Four studies document an asymmetry in givers’ and receivers’ evaluations of gifts: Givers underestimate the extent to which receivers perceive partial (but more desirable) gifts to be thoughtful, ...valuable, and worthy of appreciation. Study 1 documents this asymmetry and suggests that givers underestimate the extent to which partial gifts signal thoughtfulness to receivers. Study 2 replicates this asymmetry in the context of a real gift exchange among friends. Study 3 shows that this asymmetry arises because givers believe that purchasing partial gifts is a greater violation of gift-giving norms than do receivers, leading givers to expect that partial gifts will damage receivers’ perceptions of a gift’s value. Study 4 offers an intervention that induces givers to select the (partial) gifts that receivers prefer more than givers expect: framing a gift’s separate components as complete units.
Although a great deal of research has shown that people with more money are somewhat happier than are people with less money, our research demonstrates that how people spend their money also matters ...for their happiness. In particular, both correlational and experimental studies have shown that people who spend money on others report more happiness. The benefits of such prosodal spending emerge among adults around the world, and the warm glow of giving can be detected even in toddlers. These benefits are most likely to emerge when giving satisfies one or more core human needs (relatedness, competence, and autonomy). The rewards of prosocial spending are observable in both the brain and the body and can potentially be harnessed by organizations and governments.
The neo-classical economics view that behavior is driven by – and reflective of – hedonic utility is challenged by psychologists’ demonstrations of cases in which actions do not merely reveal ...preferences but rather create them. In this view, preferences are frequently constructed in the moment and are susceptible to fleeting situational factors; problematically, individuals are insensitive to the impact of such factors on their behavior, misattributing utility caused by these irrelevant factors to stable underlying preferences. Consequently, subsequent behavior might reflect not hedonic utility but rather this erroneously imputed utility that lingers in memory. Here we review the roles of these streams of utility in shaping preferences, and discuss how neuroimaging offers unique possibilities for disentangling their independent contributions to behavior.
We examine the underlying process behind the IKEA effect, which is defined as consumers' willingness to pay more for self-created products than for identical products made by others, and explore the ...factors that influence both consumers' willingness to engage in self-creation and the utility that they derive from such activities. We propose that creating products fulfills consumers' psychological need to signal competence to themselves and to others, and that feelings of competence associated with self-created products lead to their increased valuation. We demonstrate that the feelings of competence that arise from assembling products mediate their increased value (Experiment 1), that affirming consumers' sense of self decreases the value they derive from their creations (Experiment 2), and that threatening consumers' sense of self increases their propensity to make things themselves (Experiments 3A and 3B).
► We examine the role of feelings of competence in co-creation and the IKEA effect. ► Feelings of competence drive the premium attached to self-made products. ► Manipulating feelings of competence affects consumers' propensity to co-create. ► We show that even mundane products can have implications for consumers' identities.
We examine how a simple handshake-a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions-can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning ...beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive interactions, a handshake is viewed as a signal of cooperative intent, increasing people's cooperative behavior and affecting deal-making outcomes. In Studies 1a and 1b, pairs who chose to shake hands at the onset of integrative negotiations obtained better joint outcomes. Study 2 demonstrates the causal impact of handshaking using experimental methodology. Study 3 suggests a driver of the cooperative consequence of handshaking: negotiators expected partners who shook hands to behave more cooperatively than partners who avoided shaking hands or partners whose nonverbal behavior was unknown. Study 4 uses an economic game to demonstrate that handshaking increased cooperation even when handshakes were uninstructed (vs. instructed). Further demonstrating the primacy of signaling cooperative intent, handshaking actually reduced cooperation when the action signaled ill intent (e.g., when the hand-shaker was sick; Study 5). Finally, in Study 6, executives assigned to shake hands before a more antagonistic, distributive negotiation were less likely to lie about self-benefiting information, increasing cooperation even to their own detriment. Together, these studies provide evidence that handshakes, ritualistic behaviors imbued with meaning beyond mere physical contact, signal cooperative intent and promote deal-making.
