Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Inconsistency Between Behavior and Values

Abstract

People confronting potentially undesirable situations frequently must choose between action and inaction, and the choice people most admire may not correspond with the choice they make. Three studies examined the discrepancy between values and personal choices in the face of potentially undesirable situations. Across all studies participants perceived action as more admirable than inaction, and their positive perception of action did not waver even when action was difficult and likely to be ineffective. However, participants strongly preferred inaction over action for themselves except when action was efficient. We discuss implications of these findings for predicting and guiding responses to various life challenges.

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Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Inconsistency Between
Behavior and Values
Kate Sweeny
a
, James A. Shepperd
b
& Jennifer L. Howell
b
a
University of California, Riverside
b
University of Florida
Available online: 06 Apr 2012
To cite this article: Kate Sweeny, James A. Shepperd & Jennifer L. Howell (2012): Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Inconsistency
Between Behavior and Values, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 34:2, 128-135
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Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Inconsistency Between
Behavior and Values
Kate Sweeny
University of California, Riverside
James A. Shepperd and Jennifer L. Howell
University of Florida
People confronting potentially undesirable situations frequently must choose between
action and inaction, and the choice people most admire may not correspond with the
choice they make. Three studies examined the discrepancy between values and personal
choices in the face of potentially undesirable situations. Across all studies participants
perceived action as more admirable than inaction, and their positive perception of
action did not waver even when action was difficult and likely to be ineffective. How-
ever, participants strongly preferred inaction over action for themselves except when
action was efficient. We discuss implications of these findings for predicting and guiding
responses to various life challenges.
Many people are familiar with the Latin phrase carpe
diem, which loosely translates to mean ‘‘s eize the day.’’
The expression originates from the Greek poet Horace
(trans. 1882) who encouraged his readers to take advan-
tage of life’s opportunities. In some sense, the expression
embodies the value of taking action, and it seems quite
clear that people generally value and admire action over
inaction (Gilovich & Medvec, 1994; McElroy & Dowd,
2007; Rajagopal, Raju, & Unnava, 2006). But do these
values trans late into behavior? That is, do people who
value action in a particular situation respond with
action when given a choice? In three studies we examine
whether people confronting potentially undesirable
situations show consistency in what they value and
how they chose to behave.
DO AS I SAY ...
In general, people confronting potentially undesirable
situations are expected to ‘‘tak e the bull by the horns’’
and remedy the situation. Moreover, observers feel
greater admiration for people who take action in these
situations than for people who do not. For example,
participants in one study evaluated hypothetical
decision makers who had or had not taken action across
a variety of scenarios (e.g., a dog owner walking a dog, a
dieter avoiding a doughnut, a teenager using a condom).
In general, participants viewed decision makers as less
foolish and agreed more with their behavior when they
perceived the decision makers as active rather than inac-
tive (Niedermayer & Chapman, 2001).
Field studies of elected officials also appear to dem-
onstrate greater admiration for action than for inac-
tion. For instance, presidents who serve their terms
during wartime are more likely to be reelected than
non-wartime presidents (Miller, Wattenberg, &
Malanchuk, 1986). One reason proposed for this
reelection trend is that voters interpret presidents’
wartime decisions as tangible actions that combat
threats to the country’s collective well-being (Norpoth
& Sidman, 2007). Similarly, in school board elections
challengers are more likely to defeat incumbents when
voters feel that incumbents failed to take action to
improve student learning during their terms (Berry &
Howell, 2007).
Correspondence should be sent to Kate Sweeny, Department of
Psychology, University of California, 900 University Avenue, River-
side, CA 92521. E-mail: ksweeny@ucr.edu
BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 34:128–135, 2012
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0197-3533 print=1532-4834 online
DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2012.655998
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Perhaps the most direct evidence that people admire
action over inaction, particularly in the face of a poten-
tially undesirable situation, comes from a pilot study we
conducted in which 158 undergraduates read two sce-
narios in counterbalanced order. The scenarios asked
participants to imagine their best fri end responding to
‘‘some bad news’’ with either action (described as spe-
cific actions directed toward addressing the situation,
including information seeking, attempts to prevent the
situation from worsening, etc.) or inaction (described
as a ‘‘wait and see’’ mentality, going about life as usual,
etc.). Participants then indicated how they would view
their friend if she or he responded to bad news in each
way. As expected, participants overwhelmingly rated
action as more admirable than inaction.
