Gideon Nave

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Pennsylvania

Punishment is fundamental to the evolution of cooperative norms in teams, organizations, and societies. Based on findings that people are faster when punishing others (relative to when withholding punishment), dual-process theories of punishment assert that humans have an intuitive tendency to punish, which requires effortful deliberation to overco...

Here we test the feasibility of using decision markets to select studies for replication and provide evidence about the replicability of online experiments. Social scientists (n = 162) traded on the outcome of close replications of 41 systematically selected MTurk social science experiments published in PNAS 2015–2018, knowing that the 12 studies w...

The exponential expansion of consumer genetic testing has led to an accumulation of massive genomic data sets owned by governments and firms. The prospect of leveraging genetic data for enhancing consumers' health, well-being, and satisfaction through improved personalization, segmentation, and targeting is promising. Nonetheless, this potential ha...

Obesity has a strong genetic component, with up to 20% of variance in body mass index (BMI) being accounted for by common polygenic variation. Most genetic polymorphisms associated with BMI are related to genes expressed in the central nervous system. At the same time, higher BMI is associated with neurocognitive changes. However, the direct link b...

Many marketing communications, from verbal conversations to messaging and content sharing via apps such as Snapchat, limit the number of times people can view content. How do such restrictions affect consumers’ information processing? Building on the proposition that people strategically allocate cognitive resources, we hypothesize that consumers o...

Obesity has a strong genetic component, with up to 20% of variance in body mass index (BMI) being accounted for by common polygenic variation. Most genetic polymorphisms associated with BMI are related to genes expressed in the central nervous system. At the same time, higher BMI is associated with neurocognitive changes. However, the direct link b...

Socioeconomic status (SES) anchors individuals in their social network layers. Our embedding in the societal fabric resonates with habitus, world view, opportunity, and health disparity. It remains obscure how distinct facets of SES are reflected in the architecture of the central nervous system. Here, we capitalized on multivariate multi-output le...

Socioeconomic status (SES) anchors individuals in their social network layers. Our embedding in the societal fabric resonates with habitus, world view, opportunity, and health disparity. It remains obscure how distinct facets of SES are reflected in the architecture of the central nervous system. Here, we capitalized on multivariate multi-output le...

Socioeconomic status (SES) correlates with brain structure, a relation of interest given the long-observed relations of SES to cognitive abilities and health. Yet, major questions remain open, in particular, the pattern of causality that underlies this relation. In an unprecedently large study, here, we assess genetic and environmental contribution...

Interpreting a failure to replicate is complicated by the fact that the failure could be due to the original finding being a false positive, unrecognized moderating influences between the original and replication procedures, or faulty implementation of the procedures in the replication. One strategy to maximize replication quality is involving the...

Heavy alcohol consumption has been associated with brain atrophy, neuronal loss, and poorer white matter fiber integrity. However, there is conflicting evidence on whether light-to-moderate alcohol consumption shows similar negative associations with brain structure. To address this, we examine the associations between alcohol intake and brain stru...

The sex steroid hormone testosterone regulates male-typical behaviors such as aggression and displays of dominance in non-human animals. According to the Challenge Hypothesis, these effects arise from context-sensitive testosterone increases that facilitate inter-male competitions over resources, status, and mates. A growing literature documents si...

Recent studies report that socioeconomic status (SES) correlates with brain structure. Yet, such findings are variable and little is known about underlying causes. We present a well-powered voxel-based analysis of grey matter volume (GMV) across levels of SES, finding many small SES effects widely distributed across the brain, including cortical, s...

Previous research points to the heritability of risk-taking behaviour. However, evidence on how genetic dispositions are translated into risky behaviour is scarce. Here, we report a genetically informed neuroimaging study of real-world risky behaviour across the domains of drinking, smoking, driving and sexual behaviour in a European sample from th...

It has been suggested that there are two distinct and parallel mechanisms for controlling instrumental behavior in mammals: goal-directed actions and habits. To gain an understanding of how these two systems interact to control behavior, it is essential to characterize the mechanisms by which the balance between these systems is influenced by exper...

It has been suggested that there are two distinct and parallel mechanisms for controlling instrumental behavior in mammals: goal-directed actions and habits. To gain an understanding of how these two systems interact to control behavior, it is essential to characterize the mechanisms by which the balance between these systems is influenced by exper...

