization. However, according to one operationalization with a clear threshold for polarization, risk perceptions were polarized in 11 out of 12 experimental conditions. Our findings emphasize the need to carefully consider how polarization is operationalized to avoid broad generalizations, keeping in mind that some operationalizations may speak to specific theoretical conceptualizations. To raise awareness for this concern and support behavioral science researchers in conducting similar analyses with their own datasets, we provide a novel online tool available at https://shiny.cbdr-lab.net/polarization.