Delay discounting in the pigeon: In search of a magnitude effect

The magnitude effect, where larger outcomes are discounted proportionally less than smaller outcomes, is a well‐established phenomenon in delay discounting by human participants. To this point in the literature magnitude effects have not been reliably evidenced in nonhuman animals. , however, used a concurrent‐chains arrangement with pigeon and found evidence for a magnitude effect. Grace et al. suggested that in many delay discounting experimental arrangements with nonhuman animals (e.g., adjusting amount, adjusting delay) the organism is not given the opportunity to directly compare outcomes of different sizes. They suggest that because of the lack of direct comparison it is difficult for the organism to determine the relative size of each outcome, which in turn mutes the effect of the amount differences between outcomes. As a test of this “comparison hypothesis,” the present experiment was conducted to assess whether the magnitude effect would be evidenced in pigeon when using an adjusting amount procedure where outcomes of different amounts were presented proximally. In the present arrangement, pigeons were presented two choice panels in an operant chamber where each panel was associated with an independent adjusting amount delay discounting task, but with differing outcome amounts (i.e., a 32‐food pellet panel and an 8‐food pellet panel). In this arrangement the choice panels alternated in their availability within a session from trial block to trial block. The present findings indicate no reliable effect of amount, even when the outcomes were proximal and thus readily comparable. This result suggests that the lack of magnitude effect is not driven by the organism's ability to compare the difference in amount between choice alternatives.     

Procedural justice in authority relations: the strength of outcome dependence influences people's reactions to voice

In this article, we study how the strength of outcome dependence, defined as the extent to which people's outcomes depend on authority's decisions, influences their reactions to voice or no-voice procedures. We suggest that in situations where people are strongly outcome dependent they assume that the authority may not consider their views, and therefore voice procedures exert less influence on people's procedure judgments than in situations where they are not strongly outcome dependent. Findings of two experiments corroborate this line of reasoning: In strongly outcome dependent situations, recipients' procedure judgments are influenced less strongly by voice versus no-voice procedures than in moderate or weak outcome dependent situations. Furthermore, these effects were found for both pre-decision voice (Experiment 1) and for post-decision voice (Experiment 2). It is concluded that strong outcome dependence decreases the value-expressive function of voice opportunities. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

More than fair: Outcome dependence, system justification, and the perceived legitimacy of authority figures

Legitimacy is a source of power for authorities because it promotes voluntary deference on the part of followers. From a system justification perspective, there is also reason to believe that power is a source of perceived legitimacy. We report five studies demonstrating that in addition to procedural fairness and outcome favorability, outcome dependence is an independent contributor to perceived legitimacy. In two cross-sectional field studies and one panel study, we hypothesized and found that dependence on an authority figure is positively associated with appraisals of legitimacy, measured in terms of trust and confidence in, empowerment of, and deference to authority. These effects were demonstrated in educational, political, and legal settings. Two additional experiments provided direct causal evidence for the hypothesized effect on both perceived legitimacy and voluntary deference (i.e., acquiescence to additional requests). We also found that participants assigned to a high (vs. low) dependence condition judged their outcomes to be more favorable, despite the fact that the outcomes were identical in the two conditions; this effect was mediated by perceived legitimacy. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that perceived legitimacy is enhanced not only when authorities exercise fair procedures and deliver favorable outcomes, but also when subordinates are dependent on them. Implications for society and the study of legitimacy and social power are discussed.     

Inducing an interpretation bias changes self-imagery: a preliminary investigation

Prior work suggests that variations in self-imagery can influence the emotional interpretations people make about social situations. The current experiment investigated the converse possibility: that inducing an inferential bias can change the content of self-related images. The effects of repeated practice in accessing either negative or positive social outcomes was tested by having participants report on self-images generated during subsequent experience with ambiguous social situations. Participants and independent judges rated the content of participants’ self-images as being more negative after prior practice in accessing negative rather than positive social outcomes. Furthermore, participants who practiced accessing negative outcomes rated their anticipated anxiety in an imagined stressful social situation as being greater, and their expected social performance as poorer than participants in the positive outcome group. Groups did not differ in state anxiety levels when making their ratings, so it is unlikely that any observed differences between groups can be attributed to mood effects. We suggest that this finding is consistent with the hypothesis that inferential biases and content of self-images can interact with each other and may together serve to maintain social anxiety.     