Research in the field of multisensory perception shows that what we hear can influence what we see in a wide range of perceptual tasks. It is however unknown whether this extends to the visual perception of risk, despite the importance of the question in many applied domains where properly assessing risk is crucial, starting with financial trading....

Economic preferences may be shaped by exposure to sex hormones around birth. Prior studies of economic preferences and numerous other phenotypic characteristics use digit ratios (2D : 4D), a purported proxy for prenatal testosterone exposure, whose validity has recently been questioned. We use direct measures of neonatal sex hormones (testosterone...

Humans survive and thrive through social exchange. Yet, social dependency also comes at a cost. Perceived social isolation, or loneliness, affects physical and mental health, cognitive performance, overall life expectancy, and increases vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease-related dementias. Despite severe consequences on behavior and health, the n...

Advances in molecular genetics have led to the exponential growth of the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry, resulting in the assembly of massive privately-owned genetic databases. This article explores the potential impact of this new data type on the field of marketing. Drawing on findings from behavioral genetic research, we propose a f...

We propose that autonomy is a crucial aspect of consumer choice. We offer a definition that situates autonomy among related constructs in philosophy and psychology, contrast actual with perceived autonomy in consumer contexts, examine the resilience of perceived autonomy, and sketch out an agenda for research into the role of perceived autonomy in...

The proliferation of media streaming services has increased the volume of personalized video consumption, allowing marketers to reach massive audiences and deliver a range of customized content at scale. However, relatively little is known about how consumers’ psychological makeup is manifested in their media preferences. The present paper addresse...

The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) has been associated with sexual dimorphism, with a lower 2D:4D in males. A large body of research has relied on the 2D:4D as a proxy for prenatal androgen exposure, and includes reports of relationships between 2D:4D and a wide range of human traits. Here, we examine the validity of the 2D:4D proxy by studyi...

The ratio of length between the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) is commonly used as an indicator of prenatal sex hormone exposure. Several approaches have been used to try to validate the measure, including examining 2D:4D in people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a suite of conditions characterised by elevated adrenal androgen product...

As part of the Many Labs 5 project, we ran a replication of van Dijk, van Kleef, Steinel, and van Beest’s (2008) study examining the effect of emotions in negotiations. They reported that when the consequences of rejection were low, subjects offered fewer chips to angry bargaining partners than to happy partners. We ran this replication under three...

Risen and Gilovich (2008) found that subjects believed that “tempting fate” would be punished with ironic bad outcomes (a main effect), and that this effect was magnified when subjects were under cognitive load (an interaction). A previous replication study (Frank & Mathur, 2016) that used an online implementation of the protocol on Amazon Mechanic...

Knight, McShane, et al. (2020) report three experiments on testosterone’s effect on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). The experiments were designed and executed independently of each other and of our previous work (Nave, Nadler, Zava & Camerer, 2017). We thank Knight, McShane, et al. for conducting these experiments and summarizing their results...

The ratio of length between the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) is commonly used as an indicator of prenatal sex hormone exposure. Several approaches have been used to try to validate the measure, including examining 2D:4D in people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a suite of conditions characterised by elevated adrenal androgen product...

The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) has been associated with sexual dimorphism, with a lower 2D:4D in males. A large body of research has relied on the 2D:4D as a proxy for prenatal androgen exposure, and includes reports of relationships between 2D:4D and a wide range of human traits. Here, we examine the validity of the 2D:4D proxy by studyi...

Alcohol consumption can have significant deleterious consequences, including brain atrophy, neuronal loss, poorer white matter fiber integrity, and cognitive decline, but the effects of light-to-moderate alcohol consumption on brain structure remain unclear. Here we examine the associations between alcohol intake and brain structure using structura...

Many forms of communication, from verbal conversations to leading digital apps such as Snapchat and Telegram, limit the number of times people can examine stimuli. I investigate how this restriction affects processing of received information. Building on the notion that people strategically allocate cognitive resources, this research proposes that...

Interpreting a failure to replicate is complicated by the fact that the failure could be due to the original finding being a false positive, unrecognized moderating influences between the original and replication procedures, or faulty implementation of the procedures in the replication. One strategy to maximize replication quality is involving the...

We measure how accurately replication of experimental results can be predicted by black-box statistical models. With data from four large-scale replication projects in experimental psychology and economics, and techniques from machine learning, we train predictive models and study which variables drive predictable replication. The models predicts b...