... NOT AS I DO
Although the evidence suggests that people admire
action in the face of potentially undesirable situations,
when it comes to personal behavior people appear to
prefer inaction. Most relevant is resear ch on the omis-
sion bias, which reveals that risks incurred by action
loom larger than risks incurred by inaction, and thus
people often choose inaction even when an objective risk
analysis suggests that action is preferable (Anderson,
2003; Baron & Ritov, 2004; Spranca, Minsk, & Baron,
1991). For example, in one series of studies participants
consistently chose not to vaccinate a hypothetical child
when the vaccination carried a slight risk of death, even
though the risk of death without vaccination was far
higher (Ritov & Baron, 1990). That is, participants pre-
ferred the potential consequen ces of inaction (i.e., death
from disease) over the consequences of action (i.e., death
from vaccination). One explanation for the omission
bias is that people feel less culpable for the consequen ces
of inaction (Kordes-de Vaal, 1999), suggesting that per-
haps peop le prefer to err on the side of inaction when
faced with a choice between action and inaction. How-
ever, some researchers have argued that the omission
bias does not exist and is instead a reflection of a prefer-
ence for normative behavior (e.g., Connolly & Reb,
2003; Patt & Zeckhauser, 2000; Tanner & Medlin, 2004).
A limitation of these and other studies examining the
choice between action and inaction (e.g., Waters, Wein-
stein, Colditz, & Emmons, 2007, 2009) is that they typi-
cally present people with hypothetical situations, and it
remains somewhat unclear what choice participants
would actually make if faced with a real choice between
action and inaction (cf. Carlin & Robinson, 2009).
Indeed, at least some research suggests that what people
say they will do maps poorly onto what people actually
do (van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Welch, as
cited in Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005).
Thus, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about
personal preferences for action versus inaction in
potentially undesirable situations based on the current
literature.
THE ROLE OF EFFICIENCY
Research on what people admire versus what they do is
far from conclusive, but it suggests that people admire
action yet lean toward inaction when facing real beha-
vioral choices in potentially undesirable situations.
How do we account for this inconsistency? Although
undoubtedly many factors contribute, we propose that
the inconsistency primarily arises from a difference in
construal, which influences the likelihood that people
will consider the efficiency of action (i.e., how easy and
effective action is likely to be
1
) when choosing whether
or not to act and when choosing what they admire.
Construal-level theory suggests that predictions, evalua-
tions, and choices, as well as a host of other constructs,
can vary in construal level, ranging from abstract to
concrete (Trope & Liberman, 2010). For example,
people typically construe real people and events at a
concrete level and construe hypothetical people and
events at an abstract level (Trope & Liberman, 2010).
Following this logic, we suggest that like hypothetical
decisions, people are also likely to construe value judg-
ments (i.e., judgments about what they admire) more
abstractly than actual behavior. Judgments about what
people admire are similar to hypothetical decisions in
that they are unconstrained by inconvenient realities
and bear few or no costs. In contrast, real behavioral
decisions must take into account practical concerns
about costs of effort, time, and money, and perhaps
the closure of opportunities to behave otherwise.
It is important to note that construal level affects the
kind of information people bring to bear in making deci-
sions. When contemplating abstractly construed events,
people focus more on generalities and issues of desir-
ability. In contrast, when contemplating concretely con-
strued events, people focus more on specific details and
issues of feasibility (Trope & Liberman, 2003). Thus,
people are likely to bring to mind different considera-
tions when deciding what they admire, which is an
abstractly construed decision, and how to behave, which
is a concretely construed decision. Perhaps most
notably, people are more inclined to consider the
1
We use the term ‘‘efficiency’’ here and throughout the article to
refer to the ease and effectiveness of action. Although our usage of
the term ‘‘efficiency’’ is similar in meaning to the more common terms
‘‘utility’’ or ‘‘expected utility,’’ these terms have a specific and distinct
meaning in the context of economic theory (see Bernoulli, 1954; von
Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944).
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efficiency of action when choosing whether to act than
when choosing what they admire. Some preliminary
support for this possibility appears in a study showing
that people focus on the ‘‘cons’’ or costs of action
(i.e., how efficient action is) when the behavioral
decision is in the near future, and thus concretely con-
strued, but not when the decision is in the more distant
future (Eyal, Liberman, Trope, & Walther, 2004).
