Framing Effects and Arenas of Choice: Your Money or Your Life?

This paper investigates the consistency of outcome framing effects on choice across two arenas of outcome: human life and money. Past research has yielded notable variability in the magnitude of framing effects. One possible contributor to the variation in magnitude is outcome arena. Past research has varied along this dimension without systematically assessing its effects. Undergraduates (N= 297) responded to three decision scenarios involving either human lives or money in which outcomes were framed either positively or negatively. Based on prospect theory, an interaction between framing and arena was predicted, such that a greater framing effect was expected in the human life arena (i.e., more risky choices were expected when outcomes involved human life than money in the negative frame and the reverse in the positive frame). Results were only partly consistent with this prediction. Regardless of frame, subjects made riskier choices when outcomes involved human lives rather than money. This was not expected for the positive frame. Even though human lives presumably have greater utility than dollars, subjects in the positive framing condition made riskier choices regarding human life than money. Additionally, no overall framing effect was observed. There was a significant sex by frame interaction such that only women exhibited framing effects on choice. This extends the finding of sex differences in framing to the monetary arena. This has important implications for the conduct of future studies on framing as well as for the interpretation of past and future framing research.     

Self‐image and schadenfreude: Pleasure at others' misfortune enhances satisfaction of basic human needs

The present research tested whether observing the failure of another individual and experiencing schadenfreude (i.e., pleasure at others' misfortune) enhance the satisfaction of basic psychological needs in terms of self‐esteem, control, belongingness, and meaningful existence. Considering hypothetical scenarios (Experiments 1 and 4), real‐life experiences (Experiment 2), and ostensibly real interactions (Experiment 3), four experiments revealed that individuals reported higher levels of need satisfaction when another's setback occurred in a competitive circumstance rather than in a non‐competitive circumstance. Moreover, the increased feeling of schadenfreude accounted for the effect of observing the misfortune befalling a competitor on the subsequent satisfaction of human needs. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for research on schadenfreude, and future research directions are outlined.     

Examining the indirect effects of religious orientations on well‐being through personal locus of control

Religiosity often positively correlates with well‐being. Some orientations towards religion may, however, adversely affect well‐being by decreasing perceptions of personal locus of control—a critical antecedent of mental health. We examined this possibility in a New Zealand‐based national sample of religiously identified adults (N = 1486). As predicted, fundamentalism had a negative indirect effect on life satisfaction, but a positive indirect effect on psychological distress. Conversely, people's intrinsic religious orientation had a positive indirect effect on life satisfaction, but a negative indirect effect on psychological distress. Notably, all four indirect effects were transmitted through personal, but not God, locus of control. These results highlight the diversity of religious orientations and show that religious orientations that deemphasize people's personal locus of control have negative consequences for well‐being.     

金钱概念激活与金钱功能偏好对自我损耗后利他的影响

金钱启动能够提高自我损耗后个体的利他,而金钱功能也可能对损耗后个体利他产生不可忽视的影响。实验让处于自我损耗状态的被试数金钱或白纸,然后测量其利他水平及其对金钱功能的内隐偏好。结果证实了金钱启动的积极效应。此外,在数金钱和数白纸两种条件下,金钱象征性功能偏好对自我损耗后个体利他的效应是相反的。这表明,激活金钱概念与偏好金钱象征性功能都有可能补偿自我损耗后的消极影响,但两者的补偿作用是相互独立的。     

The effect of ethics and moral education on the levels of schadenfreude experienced by students

Schadenfreude has attracted attention in recent studies. Although the antecedents and consequences of schadenfreude have been investigated, how it can be prevented has not been explored. This article examines the effect of ethics and moral education on the levels of schadenfreude experienced by students. The nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group model, a quasi-experimental design, was used in this study. Both the experimental and control groups consisted of 55 students. Data were collected using two hypothetical scenarios (one academic vs. one social context). The results of this study revealed that ethics and moral education had a significant negative effect on schadenfreude. This study suggests that people's ethics and moral education is an important predictor of schadenfreude.     

Confidence in judgments based on incomplete information: An investigation using both hypothetical and real gambles

This study assessed how confidence in judgments is affected by the need to make inferences about missing information. Subjects indicated their likelihood of taking each of a series of gambles based on both probability and payoff information or only one of these sources of information. They also rated their confidence in each likelihood judgment. Subjects in the Explicit Inference condition were asked to explicitly estimate the values of missing information before making their responses while subjects in the Implicit Inference condition were not. The manner in which probability information was framed was also manipulated. Experiment 1 employed hypothetical gambles and Experiment 2 employed gambles with real money. Expressed likelihood of taking gambles was higher when probability was phrased in terms of '% chance of winning' rather than '% chance of losing', but this difference was somewhat less with real gambles than with hypothetical gambles. Confidence ratings in each experiment were actually higher on incomplete information trials than on complete information trials in the Explicit Inference condition. Results were related to the general issue of confidence in judgments.     