Asymmetry of the group context effect on delay discounting

Binary choice delay discounting tasks require participants to indicate preference between smaller, immediate, and larger, delayed rewards. Previous research indicates that when the delayed reward is shared with others, the delayed outcome is preferred compared with when the outcomes are for the self only, resulting in lower rates of delay discounting. The present series of studies sought to replicate and extend this finding. Study 1 compared delay discounting on a standard task in which both immediate and delayed outcomes are for the self and a group context task where the delayed outcome was shared with one other person. Replicating previous results, group context resulted in lower rates of delay discounting, and this effect was independent of how the shared outcome was presented. Study 2 compared delay discounting on a standard task and a group context task where the immediate outcome was shared. In contrast to Study 1, group context resulted in higher rates of delay discounting, suggesting that preference in intertemporal choice tracks the shared outcome. Moreover, this effect was not independent of how the shared outcome was presented. This is the first study to reveal that group context, when applied to the immediate outcome, can result in higher rates of delay discounting.     

社会公正对权威合法性的影响:社会阶层的调节作用

社会层面中的权威合法性研究是国内外学者和管理实践者近来关注的重要问题。而社会公正的两个维度——分配公正和程序公正对权威合法性的交互作用的结果并不一致。本研究基于解释水平理论,提出社会阶层能调节分配公正和程序公正对权威合法性感知的交互作用,并通过实验室研究和情境启动两种方法进行验证。结果发现对低阶层者来说,无论是否程序公正,分配公正能显著提高个体的权威合法性感知;在分配公正和多得不公条件下,程序公正显著降低权威合法性感知。对高阶层者来说,分配公正能显著提高程序公正时的权威合法性感知;程序公正能显著提高分配公正时的权威合法性感知。研究结果启示社会管理者在推行依法治国时应针对不同阶层民众的思维方式采取管理策略。     

Group Status and Hierarchy Legitimacy Effects on Effort Versus Ability Attributions for Ingroup and Outgroup Failures

Previous research has shown that people have a tendency to explain various outcomes in ways that favour their ingroup. However, there is also some evidence that this tendency may be moderated by perceptions of group status and hierarchy legitimacy. In this study, we experimentally test the combined effects of group status and hierarchy legitimacy on effort and ability attributions for ingroup and outgroup failures. It was predicted that participants assigned to an illegitimately low status condition would attribute ingroup but not outgroup failure more to a lack of effort than ability. Conversely, participants assigned to a legitimately high status group were expected to attribute ingroup but not outgroup failure more to a lack of effort than ability. Results supported these predictions and also showed outgroup failure was attributed more to a lack of effort than ability when ingroup status was either legitimately low or illegitimately high. We conclude that intergroup attributions are constrained by perceptions about relative group status and the legitimacy of the status hierarchy.     

Perceptions of adolescent bullying: Attributions of blame and responsibility in cases of cyber‐bullying

Cyber‐bullying (where victims are targeted via online social networking or other electronic means) has gained increased attention in research and the broadcast media, but previous research has not investigated attribution of blame in such cyber‐bullying events. This experiment hypothesized that participants would assign higher ratings of blame to bullying perpetrators when the bullying situations were depicted as having highly foreseeable outcomes (vs. unforeseeable outcomes), and as occurring in school (vs. online). In addition, a significant interaction was predicted between outcome foreseeability and bullying situation, with highly foreseeable in‐school events being rated as the most predictable and attributable to the bully's actions. One‐hundred sixty‐three participants completed surveys containing demographic items, items regarding their past experiences of victimization, and one of four randomly‐assigned vignettes detailing a bullying situation (which participants rated). While hypotheses regarding outcome foreseeability were supported, no cyber‐bullying vs. in‐school main effects (or corresponding interaction effects) were detected. Implications for future research and practice, as well as study limitations, are discussed.     

