Being Clean and Acting Dirty: The Paradoxical Effect of Self-Cleansing

In two studies we investigated the association between physical cleansing and moral and immoral behavior in real-life situations. In Study 1, after a workout at the gym, participants cheated more after taking a shower than before taking one. In the second study, participants donated more money to charity before rather than after they bathed for religious purification. The results extend previous findings about moral cleansing and moral licensing and are discussed within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory.     

Good things come to those who wait: Time discounting differences between adult offenders and nonoffenders

Criminal behavior has been explained by the idea that offenders have a lack of self-control. Yet, Wilson and Daly reported that juvenile offenders exhibit time-discounting tendencies similar to those of nonoffending juveniles. As no previous study has compared time-discounting behavior of adult offenders with nonoffenders, we raise the question, do adult offenders exhibit shorter time horizons or the tendency to discount future rewards? To answer this question, 89 offenders (ex-prisoners and prisoners) and 106 nonoffenders completed a time-discounting measure containing 27 different monetary choices. Our results show that, counter to findings with juvenile offenders, adult offenders (ex-prisoners) exhibit significantly shorter time horizons and discount more than nonoffenders as delayed payoffs increase to medium and large rewards. Furthermore, both offenders and nonoffenders are less likely to discount as the reward of future gains increases to medium and large.     

Overconfidence in interval estimates: What does expertise buy you?

People’s 90% subjective confidence intervals typically contain the true value about 50% of the time, indicating extreme overconfidence. Previous results have been mixed regarding whether experts are as overconfident as novices. Experiment 1 examined interval estimates from information technology (IT) professionals and UC San Diego (UCSD) students about both the IT industry and UCSD. This within-subjects experiment showed that experts and novices were about equally overconfident. Experts reported intervals that had midpoints closer to the true value—which increased hit rate—and that were narrower (i.e., more informative)—which decreased hit rate. The net effect was no change in hit rate and overconfidence. Experiment 2 showed that both experts and novices mistakenly expected experts to be much less overconfident than novices, but they correctly predicted that experts would provide narrower intervals with midpoints closer to the truth. Decisions about whether to consult experts should be based on which aspects of performance are desired.     

Remembering Friends as Not So Friendly in Competitive and Bargaining Social Interactions

From children's schoolyard play to executives' boardroom negotiations, competitive and bargaining interactions are common to everyday life. Sometimes, the interacting parties are socially close and sometimes not. In this research, we examine how friendship influences memory for actions in such interactions. Dyads consisting of either friends or strangers played a competitive card game (Study 1) or the ultimatum game (Studies 2 and 4) and then recalled the interaction. We find that participants remembered friends' play as more competitive (Study 1) and less generous (Studies 2 and 4) than strangers' play, even when friends' actual play was more generous than that of strangers (Studies 2 and 4). Friendship did not affect recall for one's own play. In a workplace setting, Study 3 reveals people expect more of work colleagues who are friends than of work colleagues who are acquaintances. Study 4 tests our complete model and shows that people expect more of friends than of strangers and that this difference in expectations explains the less favorable memory for friend's actions. Our findings are consistent with a negative disconfirmation account whereby people expect their friends to be less competitive and more generous, and when these expectations are violated, people remember friends' actions more negatively than they actually were. Much research shows positive effects of friendship norms on actual behavior. We demonstrate a negative effect on people's memory of friends' behavior in competitive and bargaining social interactions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison of the risk‐taking behaviors of prisoners and non‐prisoners

Do prisoners and non‐prisoners differ in their risk‐taking behavior and the domains where they take risks? Surprisingly little psychological research has addressed these questions, despite the well‐established paradigms and extensive literature on risk taking among non‐prison populations. To fill this gap, we used the Domain‐Specific Risk‐Taking Scale to compare 75 male prisoners' and 75 male non‐prisoners' risk‐taking behavior, risk perception, and risk benefit in five domains (ethical, financial, health, recreational, and social). Our results show that prisoners and non‐prisoners did not differ in their risk‐taking behavior in the ethical, financial, recreational, or social domains. In the health domain, however, prisoners exhibited significantly higher risk‐taking tendencies. With regard to risk perception, prisoners perceived activities as significantly more risky than non‐prisoners, aside from the financial domain where non‐prisoners reported significantly higher risk perception. In all five domains, prisoners perceived risk‐taking activities as offering fewer benefits compared to the non‐prisoner sample. Our results also indicate that risk‐taking activities are better predicted by the expected benefits than by risk perception for both prisoners and non‐prisoners in the recreational, financial, and ethical domains. However, for prisoners, risk taking in the social domain increased with level of perceived benefit. In the health domain, prisoners' risk taking decreased with increasing level of perceived risk, whereas for non‐prisoners, perceived benefits, but not risk perception, predicted risk taking. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Receiving advice on matters of taste: Similarity, majority influence, and taste discrimination