The influence of contrived motivating operations on social discounting: Relative economic hardship affects choice

Thirty‐six participants were given three social discounting surveys, and each survey was preceded by one of three contrived hypothetical scenarios. In each scenario, the participant was asked to consider situations in which either the participant (SELF), a hypothetical other (OTHER), or both the participant and the hypothetical other (BOTH) were experiencing economic hardship (i.e., needed money to avoid a negative outcome). Results replicate previous research suggesting that the probability of participants foregoing the money decreased across social distance in the BOTH and OTHER conditions; however, no discounting was observed for median responses in the SELF condition. In addition, the highest area under the curve and lowest s values were associated with the OTHER condition, and the inverse results were observed for the SELF condition. Taken together, these results suggest that relative economic hardship may act as a motivating operation affecting social discounting with the potential for further translational utility.     

When the glass is half‐empty: Framing effects and evaluations of a romantic partner's attributes

Two studies examined how the framing of information influences evaluations of hypothetical relationships. Studies 1 (n= 183) and 2 (n= 247) examined how the framing of a hypothetical partner's attributes in gains or loss terms influences (a) impressions of the future success of the relationship and (b) the perceived importance of the partner's attributes. Generally, participants were less pessimistic about a relationship's future success when the partner's attributes were framed in gains terms than when framed in loss terms, even though the attributes were objectively identical in each case. Participants also attached significantly more importance to intelligence when it was missing among a partner's strengths than when it was present, particularly when the attribute was presented in a loss frame. This research has important implications for the integration of the decision‐making and relationship cognition literatures.     

Social Anxiety and Content Specificity of Interpretation and Judgemental Bias in Children

Previous research with adult samples has demonstrated that social anxiety disorder is associated with content‐specific interpretation and judgemental biases. The present study extends our understanding of the specificity of cognitive biases in childhood social anxiety. A sample of non‐clinical children aged 11–12 years completed social anxiety and depression scales and was presented with scenarios depicting hypothetical events varying along two dimensions: relevance to self (event occurs to self or to other) and domain of activity (event is social or non‐social). Partial support for the content‐specificity hypothesis was found. Children's social anxiety symptoms were positively associated with negative interpretation ratings for ambiguous self‐referent and other‐referent events, but only when these events were in the social domain. Further, children's social anxiety symptoms were positively associated with emotional cost judgements for ambiguous social and non‐social events, but only when these events referred to the self. Both patterns of results remained significant even after controlling for concurrent depressive symptoms. Implications of the results for our understanding of maintaining factors in childhood social anxiety are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

External Validity,Why Art Thou Externally Valid? Recent Studies of Attraction Provide Three Theoretical Answers

Some studies have better external validity than others, but why? Recent studies in the domain of interpersonal attraction have been tackling this question by documenting how people respond differently to hypothetical versus live interactions. In live interactions, people tend to report their experienced emotions, they evaluate others using a low‐level concrete construal, and they attempt to implement the goal of having a pleasant interaction. In hypothetical scenarios, people forecast their emotions, they evaluate others using a high‐level abstract construal, and they deliberate about others' positive and negative features. By situating the hypothetical versus live interaction distinction within the framework of strong preexisting theories (i.e., affective forecasting, construal‐level theory, mindset theory), this research reinforces the idea that there is nothing inherently invalid about laboratory studies that are cosmetically dissimilar from real life. Nevertheless, it remains highly problematic to generalize findings to a setting that elicits a countervailing set of psychological processes.     

A shared-transportation mobile app continuance model: The moderating effects of brand awareness

In light of the increasing development of technological innovation and information and communication technologies, features of mobile apps functions are also increasingly developed to meet people's needs and wants. Amongst the variety, shared transportation apps (STA) have emerged to optimize people's daily transportation needs. This study modified the expectation-confirmation theory and the post-acceptance model of information system continuance to examine the effects of customers' perceived STA performance (service performance, content provision, and system performance) and benefits (function, money worthiness, pleasure, and social interaction) on customer satisfaction with the usage of STA, which is expected to have a positive effect on customer retention on STA in a new theoretical framework, called the performance-benefit of the STA continuance model (PBCM). Moreover, brand awareness was expected to be an essential moderator on the effect of perceived performance and perceived benefits on customer satisfaction. 397 respondents were recruited online through a convenient sampling technique in the Vietnam market. Results show that service performance, money worthiness, pleasure, and social interaction are four important determinants of customer satisfaction with STA. Moreover, brand awareness significantly moderates the effects of service performance, system performance, money worthiness, and social interaction on customer satisfaction. Findings also contribute rational strategies for e-commerce managers in general and STA managers in particular.     

