ArticlePublisher preview available

Endorsing Help For Others That You Oppose For Yourself: Mind Perception Alters the Perceived Effectiveness of Paternalism

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

How people choose to help each other can be just as important as how much people help. Help can come through relatively paternalistic or agentic aid. Paternalistic aid, such as banning certain foods to encourage weight loss or donating food to alleviate poverty, restricts recipients’ choices compared with agentic aid, such as providing calorie counts or donating cash. Nine experiments demonstrate that how people choose to help depends partly on their beliefs about the recipient’s mental capacities. People perceive paternalistic aid to be more effective for those who seem less mentally capable (Experiments 1 and 2), and people therefore give more paternalistically when others are described as relatively incompetent (Experiment 3). Because people tend to believe that they are more mentally capable than are others, people also believe that paternalistic aid will be more effective for others than for oneself, effectively treating other adults more like children (Experiments 4a–5b). Experiencing a personal mental shortcoming—overeating on Thanksgiving—therefore increased the perceived effectiveness of paternalism for oneself, such that participants thought paternalistic antiobesity policies would be more effective when surveyed the day after Thanksgiving than the day before (Experiment 6). A final experiment demonstrates that the link between perceived effectiveness of aid and mental capacity is bidirectional: Those receiving paternalistic aid were perceived as less mentally capable than those receiving relatively agentic aid (Experiment 7). Beliefs about how best to help someone in need are affected by subtle inferences about the mind of the person in need.
Endorsing Help For Others That You Oppose For Yourself: Mind
Perception Alters the Perceived Effectiveness of Paternalism
Juliana Schroeder
University of California, Berkeley
Adam Waytz
Northwestern University
Nicholas Epley
University of Chicago
How people choose to help each other can be just as important as how much people help. Help can come
through relatively paternalistic or agentic aid. Paternalistic aid, such as banning certain foods to
encourage weight loss or donating food to alleviate poverty, restricts recipients’ choices compared with
agentic aid, such as providing calorie counts or donating cash. Nine experiments demonstrate that how
people choose to help depends partly on their beliefs about the recipient’s mental capacities. People
perceive paternalistic aid to be more effective for those who seem less mentally capable (Experiments 1
and 2), and people therefore give more paternalistically when others are described as relatively
incompetent (Experiment 3). Because people tend to believe that they are more mentally capable than are
others, people also believe that paternalistic aid will be more effective for others than for oneself,
effectively treating other adults more like children (Experiments 4a–5b). Experiencing a personal mental
shortcoming— overeating on Thanksgiving—therefore increased the perceived effectiveness of pater-
nalism for oneself, such that participants thought paternalistic antiobesity policies would be more
effective when surveyed the day after Thanksgiving than the day before (Experiment 6). A final
experiment demonstrates that the link between perceived effectiveness of aid and mental capacity is
bidirectional: Those receiving paternalistic aid were perceived as less mentally capable than those
receiving relatively agentic aid (Experiment 7). Beliefs about how best to help someone in need are
affected by subtle inferences about the mind of the person in need.
Keywords: paternalism, mind perception, mental capacity, judgment, policy
Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000320.supp
As members of a highly interdependent species, people not only
try to improve their own well-being, but also try to improve others’
well-being. People can choose to help themselves and others in
various ways. A person can give books to a poor student, or give
cash that the student could use to buy whatever is needed most. A
government agency can help its citizens lose weight by banning
large sugary drinks, or by providing clearer calorie information
about large sugary drinks. These options vary in how paternalis-
tically they treat the recipient. Providing or banning specific goods
is more paternalistic because it restricts the recipient’s choice
compared with giving cash or information. Not all forms of aid, of
course, are equally effective, meaning that how people choose to
help may be just as important as how much people choose to help.
We propose that how people help depends partly on subtle
inferences about the minds of those being helped. Specifically, we
predict that paternalistic aid will seem more effective for those
perceived to have weaker mental capacities. This prediction has
five important implications. First, to the extent that the perceived
effectiveness of aid guides actual decisions about aid, people will
be more likely to choose paternalistic forms of aid for those
described as less mentally capable. For instance, giving food to
someone in need (a relatively paternalistic form of help) should
seem more effective than simply giving cash (a relatively agentic
form of help) when the needy person seems less mentally capable.
Second, how much people give is guided by the magnitude of a
person’s need (Cuddy, Rock, & Norton, 2007;Levine, Prosser,
Evans, & Reicher, 2005;Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Weth-
erell, 1987), meaning that decisions about how to give versus how
much to give may be guided by different mechanisms. Third,
because people tend to believe that they are more mentally capable
than others (see Waytz, Schroeder, & Epley, 2014, for a review),
people will believe paternalistic policies are more effective for
others than for themselves, partially explaining public resistance to
This article was published Online First May 29, 2017.
