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How Actions Create – Not Just Reveal – Preferences
Abstract
The neo-classical economics view that behavior is driven by - and reflective of - hedonic utility is challenged by psychologists' demonstrations of cases in which actions do not merely reveal preferences but rather create them. In this view, preferences are frequently constructed in the moment and are susceptible to fleeting situational factors; problematically, individuals are insensitive to the impact of such factors on their behavior, misattributing utility caused by these irrelevant factors to stable underlying preferences. Consequently, subsequent behavior might reflect not hedonic utility but rather this erroneously imputed utility that lingers in memory. Here we review the roles of these streams of utility in shaping preferences, and discuss how neuroimaging offers unique possibilities for disentangling their independent contributions to behavior.
... This study reveals the difficulty participants face in detecting manipulations of their initial choices by an experimenter who replaced the picture participants had chosen with one they had not. Some authors have suggested that this effect could be the result of insufficient introspection [10][11][12] or an underestimation of the influence of environmental and situational factors [13][14][15][16][17]. ...
... CB could be the result of insufficient introspection [10][11][12] and of the under-estimation of the influence of environmental and situational factors (environmental factors include the participant's physical surroundings. Situational factors would instead consist of the general context of the situation they are currently in, such as the fact that they are participating in an online experiment) [13][14][15][16][17]. Yet, an attitude of openness allows meditators to obtain better introspective access [5,6] as well as an improved capacity to focus on environmental details [7,8]. ...
... Another primary explanation for CB is the under-estimation of the influence of environmental and situational factors in decision-making [13], likely linked to information processing [14,15,17,51]. Thus, thanks to the use of an analytical attitude, mindfulness meditators would be able to consider the importance of the influence of environmental factors during decision-making. ...
The mindfulness trait is an intrinsic characteristic of one’s disposition that facilitates awareness of the present moment. Meditation has proven to enhance situational awareness. In this study, we compared the performance of participants that were split into two groups depending on their experience in mindfulness meditation (a control group naive to mindfulness meditation and a group of experienced mindfulness meditators). Choice-blindness happens when people fail to notice mismatches between their intentions and the consequences of decisions. Our task consisted of decisions where participants chose one preferred female facial image from a pair of images for a total of 15 decisions. By reversing the decisions, unbeknownst to the participants, three discrepancies were introduced in an online experimental design. Our results indicate that the likelihood of detecting one or more manipulations was higher in the mindful group compared to the control group. The higher FMI scores of the mindful group did not contribute to this observation; only the practice of mindfulness meditation itself did. Thus, this could be explained by better introspective access and control of reasoning processes acquired during practice and not by the latent characteristics that are attributed to the mindfulness trait.
... Due to non-commutativity of measurement with certain eigenbases, a quantum model naturally accounts for order effect, where one judgement can affect later judgements [18]. Also, the assumption in economics that choices reveal preferences and beliefs is challenged by several studies, suggesting that the process of decision contributes to the construction of preferences [19,20]. In this respect, the active role of measurement in quantum models offers a natural resemblance to choices that shapes the preferences. ...
... However, extensive evidence (e.g. [19]) points to a constructive role of choice, i.e. people seem to select an optimization criterion that depends on the faced task. The constructionist view of choice bears a striking resemblance to the "scissors" analogy of Simon's paper [37]. ...
... where the term f(π n ) plays the role of classical probability, and the term q(π n ) is the interference term. The detailed derivation of Eq (19) and the relevant explanation are provided in "S1 Appendix". As their classical counterparts, static quantum theories of decision-making are fundamentally unable to answer important questions, such as the effect of time pressure on choice and the distribution of response times [8,9]. ...