Evidence regarding health decisions further supports
the importance of efficiency concerns in behavioral deci-
sions (but not decisions about what people admire) and
provides the most relevant evidence for how people
behave in the face of a potentially undesirable situation.
People are far more likely to undergo health screenings
when they believe both that the screening will be effec-
tive for detecting disease and that the disease is control-
lable (i.e., when the health behavior is efficient; Shiloh,
Ben-Sinai, & Keinan, 1999). This finding is unsurprising
in light of one model of stress management that suggests
that people will respond to stress with action only if they
believe that their ‘‘investment’’ (e.g., of effort, time,
money, etc.) will be worth their ultimate gains (Hobfoll,
1989).
OVERVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
People frequently face choices between action and inac-
tion in health, professional, and personal domains, and
the consequences of their choices can be quite signifi-
cant. To our knowledge, our studies are the first to com-
pare people’s perceptions of action versus inaction with
their personal choices in response to potentially undesir-
able situations. We chose to present participants with
potentially undesirable situations (i.e., situations in
which they face a potential setback or loss) rather than
situations that present an opportunity for gain as the
most stringent test of our hypotheses. Prospect theory
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) suggests that people are
loss averse. Accordingly, they should be more likely to
take action to avoid a loss rather than acquire a gain.
Thus, we reasoned that undesirable situations would
present the strongest test of our hypothesis that people
will be unlikely to take action despite viewing action
as the admirable response.
In three studies we examined how people regard the
responses of action and inaction in others (i.e., how
admirable they perceive each response to be) and which
response they personally prefer when offered a choice in
the context of a potentially undesirable situation. In Stu-
dies 1 and 2, participants learned about a forthcoming
undesirable situation, then evaluated the planned
responses of others and reported how they personally
planned to respond. Study 3 manipulated the efficiency
of action and again explored participants’ evaluation
of the planned responses of others and how they person-
ally planned to respond. We predicted that participants
would perceive action to be more admirable than inac-
tion in the context of a potentially undesirable situation.
However, we predicted that participants would opt for
inaction for themselves unless action was efficient.
Further, we predicted that efficiency concerns would
affect behavior but not values.
STUDY 1
Methods
Although many situations present opportunities for
action, we chose to compare values and decisions in a
context important to undergraduate students: the news
of impending comprehensive exams at their university.
On arri val at the laboratory, participants (74 undergrad-
uates, 78% female, recruited through the web-based par-
ticipant pool) learned from the experimenter that their
university was introducing comprehensive examinations
as a requirement for graduation beginning as soon as a
year from the time of the study.
Participants next read in random order the responses
of two students. The responses were fictitious, but part-
icipants believed that previous participants in the study
provided them. One response represented the active
response and was depicted as follows: ‘‘This situation
needs to be addressed, and I plan to take action. I will
investigate the situation further and then take whatever
action I can to change it.’’ The second response repre-
sented the inactive response and was depicted as follows:
‘‘I’ll just wait and see what happens. I’ll keep myself
informed about the situation, but I won’t take action
right now.’’ After reading each description, participants
rated the response on a number of dimensions, including
a Likert-type measure of how admirable the response
was, from 1 (strongly disagree)to9(strongly agree)
(M ¼ 6.41, SD ¼ 1.22). Participants repeated this pro-
cedure for both students’ response descriptions.
Finally, participants reported how they personally
planned to respond to the news that they would soon
be required to take comprehensive exams. Specifically,
they read two possible responses corresponding to the
students’ descriptions (i.e., active vs. inactive). Parti-
cipants indicated which response they were more likely
to choose. Participants were then fully debriefed and
assured that their university was not instituting compre-
hensive exams.
Results and Discussion
A paired-samples t test revealed that participants rated
action (M ¼ 7.2, SD ¼ 1.39) as more admirable than
130
SWEENY, SHEPPERD, HOWELL
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inaction (M ¼ 5.6, SD ¼ 1.93), t(73) ¼ 5.75, p < .0001,
r
es
¼ .56. In contrast to their perceptions were parti-
cipants’ reports of how they personally would respond
to the news of comprehensive exams. Sixty participants
indicated that they would respond with inaction com-
pared with only 10 who indicated that they would
respond with action. We conducted a Pearson’s
chi-square test to examine the distribution of personal
response choices. Even when compared with the con-
servative expected value of 50% (i.e., 35 choosing action
and 35 choosing inaction),
2
the difference in choice was
quite significant, v
2
(1, N ¼ 70) ¼ 35.72, p < .001, U ¼ .38.