Juliana Schroeder, Haas School of Business, University of California,
Berkeley; Adam Waytz, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern
University; Nicholas Epley, Booth School of Business, University of
Chicago.
We thank Mike Bremmer, Jasmine Kwong, Alex Kristal, Uriel Heller,
Katie Matteson, Adam Picker, Megan Porter, Michael Rosenblum, Jenna
Rozelle, Nia Sotto, and Sherry Tseng for assistance conducting experi-
ments and the Booth School of Business and Haas School of Business for
financial support.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Juliana
Schroeder, Haas School of Business, University of California, 2220 Pied-
mont Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94720. E-mail: jschroeder@haas.berkeley
.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General © 2017 American Psychological Association
2017, Vol. 146, No. 8, 1106–1125 0096-3445/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000320
1106
... Another possibility is that people may think differently about commitment contracts for others because they believe certain contracts will be more effective for other people than for themselves. Decision makers hold a host of (generally self-serving) beliefs that support this prediction, including that others are more motivated by external rewards and punishments than themselves, that other people have less agentic control over their own lives, and that others need stronger interventions to overcome self-control failures (Balcetis and Dunning, 2013;Heath, 1999;Schroeder et al., 2017). Because anticharity contracts are usually seen as a stronger external intervention than pro-charity contracts, people may believe these contracts will be more effective for others than for themselves. ...
... For instance, people tend to believe others are especially likely to be motivated by external rewards and punishments (Heath, 1999). Decision makers also tend to believe they have more agentic control over their lives than others do, and therefore may not need the stronger incentives or interventions that others need to engage in desired behavior (Balcetis and Dunning, 2013;Schroeder et al., 2017;Scott and Williams, 2022). In terms of commitment contracts, people may expect that aggressive anti-charity contracts are more likely to be necessary for others to overcome self-control issues. ...
... Our findings are consistent with prior work suggesting that individuals believe they have more agentic control over their own lives than do others, and that others are more motivated by external rewards and punishments (Balcetis and Dunning, 2013;Heath, 1999). As a result, people may be more willing to endorse paternalistic strategies for others but eschew the same strategies for themselves (Schroeder et al., 2017;Scott and Williams, 2022). ...
Article
Full-text available
Commitment contracts are a strategy for binding self-control failures, such as skipping a gym visit or breaking a dieting regime, to monetary penalties. Despite evidence that commitment contracts with stronger penalties improve self-control, they are relatively underused. Across 5 experiments, we find that decision makers are less likely to select commitment contracts with more severe penalties (i.e., anti-charity contracts) for themselves than they are for others. This self-other difference in contract choice arises because decision makers believe anti-charity contracts will be more effective for others than for themselves. Our results suggest that people recognize the potential effectiveness of using more aggressive commitment contracts to overcome self-control problems, but view themselves as an exception to that general rule.
... In our smoking example, this could be the positive self-image generated from standing up for public health and against big tobacco, possibly to maintain consistency with prior decisions taken in the health domain or other domains (Festinger, 1957). Note that, in this example, the characteristics of the targets such as heterogeneity and psychological distance could also influence evaluations and subsequent decisions, as an agent's ability to effectively anticipate other targets' emotions has been shown to be influenced by these characteristics (Schroeder et al., 2017). ...
Article
Full-text available
Many decisions are curated, incentivised or nudged by a third party. Despite this, only a handful of studies have looked at paternalistic decision-makers and the psychological processes by which they arrive at their decisions. The role of affect , in particular, has been ignored so far, and yet restricting agency on a potentially large group of people might be highly unpleasant. We are the first to propose a conceptual framework of affective paternalism which explicitly accounts for the role of affect in paternalistic decision-making, identifying all entry points through which affect may create systematic deviations in decision outcomes. We shed light on some of these phenomena by using a novel survey experiment in which we let participants make paternalistic decisions whilst also asking them about their motivations behind their choices, including cognitive reasons and affect. Our findings suggest that affect may play a significant role in paternalistic decision-making and lead to systematically different decision outcomes. To the extent that these that could result in inefficient, undesirable or unfair consequences, our framework may help more accurately predict a paternalist's decision and suggest entry points for where and possibly how to intervene in the paternalistic decision-making process.