We present a short review of discrete-time quantum walks (DTQW) as a potentially useful and rich formalism to model human decision-making. We present a pedagogical introduction of the underlying formalism and main structural properties. We suggest that DTQW are particularly suitable for combining the two strands of literature on evidence accumulator models and on the quantum formalism of cognition. Due to the additional spin degree of freedom, models based on DTQW allow for a natural modeling of model choice and confidence rating in separate bases. Levels of introspection and self-assessment during choice deliberations can be modeled by the introduction of a probability for measurement of either position and/or spin of the DTQW, where each measurement act leads to a partial decoherence (corresponding to a step towards rationalization) of the deliberation process. We show how quantum walks predict observed probabilistic misperception like S-shaped subjective probability and conjunction fallacy. Our framework emphasizes the close relationship between response times and type of preferences and of responses. In particular, decision theories based on DTQW do not need to invoke two systems (“fast” and “slow”) as in dual process theories. Within our DTQW framework, the two fast and slow systems are replaced by a single system, but with two types of self-assessment or introspection. The “thinking fast” regime is obtained with no or little self-assessment, while the “thinking slow” regime corresponds to a strong rate of self-assessment. We predict a trade-off between speed and accuracy, as empirically reported.
... Although a few studies have empirically investigated temporal spillover effects in the context of nudging, there are several established theories in psychology that do point to this possibility, such as self-perception theory (Bem, 1972) and self-herding (Ariely and Norton, 2008). That is, in both self-perception theory and the literature on self-herding, the central premise is that new attitudes and preferences are not just determinants of our behaviour, but can sometimes also be the product of behaviour as they can be formed by observing our own behaviour. ...
... On the 2nd day, the nudge in the experimental condition was removed. Building on the theories that predict that behaviour can also be seen as the input to affect internal states (e.g., attitudes and identities), which, in turn, affect subsequent behaviour (Bem, 1972;Ariely and Norton, 2008;Bénabou and Tirole, 2011;Gneezy et al., 2012), we expected to find (1) an effect of the nudge on questionnaire choice on the 1st day and (2) an effect of the initial nudge on questionnaire choice on the 2nd day even when the nudge was no longer present. ...
... As discussed in the introduction, several theories predict that an attitude (Bem, 1972;Ariely and Norton, 2008) or even identity (Bénabou and Tirole, 2011;Gneezy et al., 2012) change could explain the temporal spillover effect. Therefore, in Experiment 2, we examined the options of a mediated pathway of changed attitudes and changed identity between two similar behaviours of which the first was initially elicited by the nudge. ...
Nudges, such as defaults, are generally found to be effective in guiding immediate behavioural decisions. However, little is known about whether the effect of a nudge can be lasting, meaning that it spills over to subsequent similar choices without the presence of a nudge. In three experiments, we explored the temporal spillover effects of a default nudge. The results of Experiments 1 ( N = 1,077) and 2 ( N = 1,036) suggest that nudging participants into completing a longer questionnaire affected their decision for the same behaviour a day later without the presence of a nudge. However, nudging participants into a healthier food choice in Experiment 3 ( N = 969) did not result in such a temporal spillover effect. The results indicated that participants' change in attitude towards the nudged behaviour may partly explain the temporal spillover effects. These findings suggest that for some, but not all behaviours, default nudges may have the potential to yield temporal spillover effects and warrant a further investigation of boundary conditions and facilitators of the spillover effects of nudges.
... This article argues that any attempt to adapt a robot's behavior to human preference needs to acknowledge that the robot can change human preference. This is due to the fact that although preference does influence behavior, behavior can predate and lead to the formation of new preference [3]. Certain forms of HRI thus run the risk of being manipulative if the Robot has some preference over human behaviour. ...
... It is also important to note that although preference does influence behavior, behavior can predate and lead to the formation of new preference [3]. Adapting a social robot's behavior to a user preference is not only a matter of preference learning; because the adapted robot behavior changes a user's behavior, it also can and will change a user's preferences. ...
Human-robot interaction exerts influence towards the human, which often changes behavior. This article explores an externality of this changed behavior - preference change. It expands on previous work on preference change in AI systems. Specifically, this article will explore how a robot's adaptive behavior, personalized to the user, can exert influence through social interactions, that in turn change a user's preference. It argues that the risk of this is high given a robot's unique ability to influence behavior compared to other pervasive technologies. Persuasive Robotics thus runs the risk of being manipulative.