In short, the response that participants viewed as most
admirable was not the response they chose themselves.
It is possible that a subgroup of participants parti-
cularly admired inaction and that these participants
were responsible for the overall preference for inaction,
rather than the preference reflecting a general disconnect
between values and behavior across participants. To test
this alternative possibility, we conducted a logistic
regression analysis in which ratings of action as admir-
able were entered as a predictor of personal response
choice. Analysis revealed no relationship between
admirability ratings and personal response choice
(b ¼ .01, p ¼ .94).
STUDY 2
As noted in the introduction, the inconsistency between
the response people admire in others and the response
they choose for themselves may reflect a perception that
personal action is inefficient. That is, participants may
have felt that taking action was a poor use of their time,
or would likely require more effort than they were will-
ing to expend. If efficiency concerns are responsible for
participants’ personal choices in Study 1, then efficiency
concerns should predict whether participants personally
choose action over inaction. For Study 2 we predicted
that the more participants perceive action as efficient,
the more they will report that they would personally
choose action in response to the news of comprehensive
exams. However, we also predicted that efficiency con-
cerns would likely be unrelated to which response part-
icipants admire.
Methods
The procedures were largely the same as the procedures
in Study 1, with a few exceptions. As in Study 1, parti-
cipants (78 undergraduates, 78% female, recruited
through the web-based participant pool) learned that
their university was introducing comprehensive exams
as a requirement for graduation beginning as soon as
a year from the time of the study. However, participants
in Study 2 did not rate other students’ reactions to the
news. Instead, participants first completed a question-
naire about their perceptions of the news itself. Embed-
ded in this questionnaire were five items measuring
perceptions of the efficiency of action in response to
the news (‘‘Attempting to stop these exams from hap-
pening is a waste of energy,’’ ‘‘I don’t have the time it
would take to protest the comprehensive exams and
keep them from happening,’’ ‘‘It would not be a wise
use of my time to participate in protes ts against compre-
hensive exams,’’ ‘‘Other things in my life would get in
the way of fighting against the new comprehensive exam
policy,’’ ‘‘It is a wise use of time and energy to protest
the new comprehensive exam policy ’’), from 1 (strongly
disagree)to9(strongly agree ). We combined these items
to form an index of efficiency and coded them so that
higher values reflect perceiving action as more efficient
(a ¼ .81).
Participants then selected their personal response to
the news, as in Study 1. In addition to choosing between
action and inaction, participants provided their response
preference on a continuous item that asked how person-
ally desirable each response was (1 ¼not at all desirable,
9 ¼very desirable). Finally, participants imagined a stu-
dent responding with action or with inaction and indi-
cated which response they believed to be most
admirable. Participants also rated each response in
terms of how admirable they perceived it to be (1 ¼ not
at all admirable,9¼very admirable). Participants were
then fully debriefed.
Results and Discussion
Although as in Study 1 participants overwhelmingly
opted for inaction over action in response to a poten-
tially undesir able situation (56 chose inaction, eight
chose action), consistent with predictions participants
overwhelmingly report ed action as the more admirable
response (62 chose action, 13 chose inaction),
3
v
2
(1,
N ¼ 64) ¼ 68.01, p < .0001, U ¼ .70.
2
To be thorough, we included two other possible responses. These
responses represented acceptance (‘‘I’m sure the university will do
whatever they want anyway, so there’s no point in taking action. I
guess I’ll just accept it’’) and nonresponding (‘‘I don’t even want to
think about it. I’m just going to pretend nothing’s happening and hope
it goes away’’). However, only three participants selected these
responses (one additional participant did not provide a response), thus
we excluded them from analysis.
3
As with Study 1, we included acceptance and nonresponding as
choices. However, only 12 participants opted for one of these
responses. These participants were excluded from analyses involving
response choices. In addition, two participants failed to choose a
response.