... A more policy-specific explanation can be based on a series of experimental findings by Schroeder et al. (2017), which show that people find paternalistic help (e.g., regulations) more effective for others and agentic help (that preserves the freedom to choose, as with most nudges) more effective for themselves. This finding was explained by people's tendency to believe that they have higher cognitive capacities than others (Waytz et al., 2014) and that paternalistic help is more effective for people with weaker mental capacities (i.e., others). ...
Article
Full-text available
Whether nudges succeed in promoting pro-environmental behavior strongly depends on their public acceptance. Prior literature shows that the framing of nudges, i.e., whether they address the individual (personal framing) or the society (societal framing), is one critical factor in determining nudging acceptance. Since a personal framing highlights the costs individuals have to bear to comply, we hypothesize that people accept nudges more when addressing the general public rather than themselves personally. We expect the framing effect to be stronger for nudges that elicit high-effort behavior than low-effort behavior. Results of multilevel linear regression analyses in two online experiments ( n Study 1 = 294, n obs = 4,410; n Study 2 = 565, n obs = 11,300) reveal an opposite pattern: People accept nudges more when personally (vs societally) framed. As predicted, nudges receive higher support when the promoted behavior is perceived as low effort. Exploratory path analysis in Study 2 shows that the perceived effectiveness of the nudge mediates the positive relation between personal framing and nudging acceptance. This project provides novel insights on facilitators and barriers in nudging acceptance and their implications for policy-making.
... The specific bias in the current context is the tendency for the public to think that homeless individuals will increase spending on temptation goods (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes) when given the cash transfer compared to people who are not homeless (47). This bias can favor the provision of paternalistic forms of aid over more agentic forms of aid, thus presenting a barrier to the cash transfer policy (48). ...
Article
Full-text available
Homelessness is an economic and social crisis. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, we address a core cause of homelessness-lack of money-by providing a one-time unconditional cash transfer of CAD7,500toeachof50individualsexperiencinghomelessness,withanother65ascontrolsinVancouver,BC.Exploratoryanalysesshowedthatover1y,cashrecipientsspentfewerdayshomeless,increasedsavingsandspendingwithnoincreaseintemptationgoodsspending,andgeneratedsocietalnetsavingsof7,500 to each of 50 individuals experiencing homelessness, with another 65 as controls in Vancouver, BC. Exploratory analyses showed that over 1 y, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless, increased savings and spending with no increase in temptation goods spending, and generated societal net savings of 777 per recipient via reduced time in shelters. Additional experiments revealed public mistrust toward the ability of homeless individuals to manage money and demonstrated interventions to increase public support for a cash transfer policy using counter-stereotypical or utilitarian messaging. Together, this research offers a new approach to address homelessness and provides insights into homelessness reduction policies.
... We also theorize that goal-value-based justifications may have pernicious effects on public policy. For instance, although largely harmful, ability-based inferences about the disadvantaged may lead to some positives, such as directing greater resources to education or training programs (Robeyns, 2005;Sainz et al., 2020;Schroeder et al., 2017). In contrast, goal-value bias may be less likely to lead to effective interventions. ...
Article
Full-text available
Although everyone strives toward valued goals, we suggest that not everyone will be perceived as doing so equally. In this research, we examine the tendency to use social class as a cue to understand the importance of others’ goals. Six studies find evidence of a goal-value bias: Observers perceive goals across a variety of domains as more valuable to higher class than to lower class individuals (Studies 1–6). These perceptions do not appear to reflect reality (pilot study), and those who are strongly motivated to justify inequality show the bias to a greater extent (Studies 5 and 6), suggesting a motivated pathway. We also explore implications of the bias, finding that Americans tend to offer better opportunities to, and prefer to collaborate with, higher class than lower class others, revealing discriminatory outcomes that are partially driven by perceived goal value (Studies 2, 3, 4, 6). Results suggest that Americans expect higher class individuals to value achieving goals more than their lower class counterparts, fueling increased support for those who are already ahead.
Article
Many consumers are caregivers and, as part of caregiving, frequently make food choices for their dependents. This research examines how food choices made for children influence the healthiness of parents’ subsequent self-choices. While prior work focuses on choices for the self (others) as based on self-needs (others-needs), the authors theorize regarding when and why self-choices involve consideration of other-needs. Five studies, including a nursery school field study, test the effect of choosing healthy food for a child on the healthiness of parents’ self-choices, focusing on the role of anticipating potentially sharing self-choices with one’s child. Potential sharing increased parents’ likelihood of making an unhealthy subsequent self-choice if they first made a healthy choice for their child. This effect was driven by parents’ present-focused parenting concerns about whether one’s child would eat and enjoy healthy options chosen for them. This effect was mitigated when parents instead had future-focused parenting concerns. Additionally, this effect was mitigated after making an initial choice for the child that was (a) unhealthy or (b) healthy but relatively liked by the child. This research contributes to understanding how choices for others shape choices for the self and offers important marketing and policy implications.