People routinely consider the opinions of others prior to making decisions on matters of taste (e.g., a restaurant or movie). Our theoretical framework highlights the role of two sources, social (majority) influence and similarityamong advisors, in such decisions. We suggest that individuals’ use of these sources depends on their taste discrimination. While highly discriminating judges seek the opinion of a similar advisor rather than the majority opinion, less discriminating judges do so less. In four studies participants made musical choices based on recommendations. The studies document the great appeal of behavioral similarity and the role of demographic similarity. They also provide evidence for the discrimination hypothesis. A formal simulation is developed to account for the relationship between taste discrimination and the predictive accuracy of the majority and of similar advisors. The results shed light on theories of advice utilization and social influence, and are connected with applications involving personalized recommendation systems.     

Rate it again: Using the wisdom of many to improve performance evaluations

Much research shows that judgmental estimation could be improved by combining estimates from independent judges as well as within judges. These results have been obtained mostly with judgments about matters of fact, that is, for which there are objective truth criteria. In the present research, we extend these findings to performance evaluations. In a controlled field study, expert judges provided evaluations of a large number of essays written by college applicants taking college entrance tests. The judges were asked to evaluate each essay twice—on two occasions, a week apart. This design allowed us to assess the benefits of two methods of combining evaluations: within rater and across raters. Accuracy gains were obtained with both methods. Although the within‐rater combinations yielded fewer gains than the across‐rater ones, they were still appreciable in comparison with the across rater ones. Our findings extend the class of judgments to which the “wisdom of many” could be applied. These findings are potentially applicable to performance evaluations in social, educational, and employment settings.     

Advice Taking in Decision Making: Egocentric Discounting and Reputation Formation

Our framework for understanding advice-taking in decision making rests on two theoretical concepts that motivate the studies and serve to explain the findings. The first is egocentric discounting of others' opinions and the second is reputation formation for advisors. Advice discounting is attributed to differential information, namely, the notion that decision makers have privileged access to their internal reasons for holding their own opinion, but not to the advisors' internal reasons. Reputation formation is related to the negativity effect in impression formation and to the trust asymmetry principle. In three studies we measured decision makers' weighting policy for advice and, in a fourth study, their willingness to pay for it. Briefly, we found that advice is discounted relative to one's own opinion, while advisors' reputations are rapidly formed and asymmetrically revised. The asymmetry implies that it may be easier for advisors to lose a good reputation than to gain one. The cognitive and social origins of these phenomena are considered.     

The Role of Unconditional Parental Regard in Autonomy‐Supportive Parenting

Two studies explored the role of parents’ unconditional positive regard (UCPR) as perceived by adolescents and young adults in promoting the effectiveness of specific parenting practices that may support offspring's academic autonomous motivation. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that UCPR predicts rationale‐giving and choice‐provision practices and, at the same time, moderates their relations with adolescents’ autonomous motivation. Study 2 replicated the association between UCPR and the parental practices, and further explored the role of parents’ authenticity as an antecedent of UCPR and parental autonomy support. Study 1 included 125 adolescents and Study 2 considered 128 college‐students and their mothers. The offspring reported on their perceptions of their mothers and on their autonomous motivation, and the mothers reported on their sense of authenticity. Both studies found consistent associations between UCPR and parenting practices that may support autonomous motivation. Moreover, Study 1 demonstrated that the rationale giving and choice provision were more strongly related to adolescents’ autonomous motivation when adolescents perceived mothers as high on UCPR. Finally, Study 2 demonstrated that mothers’ authenticity predicted UCPR, which in turn was related to autonomy‐supportive parenting. Findings support the assumption that parents’ autonomy‐supportive practices are more effective when accompanied by UCPR.     

Exploiting the Wisdom of Others to Make Better Decisions: Suspending Judgment Reduces Egocentrism and Increases Accuracy

Although decision makers often consult other people's opinions to improve their decisions, they fail to do so optimally. One main obstacle to incorporating others' opinions efficiently is one's own opinion. We theorize that decision makers could improve their performance by suspending their own judgment. In three studies, participants used others' opinions to estimate uncertain quantities (the caloric value of foods). In the full‐view condition, participants could form independent estimates prior to receiving others' opinions, whereas participants in the blindfold condition could not form prior opinions. We obtained an intriguing blindfold effect. In all studies, the blindfolded participants provided more accurate estimates than did the full‐view participants. Several policy‐capturing measures indicated that the advantage of the blindfolded participants was due to their unbiased weighting of others' opinions. The full‐view participants, in contrast, adhered to their prior opinion and thus failed to exploit the information contained in others' opinions. Moreover, in all three studies, the blindfolded participants were not cognizant of their advantage and expressed less confidence in their estimates than did the full‐view participants. The results are discussed in relation to theories of opinion revision and group decision making. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.