... As well as facilitating the inference of preferences, past choices also shape them. This has been demonstrated in studies of free choice, which show that after freely choosing an option, people tend to increase their subjective preference for it (Akaishi, Umeda, Nagase, & Sakai, 2014;Alos-Ferrer & Shi, 2012;Ariely & Norton, 2008;Brehm, 1956;Chammat et al., 2017;Cockburn, Collins, & Frank, 2014;Koster, Duzel, & Dolan, 2015;Miyagi, Miyatani, & Nakao, 2017;Nakao et al., 2016;Riefer, Prior, Blair, Pavey, & Love, 2017;Schonberg et al., 2014;Sharot, De Martino, & Dolan, 2009;Vinckier et al., 2019;Voigt, Murawski, & Bode, 2017). In the original free-choice paradigm, Brehm (1956) asked participants to rate a set of items (e.g. ...
... The objective of decision making is therefore to reduce the error between one's past choices and present preferences; we refer to this general mechanism as coherency maximization. Consistent with patterns of repeat-purchasing observed in supermarket consumers (Riefer et al., 2017) and studies of choice-induced preference change (Akaishi et al., 2014;Alos-Ferrer & Shi, 2012;Ariely & Norton, 2008;Brehm, 1956;Chammat et al., 2017;Cockburn et al., 2014;Koster et al., 2015;Miyagi et al., 2017;Nakao et al., 2016;Schonberg et al., 2014;Sharot et al., 2009;Vinckier et al., 2019;Voigt et al., 2017), coherency maximization boosts the likelihood of past choices being repeated by shifting preferences towards the chosen item and away from rejected alternatives. As was shown in a simple simulation, this mechanism can drive strong subjective preferences in the absence of extrinsic feedback. ...
Recent findings suggest a bidirectional relationship between preferences and choices such that what is chosen can become preferred. Yet, it is still commonly held that preferences for individual items are maintained, such as caching a separate value estimate for each experienced option. Instead, we propose that all possible choice options and preferences are represented in a shared, continuous, multidimensional space that supports generalization. Decision making is cast as a learning process that seeks to align choices and preferences to maintain coherency. We formalized an error-driven learning model that updates preferences to align with past choices, which makes repeating those and related choices more likely in the future. The model correctly predicts that making a free choice increases preferences along related attributes. For example, after choosing a political candidate based on trivial information (e.g., they like cats), voters' views on abortion, immigration, and trade subsequently shifted to match their chosen candidate.
... This read-out assumption bears a striking resemblance to the assumption in economic models that preferences and beliefs are revealed by the choices people make (McFadden, Machina, & Baron, 1999;Samuelson, 1938). Yet decades of research from judgment and decision making and behavioral economics suggests that preferences are not revealed by the choices people make, but rather constructed by the process of generating a response like a choice (Ariely & Norton, 2008;Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006;Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1992;Slovic, 1995). This construction of preference is typically understood as the result of people selecting a specific procedure from a larger repertoire of possible strategies to formulate a response (Gigerenzer et al., 1999;Hertwig et al., 2019;Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1993;Tversky, Sattath, & Slovic, 1988), or the dynamic nature of information accumulation that adjusts preferences over time (Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993;Johnson & Busemeyer, 2005). ...
... Foremost among these diverging predictions is the idea from the quantum model that decision making is a constructive process, where taking a cognitive measurement by making a choice creates rather than simply records the state of a cognitive system. This aligns with the long-standing but mathematically informal theory in the decisionmaking literature that choice is a constructive process that requires a person to generate a new cognitive state in order to respond in decision scenarios (Ariely & Norton, 2008;Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006;Payne et al., 1992;Slovic, 1995). The effect of this measurement process is illustrated in experiments like the choice-confidence paradigm, which F I G U R E 8 Pattern of mean preference strength elicited at different time points following a decision (choice) or irrelevant button press (no-choice). ...
What kind of dynamic decision process do humans use to make decisions? In this article, two different types of processes are reviewed and compared: Markov and quantum. Markov processes are based on the idea that at any given point in time a decision maker has a definite and specific level of support for available choice alternatives, and the dynamic decision process is represented by a single trajectory that traces out a path across time. When a response is requested, a person's decision or judgment is generated from the current location along the trajectory. By contrast, quantum processes are founded on the idea that a person's state can be represented by a superposition over different degrees of support for available choice options, and that the dynamics of this state form a wave moving across levels of support over time. When a response is requested, a decision or judgment is constructed out of the superposition by 'actualizing' a specific degree or range of degrees of support to create a definite state. The purpose of this article is to introduce these two contrasting theories, review empirical studies comparing the two theories, and identify conditions that determine when each theory is more accurate and useful than the other.