Waiting When Both Certainty and Magnitude Are Increasing: Certainty Overshadows Magnitude

In everyday decision making, people often face decisions with outcomes that differ on multiple dimensions. The trade‐off in preferences between magnitude, temporal proximity, and probability of an outcome is a fundamental concern in the decision‐making literature. Yet, their joint effects on behavior in an experience‐based decision‐making task are understudied. Two experiments examined the relative influences of the magnitude and probability of an outcome when both were increasing over a 10‐second delay. A first‐person shooter video game was adapted for this purpose. Experiment 1 showed that participants waited longer to ensure a higher probability of the outcome than to ensure a greater magnitude when experienced separately and together. Experiment 2 provided a precise method of comparing their relative control on waiting by having each increase at different rates. Both experiments revealed a stronger influence of increasing probability than increasing magnitude. The results were more consistent with hyperbolic discounting of probability than with cumulative prospect theory's decision weight function. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Knowledge mediates the timeframe of covariation assessment in human causal induction

How do humans discover causal relations when the effect is not immediately observable? Previous experiments have uniformly demonstrated detrimental effects of outcome delays on causal induction. These findings seem to conflict with everyday causal cognition, where humans can apparently identify long-term causal relations with relative ease. Three experiments investigated whether the influence of delay on adult human causal judgements is mediated by experimentally induced assumptions about the timeframe of the causal relation in question, as suggested by Einhorn and Hogarth (1986). Causal judgements generally decreased when a delay separated cause and effect. This decrease was less pronounced when the thematic context of the causal relation induced participants to expect a delay. Experiment 3 ruled out an alternative explanation of the effect based on variations of cue and outcome saliencies, and showed that detrimental effects of delay are reduced even more when instructions explicitly mentioned the timeframe of the causal relation in question. Knowledge thus mediates the impact of delay on human causal judgement. Implications for contemporary theories of human causal induction are discussed.     

Attentional bias of students toward negative feedback in bad outcome situations: the mechanism of self-defense

The main goals of the present study were to investigate the effects of outcome valence on attentional bias toward feedback and examine the internal mechanism of self-defense. We systematically manipulated the outcome valence by providing a bogus score in a rational thinking task and recorded the time positive feedback and negative feedback was viewed in experiment 1. We added the intervention of self-affirmation to examine the self-defense mechanism in experiment 2. The results suggest that (1) in good outcome situations, the participants viewed negative feedback longer than positive feedback. There was a tendency to slightly reduce the attention given to negative feedback in bad outcome situations. (2) Self-affirming participants in bad outcome situations increased their viewing time of negative feedback, which supported the activation of defensiveness.     

Myopic biases in strategic social prediction: why deadlines put everyone under more pressure than everyone else

Five experiments document biases in the way people predict the outcomes of interdependent social situations. Participants predicted that situational constraints would restrain their own behavior more than it would the behavior of others, even in situations where everyone faced identical constraints. When anticipating the effects of deadlines on outcomes of negotiations, participants predicted that deadlines would hinder their performance more than it would hinder the performance of others. The results shed light on the psychological processes by which people predict the outcomes of and select strategies in strategic social interaction. They extend prior findings, such as people believing themselves to be below average on difficult tasks, to highly interdependent situations. Furthermore, the article shows both how focusing can account for these effects and also how perspective taking can reduce their biasing influence.     

更优更耐心：质量结果对跨期选择的影响

跨期选择以往的研究集中于金钱数量结果。基于维度加工的模型,本文探究了在跨期选择中,人们面对质量差异的结果(如,今天的低配版手机还是六个月后的高配版手机)vs.相对应的金钱结果(如,今天的5000元还是六个月后的6000元)的选择偏好差异。3个实验结果表明：人们面对质量结果(相比于金钱结果)的跨期选择表现得更耐心,而这种现象是由于人们面对选择时在结果维度差异感知不同所致。与金钱结果跨期选择相同,质量结果跨期选择的心理加工过程同样遵循维度间差异比较。本研究为基于维度的跨期选择模型提供了新的证据。     

The combined effects of risk and time on choice: Does uncertainty eliminate the immediacy effect? Does delay eliminate the certainty effect?