When people are the victims of greed or recipients of generosity, their first impulse is often to pay back that behavior in kind. What happens when people cannot reciprocate, but instead have the ...chance to be cruel or kind to someone entirely different-to pay it forward? In 5 experiments, participants received greedy, equal, or generous divisions of money or labor from an anonymous person and then divided additional resources with a new anonymous person. While equal treatment was paid forward in kind, greed was paid forward more than generosity. This asymmetry was driven by negative affect, such that a positive affect intervention disrupted the tendency to pay greed forward. Implications for models of generalized reciprocity are discussed.
Hiding personal information reveals the worst John, Leslie K.; Barasz, Kate; Norton, Michael I.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
01/2016, Letnik:
113, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Seven experiments explore people’s decisions to share or withhold personal information, and the wisdom of such decisions. When people choose not to reveal information—to be “hiders”—they are judged ...negatively by others (experiment 1). These negative judgments emerge when hiding is volitional (experiments 2A and 2B) and are driven by decreases in trustworthiness engendered by decisions to hide (experiments 3A and 3B). Moreover, hiders do not intuit these negative consequences: given the choice to withhold or reveal unsavory information, people often choose to withhold, but observers rate those who reveal even questionable behavior more positively (experiments 4A and 4B). The negative impact of hiding holds whether opting not to disclose unflattering (drug use, poor grades, and sexually transmitted diseases) or flattering (blood donations) information, and across decisions ranging from whom to date to whom to hire. When faced with decisions about disclosure, decision-makers should be aware not just of the risk of revealing, but of what hiding reveals.
(Mis)perceptions of inequality Hauser, Oliver P; Norton, Michael I
Current opinion in psychology,
December 2017, 2017-12-00, Letnik:
18
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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•Laypeople's beliefs about their country's income and wealth distributions are typically inaccurate.•These misperceptions are caused in part by overreliance on cues from the local ...environment.•Misperceptions of inequality — but not actual inequality — drive preferences for redistribution.•Correcting these misperceptions can influence policy preferences and behavior.
Laypeople's beliefs about the current distribution of outcomes such as income and wealth in their country influence their attitudes toward issues ranging from taxation to healthcare — but how accurate are these beliefs? We review the burgeoning literature on (mis)perceptions of inequality. First, we show that people on average misperceive current levels of inequality, typically underestimating the extent of inequality in their country. Second, we delineate potential causes of these misperceptions, including people's overreliance on cues from their local environment, leading to their erroneous beliefs about both the overall distributions of wealth and income and their place in those distributions. Third, we document that these (mis)perceptions of inequality — but not actual levels of inequality — drive behavior and preferences for redistribution. More promisingly, we review research suggesting that correcting misperceptions influences preferences and policy outcomes.
Emodiversity and the Emotional Ecosystem Quoidbach, Jordi; Gruber, June; Mikolajczak, Moïra ...
Journal of experimental psychology. General,
12/2014, Letnik:
143, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Bridging psychological research exploring emotional complexity and research in the natural sciences on the measurement of biodiversity, we introduce-and demonstrate the benefits of-emodiversity: the ...variety and relative abundance of the emotions that humans experience. Two cross-sectional studies across more than 37,000 respondents demonstrate that emodiversity is an independent predictor of mental and physical health-such as decreased depression and doctor's visits-over and above mean levels of positive and negative emotion. These results remained robust after controlling for gender, age, and the 5 main dimensions of personality. Emodiversity is a practically important and previously unidentified metric for assessing the health of the human emotional ecosystem.
Despite evidence pointing to a ubiquitous tendency of human minds to wander, little is known about the neural operations that support this core component of human cognition. Using both thought ...sampling and brain imaging, the current investigation demonstrated that mind-wandering is associated with activity in a default network of cortical regions that are active when the brain is "at rest." In addition, individuals' reports of the tendency of their minds to wander were correlated with activity in this network.
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