DO AS I SAY (NOT AS I DO)
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We next examined how our measures of efficiency
concerns and controllability correlated with the
response ratings (measured continuously). We hypothe-
sized that efficiency concerns and controllability would
predict personal preferences for action but not percep-
tions of action as admirable. Statistical analyses sup-
ported our predictions. As hypothesized, efficiency
concerns predicted personal preference for action,
r(78) ¼ .47, p < .0001. That is, the more participants
viewed action as efficient, the more they preferred action
as a response. In contrast, efficiency concerns did not
significantly predict perceiving a ction as admirable,
r(78) ¼ .20, p ¼ .08.
We once again investigated the possibility that per-
ceptions of action as admirable predicted personal
response choices. In this case, we calculated a Pearson’s
chi-square test examining the relationship between
choices of the most admirable response with personal
response choices and once again found no relationship,
v
2
(1, N ¼ 63) ¼ 1.94, p ¼ .16, U ¼ .17.
In sum, Study 2 replicated Study 1 in that parti-
cipants personally opted for inaction over action, yet
viewed action as the admirable response to the news.
In addition, Study 2 provided preliminary support for
our explanation that efficiency concerns are related to
the inconsistency between personal preferences and the
response participants viewed as most admirable. Specifi-
cally, efficiency con cerns predicted participants’ per-
sonal response preferences, such that the more
participants perceived action as efficient, the more likely
they were to say they would take action in response to
the news of comprehensive exams. On the other hand,
efficiency concerns were unrelated to perceptions of
action as admirable. These findings are largely consist-
ent with the explanation that people consider the utility
of their efforts when they choose how they personally
will respond to a potentially undesirable situation, but
not when they evaluate the value of different responses.
STUDY 3
Study 2 suggests that the inconsistency between the
response people view as most admirable and the response
they choose for themselves is moderated by efficiency
considerations. However, the data are correlational.
Study 3 experimentally manipulated efficiency considera-
tions to provide a more rigorous test of this possible mod-
erator. In Study 3 we described action as relatively
efficient (requiring little effort and likely to have a posi-
tive effect) or inefficient (requiring a great deal of effort
and unlikely to have an effect). We had two hypotheses.
First, we hypothesized that the preference for inaction
over action would disappear when action was depicted
as efficient. Second, we hypothesized that efficiency
concerns would have no effect on how admirable parti-
cipants perceived action to be, consistent with the results
of Study 2.
Methods
The procedures were almost identical to the procedures
in Study 2. Participants (49 undergraduates, 71%
female, recruited through the web-based participant
pool) once again learned that their university would be
introducing compreh ensive exams as a requirement for
graduation beginning as soon as a year from the time
of the study. However, the cover story had an additional
component that introduced the manipulation of
efficiency. In the high-effici ency condition, action was
described as involving little effort (i.e., signing a pe t-
ition) and relatively likely to change the exam policy.
4
In the low-efficiency condition, action was de scribed as
effortful (i.e., starting a petition drive, writing letters
to the university president, attending and speaking at a
forthcoming hearing regarding the exams) and unlikely
to change the exam policy.
Participants next completed the same questionnaire
used in Study 2 that measured their pe rceptions of the
news; how they personally planned to respond to the
news, both as a forced-choice item and as a continuous
measure of their response preference; and finally the
extent to which they pe rceived someone who engaged
in action and inaction as admirable (also as a
forced-choice item and as a continuous measure for each
response).
Results and Discussion
Consistent with Studies 1 and 2, participants overwhelm-
ingly opted for inaction over action in response to a
potentially undesirable situation, yet they consistently
reported action as the most admirable response, v
2
(1,
N ¼ 44
5
) ¼ 17.08, p < .01, U ¼ .44 (see Table 1). We then
examined the effect of the efficiency manipulation on
personal response choices. Consistent with H1, parti-
cipants showed a preference for inaction in the
low-efficiency condition but not in the high-efficiency
condition, v
2
(1, N ¼ 44) ¼ 7.74, p < .01, U ¼ .42. We next
examined participants’ reports of which response they
viewed as most admirable. Consistent with H2, we found
no difference between the high- and low-efficiency con-
ditions in participants’ perceptions of which response
4
Our manipulation of efficiency simultaneously addressed ease and
effectiveness rather than separately manipulating each aspect of
efficiency. We chose this strategy as the clearest test of our hypothesis
in light of our operationalization of efficiency as a combination of ease
and effectiveness.
5
Variations in the degrees of freedom for Study 3 reflect the fact
that some participants did not provide responses to all items.