... This read-out assumption bears a striking resemblance to the assumption in economic models that preferences and beliefs are revealed by the choices people make (McFadden, Machina, & Baron, 1999;Samuelson, 1938). Yet decades of research from judgment and decision making and behavioral economics suggests that preferences are not revealed by the choices people make, but rather constructed by the process of generating a response like a choice (Ariely & Norton, 2008;Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006;Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1992;Slovic, 1995). This construction of preference is typically understood as the result of people selecting a specific procedure from a larger repertoire of possible strategies to formulate a response (Gigerenzer et al., 1999;Hertwig et al., 2019;Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1993;Tversky, Sattath, & Slovic, 1988), or the dynamic nature of information accumulation that adjusts preferences over time (Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993;Johnson & Busemeyer, 2005). ...
... Foremost among these diverging predictions is the idea from the quantum model that decision making is a constructive process, where taking a cognitive measurement by making a choice creates rather than simply records the state of a cognitive system. This aligns with the long-standing but mathematically informal theory in the decisionmaking literature that choice is a constructive process that requires a person to generate a new cognitive state in order to respond in decision scenarios (Ariely & Norton, 2008;Lichtenstein & Slovic, 2006;Payne et al., 1992;Slovic, 1995). The effect of this measurement process is illustrated in experiments like the choice-confidence paradigm, which F I G U R E 8 Pattern of mean preference strength elicited at different time points following a decision (choice) or irrelevant button press (no-choice). ...
What kind of dynamic decision process do humans use to make decisions? In this article, two different types of processes are reviewed and compared: Markov and quantum. Markov processes are based on the idea that at any given point in time a decision maker has a definite and specific level of support for available choice alternatives, and the dynamic decision process is represented by a single trajectory that traces out a path across time. When a response is requested, a person's decision or judgment is generated from the current location along the trajectory. By contrast, quantum processes are founded on the idea that a person's state can be represented by a superposition over different degrees of support for available choice options, and that the dynamics of this state form a wave moving across levels of support over time. When a response is requested, a decision or judgment is constructed out of the superposition by "actualizing" a specific degree or range of degrees of support to create a definite state. The purpose of this article is to introduce these two contrasting theories , review empirical studies comparing the two theories, and identify conditions that determine when each theory is more accurate and useful than the other.
... Finally, even when participants are asked the same question, such as how attractive a face is, the instructions are sometimes different, with some implying personal attraction and potential mating desire for the person depicted (Kocsor et al., 2013) and others ignoring it (Chatterjee et al., 2009). While it is the case that different types of measures are strongly related, such as interval ratings being predictive of choice (Lopez-Persem et al., 2020), it is possible that one can influence the other (see Ariely & Norton, 2008;Izuma et al., 2010), and even when different questions lead to highly correlated ratings, such as pleasure and beauty , the relationship is rarely perfect. All in all, given that only a few studies have investigated such differences, it is important to take these considerations in mind when interpreting results from different studies. ...
As one of the earliest domains of aesthetic experience to be studied systematically, there now exists a sizeable body of work on the behavioral basis and neural correlates of visual aesthetic appeal.
Synthesizing work across approaches that seek to explain aesthetic preferences based on objectively measurable stimulus features or that emphasize individual differences and the importance of subjective factors, we adopt the view that aesthetic appeal arises from the interaction of a specific stimulus with the characteristics of a specific observer.
Neuroscience research across a number of visual aesthetic domains, including faces, landscapes, architecture, artwork and dance reveals that several large-scale brain systems contribute to visual aesthetic appreciation. In the visual system, judgments of visual appeal are determined more by higher-level visual processing than low-level processing. Subcortically, both ventral and dorsal striatum, as well as the amygdala have been implicated in judgments of aesthetic appeal. A large number of studies using a variety of methods have found correlates of aesthetic appeal in prefrontal cortex, most prominently in medial prefrontal and orbital cortex. Other regions, including inferior frontal gyrus and the insula may also play a role for at least some domains, and there is evidence that the default-mode network, a brain system thought to support aspects of internally directed mentation, is engaged for highly moving artworks.
