How Financial Constraints Influence Consumer Behavior: An Integrative Framework

Financial constraints are economic limitations on behavior. Given that millions of people experience chronic or episodic financial constraints, we sought to review research that provides insight into how they affect consumer behavior. We propose an integrative framework that draws insights from multiple literatures that have examined financial constraints from different perspectives. The framework distinguishes between four perspectives, which are rooted in literatures on resource scarcity, choice restriction, social comparison, and environmental uncertainty and highlights different temporal stages of responding to financial constraints, distinguishing between reacting, coping, and adapting. Beyond the obvious negative effects of financial constraints, our framework emphasizes consumer resilience, highlighting that consumers often successfully cope with and devise adaptive strategies to deal with financial constraints. By broadening the behavioral and temporal scope of financial constraints considered within consumer psychology, this framework helps us to understand the often strong and sometimes counterintuitive effects of financial constraints on consumer behavior.     

Behaviors speak louder than explicit reports: Implicit metacognition in 2.5‐year‐old children

Recent research has shown that children as young as age 3.5 show behavioral responses to uncertainty although they are not able to report it explicitly. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that some form of metacognition is already available to guide children's decisions before the age of 3. Two groups of 2.5‐ and 3.5‐year‐old children were asked to complete a forced‐choice perceptual identification test and to explicitly rate their confidence in each decision. Moreover, participants had the opportunity to ask for a cue to help them decide if their response was correct. Our results revealed that all children asked for a cue more often after an incorrect response than after a correct response in the forced‐choice identification test, indicating a good ability to implicitly introspect on the results of their cognitive operations. On the contrary, none of these children displayed metacognitive sensitivity when making explicit confidence judgments, consistent with previous evidence of later development of explicit metacognition. Critically, our findings suggest that implicit metacognition exists much earlier than typically assumed, as early as 2.5 years of age.     

行为经济学在养老储蓄领域的助推应用

“行为经济学之父”Richard Thaler因在行为经济学领域的突出贡献而获2017年诺贝尔经济学奖。Thaler利用行为经济学原理提出了“明日多储蓄”项目, 助推美国养老金储蓄率的提高。在初涉养老金储蓄领域时, Thaler提出采取“自动加入”的方式提高员工养老储蓄参与率; 接着提出采取“自动升级”的方式提高员工的储蓄率, 最终形成了“明日多储蓄”项目。“明日多储蓄”项目具有自由家长主义性质, 不仅能提高员工养老储蓄参与率、储蓄率, 还能优化资产投资配置。该项目产生了深远的影响：在应用层面上, 英国、新西兰等国家跟进推出了类似的养老储蓄政策; 在研究层面上, 一批后继研究者受此启发展开了个体养老金储蓄行为背后心理学机制的探索。结合中国养老储蓄三大支柱发展不平衡的现状, 我们提出可利用框架效应、心理账户、默认选项、将损失程数由双程变为单程等行为经济学手段助推中国养老储蓄的发展。国家可以考虑通过制度设计和政策制定助推全社会养老金参与率和缴纳水平的提高。     

Individuals Intolerant of Uncertainty: The Maintenance of Worry and Distress Despite Reduced Uncertainty

The intolerance of uncertainty model of worry posits that individuals worry as a means to cope with the discomfort they feel when outcomes are uncertain, but few experimental studies have investigated the causal relationships between intolerance of uncertainty, situational uncertainty, and state worry. Furthermore, existing studies have failed to control for the likelihood of future negative events occurring, introducing an important rival hypothesis to explain past findings. In the present study, we examined how individuals with high and low trait intolerance of uncertainty differ in their behavioral, cognitive, and emotional reactions to situational uncertainty about an upcoming negative event (watching emotionally upsetting film clips), holding constant the likelihood of that negative event taking place. We found that although individuals high in trait prospective intolerance of uncertainty reported a higher degree of belief that being provided with detailed information about the upcoming stressor would make them feel more at ease, they did not experience an actual decrease in distress or state worry upon being provided with more information, during anticipation of the film clips, or during the film clips themselves. Our results suggest that heightened distress regarding negative events may be more central than intolerance of uncertainty to the maintenance of worry.     

Anxious attachment as an antecedent of people's aversion towards pattern deviancy

Research suggests that people's aversion towards pattern deviancy—distortions of repeated forms or models—contributes to social phenomena, such as prejudice. Yet, the factors motivating pattern deviancy aversion remain unclear. Potentially, anxious attachment, as it entails hypervigilant detection of and reactivity to social inconsistency and unreliability, heightens pattern deviancy aversion. In Studies 1 (N = 137) and 2 (N = 102), anxious but not avoidant attachment predicted aversion towards broken patterns of geometric shapes. In Studies 3 (N = 310) and 4 (N = 470), experimentally inducing anxious versus avoidant and secure attachment (Study 3), and versus a neutral prime (Study 4), heightened pattern deviancy aversion. Controlling for participants’ aversion towards unbroken patterns, novel objects, and negative stimuli did not change these results. Our findings demonstrate that anxious attachment is one antecedent of pattern deviancy aversion, and suggest that pattern deviancy aversion may underlie links between anxious attachment and certain social phenomena.     