132 SWEENY, SHEPPERD, HOWELL
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was most admirable, v
2
(1, N ¼ 45) ¼ 1.17, p ¼ .28,
U ¼ .16.
As in Study 2, we used Pearson’s chi-square test to
examine the potential relationship between perceptions
of action as admirable and personal response prefer-
ences. In this case, the relationship was marginally
significant, v
2
(1, N ¼ 44) ¼ 3.56, p ¼ .06, U ¼ .28. How-
ever, in light of the nonsignificant relationships between
perceptions and preferences in Studies 1 and 2 and the
weak relationship in Study 3, it seems unlikely that
our findings were driven by a few participants who
strongly valued inaction.
In sum, consistent with Studies 1 and 2, participants
showed a strong preference for inaction over action, but
only when action was inefficient. When action was
depicted as efficient, participants showed no preference
for inaction over action. Moreover, our manipulation
of how efficient action appeared did not influen ce the
extent to which participants viewed action as admirable.
In effect, participants were more willing to respond to a
potentially undesirable situation in the way they per-
ceived to be admirable, but only when doing so would
be easy and effective.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
We began our inquiry with two questions. First, how do
people perceive responses of action and inaction in
response to a potentially undesirable situation? In all
three studies participants perceived acti on as more
admirable than they perceived inaction, and their posi-
tive perceptions of action did not waver even when
action was difficult and likely to be ineffective. Second,
how do people personally respond when facing the
choice between action and inaction in a potentially
undesirable situation? The answer to this question is
more complex. Participants in Studies 1 and 2 strongly
preferred inaction over acti on, but this preference was
eliminated in Study 3 when we presented action as
efficient. Thus, it seems that people perceive action as
more admirable than inaction, but they opt for action
themselves only when that action is efficient. To our
knowledge, these studies are the first to compare percep-
tions of the ideal response to a potentially undesirable
situation with personal response choices. As such, they
provide important initial evidence that people may not
always respond in the way they perceive to be most
admirable.
Study 3 revealed that when action was efficient, the
preference for inaction virtually disappeared. We sus-
pect that other factors may also moderate the consist-
ency between what people admire and what they do in
these situations. For example, we anticipate that people
will be inclined to prefer action over inaction to the
extent that action is reversible. People prefer revers ible
decisions over irreversible decisions (Gilbert & Ebert,
2002), and this preference is likely the result of a percep-
tion that reversible decisions carry fewer unavoidable
costs. Indeed, people may prefer inaction precisely
because they be lieve that it gives them the option to
act later if necessary (Anderson, 2003). To the extent
that they perceive action as reversible, we suspect that
participants will show closer correspondence between
what they admire and what they would choose for them-
selves when facing a potentially undesirable situati on.
Another potential moderator is the immediacy of the
required action. People may be more willing to choose
action over inaction when they do not actually have to
take action until a later time. For example, people facing
medical decision s may be unwilling to undergo a test or
procedure immediately yet willing to sign up for an
appointment to have the test or procedure at a later
date. In fact, research on the illusion of courage pro-
vides preliminary support for this possibility. Parti-
cipants in a series of studies were more willing to
perform an embarrassing act when the time of the per-
formance was in the future than when it was near at
hand (van Boven et al., as cited in Van Boven et al.,
2005). Temporal differences in action preferences likely
also reflect differences in construal level, such that
people construe distant events more abstractly and near
events more concretely (Nussbaum, Liberman, & Trope,
2006; Trope & Liberman, 2003).
Implications
Although we chose to examine perceptions of responses
and personal response choices in an academic context,
we suspect that we would find a similar pattern of results
in health, professional, and social domains in which
undesirable situations arise. To the extent that people
perceive action to be overly difficult or costly, they are
likely to choose inaction over the more admired choice
of action. Of course, it is possible that our findings are
limited to the type of situation we studied. Students
may feel particularly reluctant to take action in response
to a changing university policy out of fear of retribution
from the administration, low self-efficacy to change
such policies, or even indifference. However, these and
TABLE 1
Study 3: Frequencies for Personal Responses
and Ideal Responses by Condition
Low Efficiency High Efficiency
Action Inaction Action Inaction
Personal choice 2 19 11 12
Most admirable 17 4 16 8
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similar concerns are not unique to academic settings.
Furthermore, the finding that students were more likely
to take action when doing so was easy and effective sug-
gests that it was practical concerns, an d not concerns
specific to the news its elf, that drove the initial prefer-
ence for inaction.