While the question of ‘why’ particular individuals like particular images remains largely unanswered, we argue for a perspective that deemphasizes the role of specific visual features and focuses instead on the potential for aesthetic appeal to signal the presence of learnable information, linking visual aesthetic appeal to the intrinsic motivation to make sense of our visual world.
... Extensive evidence from behavioral and brain-imaging studies indicates that choosing an option increases its subjective value (Ariely & Norton, 2008;Brehm, 1956;Izuma et al., 2010;Sharot et al., 2009Sharot et al., , 2010. Nevertheless, it is less clear whether choosing which information to sample also increases the subjective value of information, boosting curiosity. ...
In our connected era, we spend significant time and effort satisfying our curiosity. Often, we choose which information we seek, but sometimes the selection is made for us. We hypothesized that humans exhibit enhanced curiosity in the context of choice. We designed a task in which healthy participants saw two lotteries on each trial. On some trials, participants chose which lottery to play. On other trials, the lottery was selected for them. Participants then indicated their curiosity about the outcome of the to-be-played lottery via self-report ratings (Experiment 1, N = 34) or willingness-to-wait decisions (Experiment 2, N = 34). We found that participants exhibited higher curiosity ratings and greater willingness to wait for the outcome of lotteries they had chosen than for lotteries that had been selected for them (controlling for initial preference). This demonstrates that choice boosts curiosity, which may have implications for boosting learning, memory, and motivation.
... In agreement with the retrospective decision-making model, Ariely and Norton (2008) summarize in a review that actions can shape preferences for a course of action rather than individuals deciding based on pre-existing preferences. The perception and handling of risk will also affect decision-making (Slovic et al., 2005;Kang-Camerer, 2018). ...
... If an iterative machine learning algorithm is used, it becomes difficult to know whether the recommender system has learned about its users, whether the users have changed, or whether the system has taught users to behave in ways that maximizes the objective function . This becomes more difficult because of the bidirectional causal relationship between behaviour and preferences Ariely and Norton [2008]. A recommender system trained to maximise user 'engagement' has an incentive to change users' preferences [Everitt et al. 2021]. ...
Iterative machine learning algorithms used to power recommender systems often change people's preferences by trying to learn them. Further a recommender can better predict what a user will do by making its users more predictable. Some preference changes on the part of the user are self-induced and desired whether the recommender caused them or not. This paper proposes that solutions to preference manipulation in recommender systems must take into account certain meta-preferences (preferences over another preference) in order to respect the autonomy of the user and not be manipulative.
... If choice perseverance accounts for the pursuit of hard-toget targets, are scientists and stalkers coasting on unattractive targets? Many studies have reported that choice per se increases the preference for a chosen target (Brehm, 1956;Ariely and Norton, 2008;Sharot et al., 2009;Izuma and Murayama, 2013;Cockburn et al., 2014;Schonberg et al., 2014;Koster et al., 2015;Nakao et al., 2016;Hornsby and Love, 2020). Through this choice-induced reevaluation, the chosen target becomes more preferred, which often leads an individual to choose the same option again. ...
People sometimes persistently pursue hard-to-get targets. Why people pursue such targets is unclear. Here, we hypothesized that choice perseverance, which is the tendency to repeat the same choice independent of the obtained outcomes, leads individuals to repeatedly choose a hard-to-get target, which consequently increases their preference for the target. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted an online experiment involving an avatar choice task in which the participants repeatedly selected one avatar, and the selected avatar expressed their valence reactions through facial expressions and voice. We defined “hard-to-get” and “easy-to-get” avatars by manipulating the outcome probability such that the hard-to-get avatars rarely provided a positive reaction when selected, while the easy-to-get avatars frequently did. We found that some participants repeatedly selected hard-to-get avatars (Pursuit group). Based on a simulation, we found that higher choice perseverance accounted for the pursuit of hard-to-get avatars and that the Pursuit group had significantly higher choice perseverance than the No-pursuit group. Model fitting to the choice data also supported that choice perseverance can account for the pursuit of hard-to-get avatars in the Pursuit group. Moreover, we found that although baseline attractiveness was comparable among all avatars used in the choice task, the attractiveness of the hard-to-get avatars was significantly increased only in the Pursuit group. Taken together, we conclude that people with high choice perseverance pursue hard-to-get targets, rendering such targets more attractive. The tolerance for negative outcomes might be an important factor for succeeding in our lives but sometimes triggers problematic behavior, such as stalking. The present findings may contribute to understanding the psychological mechanisms of passion and perseverance for one’s long-term goals, which are more general than the romantic context imitated in avatar choice.