Researchers have noted parallels between decisions under uncertainty and over time. Three experiments evaluated the theory that uncertainty and time affect choice via a common underlying dimension, such that delaying an outcome is equivalent to making it uncertain. To test this account we asked whether adding uncertainty to outcomes would eliminate the immediacy effect bias. We also asked whether adding time delay to outcomes would eliminate the certainty effect bias. The answer to both questions was yes, provided the prospects were presented singly rather than jointly. In single evaluation uncertainly eliminated the immediacy effect and delay eliminated one form of the certainty effect, while in joint evaluation, these effects did not occur. These findings suggest that at least in some contexts decision makers may equate risk and delay. Other explanations are possible, however, demonstrating that the interaction between risk and delay is complex and not easily understood.     

On the benign qualities of behavioral disinhibition: because of the prosocial nature of people, behavioral disinhibition can weaken pleasure with getting more than you deserve

This article focuses on social situations in which people are surprised about what is happening and inhibited about how to respond to the situation at hand. We study these situations by examining a classic topic in social psychology: how people respond to receiving better outcomes than are deserved. In these situations, the actions of an authority or a coworker push in the direction of accepting and enjoying the unfair outcome, whereas personal values for most people push in the direction of rejecting or being displeased with the outcome. This conflict may inhibit people's response to the advantageous but unfair outcomes. If people are indeed inhibited about how to respond to these kinds of outcomes, then lowering behavioral inhibition by reminding people of having acted in the past without inhibitions (in a manner that is unrelated to the outcomes participants subsequently receive) should affect reactions to the outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that because many people are prosocial and want to adhere to principles of fairness, reminders of behavioral disinhibition will lead to less pleasure with the unfairly obtained outcomes. The results of 8 experiments (conducted both inside and outside the psychology laboratory) revealed evidence for this benign disinhibition effect on various reactions to outcomes that are better than deserved. In further accordance with our line of reasoning, the effect is particularly pronounced among those who adhere to a prosocial orientation or who have adopted a prosocial mindset and is not observed among those with proself orientations or mindsets.     

When success breeds failure: history,hysteresis, and delayed exit decisions

The effects of feedback equivocality, information availability, and prior decision-making history on escalation and persistence were investigated. Replicating the findings of J.L. Bragger, D.H. Bragger, D.A. Hantula, and J.P. Kirnan (1998), this study found that participants receiving equivocal feedback on their decisions invested more money and invested across more opportunities; those who could purchase information invested fewer resources than did participants who did not have the opportunity to purchase information. There was an inverse linear relationship between the percentage of opportunities in which participants purchased information and the delay to exit decisions and total resources invested. Six weeks earlier, some participants took part in a more profitable investment scenario, and prior experience led to later increased investing when participants were faced with failure, even above that invested in a preceding, succeeding scenario. These results are consistent with an equivocality theory account of escalation.     

Adults’ self-reported attachment influences their savoring ability

Positive affect is important for well-being, yet little is known about individual differences in the ability to up-regulate (savor) positive emotions. In a sample of 120 adults (ages 18–94; 62.5% female), this study extends correlational work by examining how attachment relates to self-reported savoring and to an experimentally-induced behavioral savoring task where participants were randomly assigned to reflect on a positive event (or complete a control task). Avoidance was related to lower trait savoring, and the effects of attachment on experimentally-induced savoring differed by the type of event participants savored. Avoidance was related to poorer affective outcomes after savoring interpersonal events but was unrelated to affective outcomes for non-interpersonal events. Anxiety was related to better outcomes after savoring non-interpersonal events but was unrelated to savoring interpersonal events. Overall, effects suggest that more insecurely attached adults may not savor as often, and may have difficulty savoring interpersonal events but not non-interpersonal events.