Article
Full-text available
Recent work suggests that most individuals support policies targeting the immediate economic and physical food environment to change behavior (Gold, Lin, Ashcroft, & Osman, 2020; Schroeder, Waytz, & Epley, 2017). The present set of studies builds upon this preliminary evidence by testing the idea that people who are dissatisfied with their self-regulation success in implementing a low-meat diet are more supportive of policy interventions aiming to reduce meat consumption. Multiple regression models from exploratory Study 1 (N = 220) and pre-registered Study 2 (N = 180) provide evidence that those reporting more dissatisfaction with their success in reducing meat consumption were more supportive of both government (Study 1) and institutional policy (Study 2) increasing meat prices to reduce its consumption. Exploratory analyses also revealed an interaction with meat intake, such that individuals who regularly eat meat indicated greater policy support if they were also more dissatisfied with their meat reduction success. Together, our results suggest that individuals may indeed outsource self-control to institutional or governmental regulators when they are dissatisfied with their own self-regulatory success. Follow-up work should establish the boundary conditions of these findings across behavioral domains and probe their robustness using longitudinal data.
Article
Consumers regularly attempt to improve themselves. This research examines how consumers think about flexibility during goal pursuit, for themselves and others. Flexibility involves leaving details of a plan, such as when to go to the gym or what to eat, open or easy to change, whereas rigid plans determine those details in advance. Here, several studies across a variety of goals show that people usually choose rigid plans for others. However, people are more likely to opt for some flexibility in their own plans. This occurs because many people believe flexible plans are less effective, but also more appealing (or less unpleasant), than rigid ones. Choosing for oneself, versus for someone else, increases the degree to which one follows one’s heart (i.e., relies on feelings and desires), which makes people more likely to choose the more appealing option, flexibility. Asking people to “follow their heads” instead (i.e., rely on logic and reason) causes people to choose similar (rigid) plans for themselves and others. Finally, the authors use this framework to increase preferences for rigid fitness plans in a field experiment. This research provides insight into the psychology of flexibility and how to nudge consumers to set themselves up for success.
Article
Full-text available
Researchers interested in testing mediation often use designs where participants are measured on a dependent variable Y and a mediator M in both of 2 different circumstances. The dominant approach to assessing mediation in such a design, proposed by Judd, Kenny, and McClelland (2001), relies on a series of hypothesis tests about components of the mediation model and is not based on an estimate of or formal inference about the indirect effect. In this article we recast Judd et al.'s approach in the path-analytic framework that is now commonly used in between-participant mediation analysis. By so doing, it is apparent how to estimate the indirect effect of a within-participant manipulation on some outcome through a mediator as the product of paths of influence. This path-analytic approach eliminates the need for discrete hypothesis tests about components of the model to support a claim of mediation, as Judd et al.'s method requires, because it relies only on an inference about the product of paths-the indirect effect. We generalize methods of inference for the indirect effect widely used in between-participant designs to this within-participant version of mediation analysis, including bootstrap confidence intervals and Monte Carlo confidence intervals. Using this path-analytic approach, we extend the method to models with multiple mediators operating in parallel and serially and discuss the comparison of indirect effects in these more complex models. We offer macros and code for SPSS, SAS, and Mplus that conduct these analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record
Article
Full-text available
Virtually all previous studies of domestic economic redistribution find white Americans to be less enthusiastic about welfare for black recipients than for white recipients. When it comes to foreign aid and international redistribution across racial lines, I argue that prejudice manifests not in an uncharitable, resentful way but in a paternalistic way because intergroup contact is minimal and because of how the media portray black foreigners. Using two survey experiments, I show that white Americans are more favorable toward aid when cued to think of foreign poor of African descent than when cued to think of those of East European descent. This relationship is due not to the greater perceived need of black foreigners but to an underlying racial paternalism that sees them as lacking in human agency. The findings confirm accusations of aid skeptics and hold implications for understanding the roots of paternalistic practices in the foreign aid regime.