Our findings have implications for both predicting
and intervening into responses to potenti ally undesirable
situations. Regarding prediction, our findings suggest
that asking people which response they think is ‘‘best’’
may produce different responses from what they would
actually do. This difference calls into doubt the results
of studies that use hypothetical scenarios to, for
example, determine treatment preferences in the medical
domain. People responding to a hypothetical scenario
may report that they would respond with action when
in fact they would opt for inaction if truly faced with
the decision.
Furthermore, our results suggest that people may be
poor at predicting how others facing the choice between
action and inaction will respond, as well as how they will
feel about their responses. Unless they are facing the
same choice themselves and thus are undergoing the
same emotional experi ence or construing the event in
the same way, we anticipate that people will generally
overestimate the extent to which others will opt for
action over inaction. Indeed, we can imagine how obser-
vers may sometimes be dumbfounded by the inaction of
others when they, viewing the choice from the sidelines,
personally regard action as the obv ious, superior choice.
Our findings can also inform interventions aimed
toward increasing the likelihood that people take action
in potentially undesirable situations. This goal may be
particularly important in the health domain. As pre-
viously discussed, people are often qui te willing to take
action to prevent bad health outcomes when they believe
the necessary behavior is efficient (i.e., relatively easy
and likely to be effective; Shiloh et al., 1999). However,
in many cases people fail to engage in even relatively
simple health behavior (e.g., wearing sunscreen, adher-
ing to medication regimens, undergoing health screen-
ings, etc.), and our findings suggest that these failures
may in part reflect underlying beliefs about the inef-
ficiency of such behavior. Physicians and nurses may
be more successful at encouraging adherence to their
recommendations, and health campaigns may be more
successful at their goal of promoting health behavior,
to the extent that they target perceptions of the ease
and effectiveness of specific healthy actions.
Limitations
Our findings point to a clear disconnect between values
and personal responses in potentiall y undesirable situa-
tions. However, two limitations of our studi es deserve
note. First, we did not directly observe participants’
actions in response to the news of comprehensive exams.
Of course, although we did not use observational meth-
ods to measure behavior in real time, participants in our
studies believed that they would have the opportunity to
take action shortly after leaving the study session. In
fact, participant s in Study 3 believed that they would
have to follow through with their choice by either
signing a petition (in the high-efficiency condition) or
taking a blank petition to solicit signatures (in the
low-efficiency condition) at the end of the session. It
seems likely that the students would have carried out
their choices to act or not act, but our behavior al
measure is nonetheless limited by its prospective nature.
Second, all three studies examined potentially unde-
sirable situations; none compared values and behavior
in the face of a potential gain or desirable situation.
As discussed earlier, undesirable situations presented
the most stringent test of our hypotheses due to the
greater likelihood that people would take action to
prevent a loss than to secure an opportunity or gain
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), but future studies should
examine the generalizability of our findings to poten-
tially positive situations. Furthermore, we used the same
potentially undesirable situation in all three studies (i.e.,
the threat of comprehen sive exams). This situation ha d
several essential characteristics that were pertinent to
our hypotheses: It was relevant to our participants, it
was perceived as undesirable, and it presented a poten-
tial opportunity for action. However, it is possible that
peripheral characteristics of the comprehensive exam
situation influenced our findings, and as such our find-
ings may be limited to situations very similar to the
one used in our studies.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly in some undesirable situations there is no
clear right answer in the choice between action and inac-
tion. However, in other instances we suspect that action
is the best choice. Such is the case when considering
whether to take a child with a high fever to see a phys-
ician, whether to call the police when a stranger is load-
ing the neighbor’s TV and stereo equipment in the back
of a van, or whether to consult a dermatologist about a
suspicious new mole. Nevertheless, people in such situa-
tions may be unable to se e that action is best because
immediate concerns over the costs an d possible in effective-
ness of action mak e active res ponses seem undesirable. In
such cases, people charged with advising or assisting the
person ma king the choice might be well served to decr ease
barriers to action. Our findings suggest that making action
easier and more efficacious or emphasizing the pragmatic
benefits of actio n may be successful ap proaches to tipping
the balance in favor of action over inaction.
134
SWEENY, SHEPPERD, HOWELL
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank John Chambers and several anonymous
reviewers for their feedback on an earlier version of this
article.
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