Tell Me What I Wanted to Hear: Confirmation Effect in Lay Evaluations of Financial Expert Authority

In real life, people engage in interactive decision processes by consulting with experts. However, before taking advice, they must recognise the authority of an expert to assess the quality of the advice. The main goal of this research was to investigate how the confirmation effect affects lay evaluations of the epistemic authority of financial experts. Experiment 1 showed that lay people tend to ascribe greater epistemic authority to those experts whose advice confirms people's opinions, both measured and manipulated. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants' own opinions are not salient, people tend to evaluate experts' authority as higher when their advice confirms social norms. In Experiment 3 we jointly investigated the effects of participants' own opinions and social norms on the evaluations of authority. When both sources of expertise were made salient, decision‐makers favoured advice confirming their own beliefs and used it to evaluate experts' authority. Three interpretations of the role confirmation plays in the experts' authority evaluations are proposed: (1) self‐defensive strategies; (2) processing fluency; and (3) psychological consequences of naïve realism. The paper discusses practical implications of the results. We propose that increasing consumers' knowledge about biases might protect their evaluations of financial advice from being susceptible to the confirmation effect.     

When being disadvantaged grows into vengeance: The effects of asymmetry of interest and social rejection in social dilemmas

In public good dilemmas, group members often differ in the extent to which they benefit from provision of the public good (asymmetry of interest). In the current paper, we argue that people may readily accept such financial differences in interest when their social needs are met by being accepted by the others. When people are socially rejected, however, members having a low rather than a high interest in the public good may display negative emotional and retributive reactions. This reasoning was supported by the findings of a first experimental study in which we manipulated people's interest in the public good and social rejection. These effects were replicated in a second experimental study and it was further shown that this two‐way interaction between social rejection and interest in the public good was moderated by people's social value orientation. The negative reactions to low interest (vs. high interest) in the public good when being socially rejected were especially prominent among group members with a proself orientation. Taken together, the current studies illustrate the importance of studying how financial and social needs interact to determine emotional and retributive actions in social dilemmas. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Will to live in older people's medical decisions: immediate and delayed effects of aging stereotypes

This research explores the duration of age stereotype priming effects on individuals' will to live when faced with a medical terminal illness decision. Study 1 established the content of the stereotype of the older age group in Portugal. Study 2 tested the effects of priming positive or negative age stereotypes on older and younger individuals' will to live, immediately after priming or after a delay. Results showed significant effects of stereotype valence on older people's will to live. As expected, immediate and delayed will‐to‐live scores were both lower in the negative than in the positive condition. In contrast, among younger people there were no significant effects of stereotype valence. These findings demonstrate the robustness of these types of unconscious influences on older people's fundamental decisions.     

Belief in a just world lowers bribery intention

Corruption is rampant around the world and can be detrimental to social justice. We aim to understand whether and how belief in a just world to self (BJW‐self) influences individuals' intentions to become involved in bribery. We measured bribery intention using hypothetical scenarios. In Study 1 and Study 2, we consistently found that BJW‐self negatively predicted bribery intention, and this pattern was mediated by perceived punishment of getting involved in bribery. We further demonstrated the causal effect of BJW‐self on bribery intention in an experiment (Study 3). These results indicate that BJW as one lay belief can be important in suppressing people's bribery intention, and perceived punishment mediates the effect of BJW on rule‐breaking behaviours. Implications for anti‐corruption policies and future research are also discussed.     

The illusion of courage in self‐predictions: Mispredicting one's own behavior in embarrassing situations

People exhibit an “illusion of courage” when predicting their own behavior in embarrassing situations. In three experiments, participants overestimated their own willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances in exchange for money when those performances were psychologically distant: Hypothetical or in the relatively distant future. This illusion of courage occurs partly because of cold/hot empathy gaps. That is, people in a relatively “cold” unemotional state underestimate the influence on their own preferences and behaviors of being in a relative “hot” emotional state such as social anxiety evoked by an embarrassing situation. Consistent with this cold/hot empathy gap explanation, putting people “in touch” with negative emotional states by arousing fear (Experiments 1 and 2) and anger (Experiment 2) decreased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distant embarrassing public performances. Conversely, putting people “out of touch” with social anxiety through aerobic exercise, which reduces state anxiety and increases confidence, increased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distance embarrassing public performances (Experiment 3). Implications for self‐predictions, self‐evaluation, and affective forecasting are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality and Behavior in Social Dilemmas: Testing the Situational Strength Hypothesis and the Role of Hypothetical Versus Real Incentives