Article
Full-text available
Emotion scientists often distinguish those emotions that are encountered universally, even among animals ( “primary emotions”), from those experienced by human beings ( “secondary emotions”). No attempt, however, has ever been made to capture the lay conception about this distinction and to find the criteria on which the distinction is based. The first study presented in this paper was conducted in three countries involving four languages, so as to allow for cross‐cultural comparisons. Results showed a remarkable convergence. People from all samples not only differentiated between “uniquely human” and “non‐uniquely human” emotions on a continuum, but they did so on the same basis as the one used by emotion scientists to distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” emotions. Study 2 focused on the implicit use of such a distinction. When confronted with a human (animal) context, participants reacted faster to secondary (vs primary) emotions. The implications of the human uniqueness of some emotions within the social and interpersonal contexts are discussed.
Article
We use a randomized controlled trial to study the response of poor households in rural Kenya to large, unconditional cash transfers from the NGO GiveDirectly. The transfers differ from other programs in that they are explicitly unconditional, large, and concentrated in time. We randomized at both the village and household levels; further, within the treatment group, we randomized recipient gender (wife vs. husband), transfer timing (lump-sum transfer vs. monthly installments), and transfer magnitude (USD 404 PPP vs. USD 1,525 PPP). We find a strong consumption response to transfers, with an increase in household monthly consumption from USD 158 PPP to USD 193 PPP nine months after the transfer began. Transfer recipients experience large increases in psychological wellbeing. We find no overall effect on levels of the stress hormone cortisol, although there are differences across some subgroups. Monthly transfers are more likely than lump-sum transfers to improve food security, while lump-sum transfers are more likely to be spent on durables, suggesting that households face savings and credit constraints. Together, these results suggest that unconditional cash transfers have significant impacts on economic outcomes and psychological wellbeing.
Article
In order to test the hypothesis that the decision to accept or reject a prosocial offer is a joint function of (1) value and cost associated with the offer and (2) the recipients degree of dependence, a role-playing abilities test was created. As part of the role-playing task, undergraduate students were asked to consider a prosocial offer, consisting of either high or low value, which imposed minimal or restrictive constraints, under conditions of high or low dependence. As predicted, high value and low cost were significant factors in the decision to accept or reject the prosocial offer. In addition, two unexpected interactions, Value by Dependence and Cost by Dependence, were significant.
Article
Since Mill’s seminal work On Liberty, philosophers and political theorists have accepted that we should respect the decisions of individual agents when those decisions affect no one other than themselves. Indeed, to respect autonomy is often understood to be the chief way to bear witness to the intrinsic value of persons. In this book, Sarah Conly rejects the idea of autonomy as inviolable. Drawing on sources from behavioral economics and social psychology, she argues that we are so often irrational in making our decisions that our autonomous choices often undercut the achievement of our own goals. Thus in many cases, it would advance our goals more effectively if government were to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions. Her argument challenges widely held views of moral agency, democratic values, and the public/private distinction, and will interest readers in ethics, political philosophy, political theory, and philosophy of law.
Article
We review early and recent psychological theories of dehumanization and survey the burgeoning empirical literature, focusing on six fundamental questions. First, we examine how people are dehumanized, exploring the range of ways in which perceptions of lesser humanness have been conceptualized and demonstrated. Second, we review who is dehumanized, examining the social targets that have been shown to be denied humanness and commonalities among them. Third, we investigate who dehumanizes, notably the personality, ideological, and other individual differences that increase the propensity to see others as less than human. Fourth, we explore when people dehumanize, focusing on transient situational and motivational factors that promote dehumanizing perceptions. Fifth, we examine the consequences of dehumanization, emphasizing its implications for prosocial and antisocial behavior and for moral judgment. Finally, we ask what can be done to reduce dehumanization. We conclude with a discussion of limitations of current scholarship and directions for future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 65 is January 03, 2014. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
Article
The present study tested derivations from social learning theory on the disinhibition of aggression through processes that weaken self-deterring consequences to injurious conduct. Subjects were provided with opportunities to behave punitively under diffused or personalized responsibility toward groups that were characterized in either humanized, neutral, or dehumanized terms. Both dehumanization and lessened personal responsibility enhanced aggressiveness, with dehumanization serving as the more potent disinhibitor. Escalation of aggression under conditions of dehumanization was especially marked when punitiveness was dysfunctional in effecting desired changes. The uniformly low level of aggression directed toward humanized groups, regardless of variations in responsibility and instrumentality of the conduct, attested to the power of humanization to counteract punitiveness. Results of supplementary measures are consistent with the postulated relationship between self-disinhibiting processes and punitiveness. Dehumanization fostered self-absolving justifications that were in turn associated with increased punitiveness. Findings on the internal concomitants of behavior performed under different levels of responsibility suggest that reducing personal responsibility heightens aggressiveness more through social than personal sources of disinhibition.