Prasad Chandrashekar

People’s beliefs about the public opinion on climate change can play a significant role in determining their own attitudes and likelihood to engage in climate-friendly behavior. However, limited research exists on the perception of consensus and effective ways to inform individuals about public opinion. In this study, we examined whether presenting...

The authors (Isager, Van‘t Veer, & Lakens, 2024) start with the main assumption that researchers' efforts toward replications are constrained by resources, and they propose a simple, practically scalable framework of research replication value that guides the researchers and the scientific community at large intending to achieve bigger bang for the...

Can researchers predict if classic findings published in the field of Social Psychology and Judgment and Decision Making (JDM) replicate? We set up prediction markets and a forecasting survey for predicting replications of 28 experiments classic well-cited articles. Forecasters predicted if the original results would replicate, where a successful r...

The Side-Effect Effect (SEE) is the phenomenon that negative side-effects elicit stronger attributions of intent and blame than intent and praise for positive side-effects. There are similar documented asymmetries showing stronger free will attributions to negative than to positive, and stronger associations between free will attributions and blame...

The Side-Effect Effect (SEE) is the phenomenon that negative side-effects elicit stronger attributions of intent and blame than intent and praise for positive side-effects. There are similar documented asymmetries showing stronger free will attributions to negative than to positive, and stronger associations between free will attributions and blame...

Shafir’s (1993) influential work examined the impact of decision frames (choosing vs. rejecting) on decision-making. Our replication (Chandrashekar et al., 2021), revealed mixed results, with only partial support for the original findings, concluding a successful replication in only two out of eight scenarios. Our data from an exploratory extension...

Pronin and Kugler (2010) proposed that people believe they have more free will than others. In their Experiment 1 they showed that U.S. American students evaluated their own decisions and life events as less predictable than similar decisions and life events of close others, presumably suggesting higher free will attributions. We conducted three pr...

Pronin and Kugler (2010) proposed that people believe they have more free will than others. In their Experiment 1 they showed that U.S. American students evaluated their own decisions and life events as less predictable than similar decisions and life events of close others, presumably suggesting higher free will attributions. We conducted three pr...

A key finding within nudging research is the default effect, where individuals are inclined to stay with a default option when faced with a decision, rather than exploring alternatives (e.g., a preselected job opportunity among two alternatives). Similarly, the study of framing effects delves into how the presentation and context of decisions influ...

In psychological science, replicability—repeating a study with a new sample achieving consistent results (Parsons et al., 2022)—is critical for affirming the validity of scientific findings. Despite its importance, replication efforts are few and far between in psychological science with many attempts failing to corroborate past findings. This scar...

The authors (Isager, Van‘t Veer, & Lakens, 2024) start with the main assumption that researchers' efforts toward replications are constrained by resources, and they propose a simple, practically scalable framework of research replication value that guides the researchers and the scientific community at large intending to achieve bigger bang for the...

The authors (Isager, Van‘t Veer, & Lakens, 2024) start with the main assumption that researchers' efforts toward replications are constrained by resources, and they propose a simple, practically scalable framework of research replication value that guides the researchers and the scientific community at large intending to achieve bigger bang for the...

Recent research has looked at the primacy of moral character assessment in social interactions, focusing on how individuals infer trustworthiness based on others’ moral decisions, particularly in sacrificial moral dilemmas. These dilemmas typically juxtapose utilitarian principles (harm for the greater good) against deontological ethics (inherent r...

If you are trying to persuade someone, expressing your opinion with certainty intuitively seems like a good strategy to maximize your influence. However, Karmarkar and Tormala (2010) found that the effectiveness of this tactic depends on expertise. In three experiments, Karmarkar and Tormala found support for an incongruity hypothesis, whereby non-...

In psychological science, replicability—repeating a study with a new sampleachieving consistent results (Parsons et al., 2022)—is critical for affirming the validity of scientific findings. Despite its importance, replication efforts are few and far between in psychological science with many attempts failing to corroborate past findings. This scarc...

Nudges have gained prominence in both policy development and the study of cognitive biases, yet simultaneous testing of multiple nudges remains relatively unexplored. A key finding within nudging research is the 'default effect,' where individuals are inclined to stay with a default option when faced with a decision, rather than exploring alternati...

People tend to stick with a default option instead of switching to another option. For instance, Johnson and Goldstein (2003) found a default effect in an organ donation scenario: if organ donation is the default option, people are more inclined to consent to it. Johnson et al. (2002) found a similar default effect in a health-survey scenarios: if...

Recent research has looked at how people infer the moral character of others based on how they resolve sacrificial moral dilemmas. Previous studies provide consistent evidence for the prediction that those who endorse outcome-maximizing, utilitarian judgments are disfavored in social dilemmas and are seen as less trustworthy in comparison to those...

We conducted a replication of Shafir (1993) who showed that people are inconsistent in their preferences when faced with choosing versus rejecting decision-making scenarios. The effect was demonstrated using an enrichment paradigm, asking subjects to choose between enriched and impoverished alternatives, with enriched alternatives having more posit...