Previous research points to the heritability of risk-taking behaviour. However, evidence on how genetic dispositions are translated into risky behaviour is scarce. Here, we report a genetically-informed neuroimaging study of real-world risky behaviour across the domains of drinking, smoking, driving, and sexual behaviour, in a European sample from...

Previous research points to the heritability of risk-taking behavior. However, evidence on how genetic dispositions are translated into risky behavior is scarce. Here, we report a genetically-informed neuroimaging study of real-world risky behavior in a large European sample (N=12,675). We found negative associations between risky behavior and grey...

Replications in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If replications use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data collection peer...

As part of the Many Labs 5 project, we ran a replication of Van Dijk, Van Kleef, Steinel, & Van Beest’s (2008) study “A social functional approach to emotions in bargaining: When communicating anger pays and when it backfires,” which examined the effect of emotions in negotiations. Van Dijk et al. (2008) report that when the consequences of rejecti...

The capacity to infer the mental states of others (known as cognitive empathy) is essential for social interactions, and a well-known theory proposes that it is negatively affected by intrauterine testosterone exposure. Furthermore, previous studies reported that testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy adults, and that a b...

Android robots that resemble humans closely, but not perfectly, can provoke negative feelings of dislike and eeriness in humans (the “Uncanny Valley” effect). We investigated whether category confusion between the perceptual categories of “robot” and “human” contributes to Uncanny Valley aversion. Using a novel, validated corpus of 182 images of re...

Android robots that are close, but imperfect, likenesses of humans can provoke negative feelings of dislike and eeriness in humans (“Uncanny Valley” effect). We investigated whether category confusion between the perceptual categories of “robot” and “human” contributes to Uncanny Valley aversion. Using a novel, validated corpus of 182 images of rea...

We measure how accurately replication of experimental results can be predicted by a black-box statistical model. With data from four large- scale replication projects in experimental psychology and economics, and techniques from machine learning, we train a predictive model and study which variables drive predictable replication.The model predicts...

The capacity to infer the mental states of others (known as cognitive empathy) is essential for social interactions, and a well-known theory proposes that it is negatively affected by intrauterine testosterone exposure. Furthermore, previous studies reported that testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy adults, and that a b...

A positive relationship between brain volume and intelligence has been suspected since the 19th century, and empirical studies seem to support this hypothesis. However, this claim is controversial because of concerns about publication bias and the lack of systematic control for critical confounding factors (e.g., height, population structure). We c...

Being able to replicate scientific findings is crucial for scientific progress. We replicate 21 systematically selected experimental studies in the social sciences published in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. The replications follow analysis plans reviewed by the original authors and pre-registered prior to the replications. The replicati...

Supplementary Information

Being able to replicate scientific findings is crucial for scientific progress. We replicate 21 systematically selected experimental studies in the social sciences published in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. The replications follow analysis plans reviewed by the original authors and pre-registered prior to the replications. The replicati...

The impact of testosterone on decision-making is a growing literature, with several reports of economically relevant outcomes. Similar to Wibral et al. (2012), we investigate the effects of exogenous testosterone administration on deception in a double-blind placebo controlled study. Participants (N = 242) were asked to roll a die in private and we...

In modern human cultures where social hierarchies are ubiquitous, people typically signal their hierarchical position through consumption of positional goods—goods that convey one’s social position, such as luxury products. Building on animal research and early correlational human studies linking the sex steroid hormone testosterone with hierarchic...

Research over the past decade has shown that various personality traits are communicated through musical preferences. One limitation of that research is external validity, as most studies have assessed individual differences in musical preferences using self-reports of music-genre preferences. Are personality traits communicated through behavioral...

Research over the past decade has shown that various personality traits are communicated through musical preferences. One limitation of that research is external validity, as most studies have assessed individual differences in musical preferences using self-reports of music-genre preferences. Are personality traits communicated through behavioral...

The sex steroid testosterone regulates reproductive behaviors such as intra-male fighting and mating in non-humans. Correlational studies have linked testosterone with aggression and disorders associated with poor impulse control, but the neuropsychological processes at work are poorly understood. Building on a dual-process framework, we propose a...

Significance Building on recent advancements in the assessment of psychological traits from digital footprints, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of psychological mass persuasion—that is, the adaptation of persuasive appeals to the psychological characteristics of large groups of individuals with the goal of influencing their behavior. On t...