Previous research aimed at testing the situational strength hypothesis suffers from serious limitations regarding the conceptualization of strength. In order to overcome these limitations, the present study attempts to test the situational strength hypothesis based on the operationalization of strength as reinforcement contingencies. One dispositional factor of proven effect on cooperative behavior, social value orientation (SVO), was used as a predictor of behavior in four social dilemmas with varying degree of situational strength. The moderating role of incentive condition (hypothetical vs. real) on the relationship between SVO and behavior was also tested. One hundred undergraduates were presented with the four social dilemmas and the Social Value Orientation Scale. One‐half of the sample played the social dilemmas using real incentives, whereas the other half used hypothetical incentives. Results supported the situational strength hypothesis in that no behavioral variability and no effect of SVO on behavior were found in the strongest situation. However, situational strength did not moderate the effect of SVO on behavior in situations where behavior showed variability. No moderating effect was found for incentive condition either. The implications of these results for personality theory and assessment are discussed.     

Implicit theories of online trolling: Evidence that attention‐seeking conceptions are associated with increased psychological resilience

Three studies were conducted to investigate people's conceptions of online trolls, particularly conceptions associated with psychological resilience to trolling. In Study 1, a factor analysis of participants’ ratings of characteristics of online trolls found a replicable bifactor model of conceptions of online trolls, with a general factor of general conceptions towards online trolls being identified, but five group factors (attention‐conflict seeking, low self‐confidence, viciousness, uneducated, amusement) as most salient. In Study 2, participants evaluated hypothetical profiles of online trolling messages to establish the validity of the five factors. Three constructs (attention‐conflict seeking, viciousness, and uneducated) were actively employed when people considered profiles of online trolling scenarios. Study 3 introduced a 20‐item ‘Conceptions of Online Trolls scale’ to examine the extent to which the five group factors were associated with resilience to trolling. Results indicated that viewing online trolls as seeking conflict or attention was associated with a decrease in individuals’ negative affect around previous trolling incidents. Overall, the findings suggest that adopting an implicit theories approach can further our understanding and measurement of conceptions towards trolling through the identification of five salient factors, of which at least one factor may act as a resilience strategy.     

Money for microbes—Pathogen avoidance and out‐group helping behaviour

Humans have evolved various adaptations against pathogens, including the physiological immune system. However, not all of these adaptations are physiological: the cognitive mechanisms whereby we avoid potential sources of pathogens—for example, disgust elicited by uncleanliness—can be considered as parts of a behavioural immune system (BIS). The mechanisms of BIS extend also to inter‐group relations: Pathogen cues have been shown to increase xenophobia/ethnocentrism, as people prefer to keep their societal in‐group norms unaltered and “clean.” Nonetheless, little is known how pathogen cues influence people's willingness to provide humanitarian aid to out‐group members. We examined how pathogen cues affected decisions of providing humanitarian aid in either instrumental (sending money) or non‐instrumental form (sending personnel to help, or accepting refugees), and whether these effects were moderated by individual differences in BIS sensitivity. Data were collected in two online studies (Ns: 188 and 210). When the hypothetical humanitarian crisis involved a clear risk of infection, participants with high BIS sensitivity preferred to send money rather than personnel or to accept refugees. The results suggest that pathogen cues influence BIS‐sensitive individuals' willingness to provide humanitarian aid when there is a risk of contamination to in‐group members.     

Construal‐level Mindsets Enhance Behavioral Persistence in Response to Incentive Valence

In this research, we find that incentive valence and construal‐level mindsets can interact to influence behavioral persistence on challenging tasks. An abstract mindset improves persistence in response to positively framed incentives whereas a concrete mindset improves persistence in response to negatively framed incentives. This interaction effect can be observed even when the cues inducing construal‐level mindsets are not related to the incentives or the incentivized tasks. Participants in our studies were either positively or negatively incentivized to solve a set of difficult anagrams, and were primed with an abstract or a concrete mindset using spatial (Study 1) and social (Study 2) cues. The participants persisted longer in response to the positively framed incentive when primed with spatially or socially remote cues. In contrast, for the negatively framed incentive, participants persisted longer when primed with spatially or socially proximal cues. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.