Malle and Knobe's (1997) Study 1 found that people exhibit a shared understanding of intentionality and apply it consistently in their judgments. The study found that different people tend to judge intentionality similarly, and that intentionality ratings were consistent across a set of behaviors from an actor's or an observer's perspective. Additi...

Malle and Knobe's (1997) Study 1 found that people exhibit a shared understanding of intentionality and apply it consistently in their judgments. The study found that different people tend to judge intentionality similarly, and that intentionality ratings were consistent across a set of behaviors from an actor's or an observer's perspective. Additi...

People tend to stick with a default option instead of switching to another option. For instance, Johnson and Goldstein (2003) found a default effect in an organ donation scenario: if organ donation is the default option, people are more inclined to consent to it. Johnson et al. (2002) found a similar default effect in a health-survey scenarios: if...

Risks and benefits are negatively related in people’s minds. Finucane et al. causally demonstrated that increasing risks of a hazard leads people to judge its benefits as lower. Vice versa, increasing benefits leads people to judge its risks as lower (original: r = −.74 [−0.92, −0.30]). This finding is consistent with an affective explanation, and...

Risks and benefits are negatively related in people’s minds. Finucane et al. (2000) causally ‎demonstrated that increasing risks of a hazard leads people to judge its benefits as lower. Vice ‎versa, increasing benefits leads people to judge its risks as lower (original: r = -0.74[-0.92,-‎‎0.30]). This finding is consistent with an affective explana...

Drawing from institutional economics, we examine how the quality of formal institutions (e.g. protection of property rights, efficiency of the judicial system and government regulations) and a particular aspect of informal institutions, trust, influence the profitability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) vis-à-vis large firms. Our theore...

Bias Blind Spot (BBS) is the phenomenon that people tend to perceive themselves as less susceptible to biases than others. In three pre-registered experiments (overall N = 969), we replicated two experiments of the first demonstration of the phenomenon by Pronin et al. (2002). We found support of the BBS hypotheses, with effects in line with findin...

Bias Blind Spot (BBS) is the phenomenon that people tend to perceive themselves as less ‎susceptible to biases than others. In three pre-registered experiments (overall N = 969), we ‎replicated two experiments of the first demonstration of the phenomenon by Pronin et al. ‎‎(2002). We found support of the BBS hypotheses, with effects in line with fi...

We conducted a replication of Shafir (1993) who showed that people are inconsistent in their ‎preferences when faced with choosing versus rejecting decision-making scenarios. The effect ‎was demonstrated using an enrichment paradigm, asking subjects to choose between enriched ‎and impoverished alternatives, with enriched alternatives having more po...

Mellers, Hertwig, and Kahneman (2001) conducted an adversarial collaboration to try and ‎resolve Hertwig’s contested view that frequency formats eliminate conjunction effects, and that ‎conjunction effects were largely due to semantic ambiguity. We conducted a pre-registered ‎well-powered very close replication ‎(N = 1032), ‎testing two personality...

Research summary This study focuses on a salient challenge for entrepreneurs in emerging economies: government expropriation. Drawing on signaling arguments, we propose that an owner’s high socioeconomic status (SES) attracts government attention to her start‐up by conveying information about its resource endowments. The empirical tests based on st...

People's belief in free will is shown to influence the perception of personal control in self and others. The current study tested the hypothesis that individuals who believe in free will attribute stronger personal blame to obese people and to people with mental illness (schizophrenia) for their adverse health outcomes. Results from a sample of 11...

People effortlessly form trait impressions from faces, and these impressions can affect a variety of important social and economic outcomes. Trait impressions based on facial features can be approximated to distinct dimensions: trustworthiness and dominance (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008). One of the facial features, the facial width-to-height ratio (f...

People's belief in free will is argued to influence the perception of personal control in self and in others. This report tested the hypothesis that individuals who believe in free will attribute stronger personal blame to obese people and to people with mental illness (schizophrenia) for their adverse health outcomes. Results from a sample of 1110...

Mellers, Hertwig, and Kahneman (2001) conducted an adversarial collaboration to try and ‎resolve Hertwig’s contested view that frequency formats eliminate conjunction effects, and that ‎conjunction effects were largely due to semantic ambiguity. We conducted a pre-registered ‎well-powered very close replication ‎(N = 1032), ‎testing two personality...

We linked between the social-psychology and experimental-philosophy paradigms for the study of folk intuitions and beliefs regarding the concept of free will to answer three questions: (1) what intuitions do people have about free-will and determinism? (2) do free will beliefs predict differences in free-will and determinism intuitions? and (3) is...

Increasing evidence supports the importance of beliefs in predicting positive outcomes in life. We examined the performance implications of the belief in free will as an abstract, philosophical belief that views the self as free from internal and external constraints and capable of choosing and directing one's own path. In Study 1 (N = 116, undergr...