People are exposed to persuasive communication across many different contexts: governments, companies, and political parties use persuasive appeals to encourage people to eat healthier, purchase a particular product, or vote for a specific candidate. Laboratory studies show that such persuasive appeals are more effective in influencing behavior whe...

We study dynamic unstructured bargaining with deadlines and one-sided private information about the amount available to share (the “pie size”). Using mechanism design theory, we show that given the players’ incentives, the equilibrium incidence of bargaining failures (“strikes”) should increase with the pie size, and we derive a condition under whi...

Loss aversion is a well-known behavioral regularity in financial decision-making, describing humans’ tendency to overweigh losses compared to gains of the same amount. Recent research indicates that stress and associated hormonal changes affect loss aversion, yet the underlying neuroendocrine mechanisms are still poorly understood. Here, we investi...

The compromise effect (CE), according to which consumers tend to prefer options that are positioned as an intermediate option in a given set of options over extreme alternatives, ranks among the most prominent context effects in consumer psychology (Neumann, Böckenholt, & Sinha, 2015). Contrary to popular opinion, consumers’ product choices are not...

The compromise effect (CE), according to which consumers tend to prefer options that are positioned as an intermediate option in a given set of options over extreme alternatives, ranks among the most prominent context effects in consumer psychology (Neumann, Böckenholt, & Sinha, 2015). Contrary to popular opinion, consumers’ product choices are not...

Psychological and physiological states such as mood, hunger, stress and sleep deprivation are known to affect decision-making processes and therefore crucially impact consumer behavior. A possible biological mechanism underlying the observed variability of consumer behavior is the context-sensitive variation in the levels of neuromodulators in the...

A critical component of both economic and perceptual decision making under uncertainty is the belief-formation process. However, most research has studied belief formation in economic and perceptual decision making in isolation. One reason for this separate treatment may be the assumption that there are distinct psychological mechanisms that underl...

The neurohormone oxytocin (OT) has been one the most studied peptides in behavioural sciences over the past two decades. Primarily known for its crucial role in labour and lactation, a rapidly growing literature suggests that intranasal OT (IN-OT) may also play a role in the emotional and social lives of humans. However, the lack of a convincing th...

The neurohormone oxytocin (OT) has been one the most studied peptides in behavioral sciences over the past two decades. Primarily known for its crucial role in labor and lactation, a rapidly growing literature suggests that intranasal OT (IN-OT) may also play a role in humans’ emotional and social lives. However, the lack of a convincing theoretica...

Another social science looks at itself Experimental economists have joined the reproducibility discussion by replicating selected published experiments from two top-tier journals in economics. Camerer et al. found that two-thirds of the 18 studies examined yielded replicable estimates of effect size and direction. This proportion is somewhat lower...

Significance Most forms of cooperative behavior take place in a mutually beneficial context where cooperation is risky as its success depends on unknown actions of others. In two pharmacological experiments, we show that intranasal administration of arginine vasopressin (AVP), a hormone that regulates mammalian social behaviors such as monogamy and...

Behavioral neuroscientists have shown that the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) plays a key role in social attachment and affiliation in nonhuman mammals. Inspired by this initial research, many social scientists proceeded to examine the associations of OT with trust in humans over the past decade. To conduct this work, they have (a) examined the effects...

Background: Past research linked Toxoplasma gondii (TG) infection in humans with neurological and mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and attention disorders), irregularities of the dopaminergic and testosterone system, and increased likelihood of being involved in traffic accidents. Methodology/principal findings: We test...

The compromise effect, according to which consumers tend to prefer options that are positioned as a compromise in a given set of options over extreme alternatives, ranks among the most prominent context effects in consumer behavior. Yet, while prior research found significant support for the compromise effect even in market-like choices on low-pric...

Steady-state evoked potentials (SSEP) are the electrical activity recorded from the scalp in response to high-rate sensory stimulation. SSEP consist of a constituent frequency component matching the stimulation rate, whose amplitude and phase remain constant with time and are sensitive to functional changes in the stimulated sensory system. Monitor...

Mixing unrelated musical sessions is a new form of music creation, driven by the increasing popularity of media-sharing web sites such as YouTube and MySpace. The basic questions addressed in the present paper are which musical features are required for matching two musical pieces, how to decide if two musical pieces are compatible and how to measu...