A new spin on losses looming larger than gains: asymmetric implicit associations from slot machine experience

Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory states, among other things, that losses loom larger than gains. As much research as this simple idea has generated, key questions remain. How fundamental is the losses‐looming‐larger effect: will it emerge under more minimal circumstances than previously tested and will it manifest in implicit associations? And how does the actual experience of predominant losses or gains affect the losses‐looming‐larger effect? In two experiments employing non‐traditional methods, participants experienced slot machine spins in which symbols were paired with gain, loss, and neutral outcomes. After experiencing these pairings, participants took Implicit Association Tests (IATs). In Experiment 1, implicit associations formed by the minimal experience of the slot machine were lopsided: negative associations with the loss symbol were stronger than positive associations with the gain symbol. In addition, it was found that the extent to which losses loomed larger depended on the context of the slot machine experience, with losses looming implicitly larger than gains most when they were fewer in number (participants experienced a net‐gain) and least when they were the predominant outcome (participants experienced a net‐loss). Finally, in Experiment 2, a potential artifact was ruled out and a replication obtained by showing that slot machine losses implicitly loom larger whether conceptualized from the perspective of a casino player or a casino owner. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

利他惩罚的认知机制和神经生物基础

利他惩罚是指在团体中与他人合作, 并不惜花费个人代价去惩罚不合作者以维护群体规范的一种利他行为。这种行为所具有的利他特征, 可能是人类在漫长进化过程中形成的一种特定行为模式, 是人类本性的一个组成部分。本文结合已有研究, 总结了可用于研究利他惩罚的主要范式, 回顾了利他惩罚的进化背景, 从大量实证性文献中提炼出 “不公平厌恶”及“心理理论和共情”两个维度来阐释引起利他惩罚行为的认知-情绪加工机制, 并整合了与其相关的脑神经证据, 最后对该研究领域未来的发展方向进行了展望。     

Swimming-induced taste aversion and its prevention by a prior history of swimming

In two experiments, the evidence showed that 20 min of forced swimming by rats caused aversion to a taste solution consumed before swimming. When one of two taste solutions (sodium saccharin or sodium chloride, counterbalanced across rats) was paired with swimming and the other was not, the rats’ intakes of these two solutions showed less consumption of the former than the latter solution. Furthermore, a post-training two-bottle choice test clearly demonstrated long-lasting avoidance of the swimming-paired solution. These results imply that forced swimming acts as an unconditioned stimulus for establishing taste aversion. Preexposure to swimming opportunities before conditioning disrupts such conditioned taste aversion induced by forced swimming.     

Framing and Risky Choice as Influenced by Comparison of One's Achievements with Others: The Case of Investment in the Stock Exchange

Based on social comparison theory and equity theory, the first aim of this study was to examine the hypothesis that framing is affected not only by previous success or failure, but also by comparisons with relevant others' outcomes as well. The second aim of the study was to examine prospect theory propositions that people are risk aversive for gains and risk seeking for losses. A total of 220 students were administered scenarios that described outcomes of their stock investments (gains or losses). In addition, they were provided with information about their close friends' outcomes investing in similar stocks. Generally, the hypothesis regarding the influence of others' outcomes on framing was confirmed. However, results showed that, in contradiction to prospect theory, gain framing rather than loss framing was related to risk seeking behavior. Specifically, in the gain framing situation, the readiness to take risks was highest when the others' outcomes were equal to those of the participants. The limitations of prospect theory are discussed.     

Work Organization, Work Characteristics, and Their Psychological Effects on Nurses in the Netherlands

The aim of the current study was to examine relationships between organizational characteristics, work characteristics, and psychological work reactions in nursing work. We used several theoretical frameworks to select our research variables. In line with the contingency and sociotechnical system approaches, we selected complexity, uncertainty, and decision authority to represent the organizational characteristics. As to the work characteristics, we selected the variables of the Demand–Control–Support model (autonomy, social support, workload), role conflict, and role ambiguity. In order to measure the psychological work reactions, burnout, psychosomatic health complaints, job satisfaction, and intrinsic work motivation were assessed in questionnaires distributed to 1,855 nurses working in general hospitals in the Netherlands. Using correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the main results showed that high decision authority predicted high social support andhigh autonomy. High decision authority predicted high job satisfaction and high intrinsic work motivation. Finally, high complexity was indirectly predictive for high burnout. Workload operated as a mediator variable in this relationship.