... In traditional economic theory, consumer behavior implies a rational decision aimed at maximizing personal gain and utility (Samuelson, 1938). It is a well-accepted idea that utility is a driving force for some human behavior, especially consumer behavior (Ariely & Norton, 2008). This means that the decision to purchase a product would be determined from the estimated advantages that the purchased item provides to the consumer. ...
Many studies suggest that specific movements or postures with shared social meaning can influence mainly verbal stimuli evaluation. On the other hand, several visuospatial biases can interact with this influence. Thus, we tested whether both head and stimuli movements can influence individual attitude towards food pictures. In two experiments, we used images of common foods with a weak positive valence in association with two kinds of movements. In Experiment 1, head movement was induced by presenting food pictures with a vertical or horizontal continuous movement on a computer screen. Conversely, Experiment 2 was conducted to test the effects of participants' own head movements with respect to the same food pictures presented in a fixed position. In neither case did head movements influence product evaluation. However, Experiment 1 revealed that the continuous movement left-right-left in the horizontal condition improved the desire to buy and eat, as well as the willingness to pay for the product shown. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated, respectively, that this effect disappears if the stimulus does not make the return direction, and that it does not depend on the starting or final placement of the images on the screen. These findings are discussed in the context of embodied cognition and visuospatial bias theories.
... The psychological study also explored how people determine their self-identity from observing their behaviour [16,26]. A classic experimental study by Bem and McConnell [27] showed that individuals developed new attitudes based on inferencing about recent behaviour. ...
Research has shown that the extent to which previous environmental actions are linked to people’s environmental self-identity influences subsequent environmentally-friendly behaviour. The study empirically examined the influences of recycling efforts on subsequent pro-environmental behaviour by PLS (partial least squares) structural equation modelling based on the survey data of 426 respondents in China. The results indicate that recycling efforts have a positive effect on pro-environmental behaviour through the mechanism of feelings of pride and environmental self-identity. We hypothesise that past pro-environmental behaviour is more likely to promote an individual’s environmental self-identity when the behaviour is incurred with a higher costliness. However, the results show that only when individuals autonomously perform costly recycling behaviour, the signalling strength of previous recycling efforts is higher to promote environmental self-identity. On the contrary, the high costliness weakens the signalling strength of previous recycling efforts through producing negative emotions. Our results show that when reminding people of their past pro-environmental behaviour in order to promote future pro-environmental behaviour, it is useful to emphasize the autonomously taken costliness of behaviour as it can strongly signal that one is a pro-environmental person, thus as to strengthen environmental self-identity.
... Next to its prominent role in health and well-being, autonomy is also important from a psychological perspective because it bears implications for subsequent choices. That is, research has shown that autonomous choice generally influences whether the decision maker will make a similar decision in the future [26,27]. Considering that nudges are frequently used for guiding repeated decisions, which in and of themselves as isolated choices have little impact (e.g., decisions related to recycling, healthy eating, exercising), negative influences of nudged decisions on subsequent related decisions should be avoided [28]. ...
Nudges have repeatedly been found to be effective, however they are claimed to harm autonomy, and it has been found that laypeople expect this too. To test whether these expectations translate to actual harm to experienced autonomy, three online studies were conducted. The paradigm used in all studies was that participants were asked to voluntarily participate in a longer version of the questionnaire. This was either done in a hypothetical setting, where participants imagined they were asked this question, but did not answer it, and reported their expectations for autonomy; Or in an actual choice setting where participants answered the question and then reported their actual autonomy. The first study utilized the hypothetical setting and tried to replicate that laypeople expect nudges to harm autonomy with the current paradigm. A total of 451 participants were randomly assigned to either a control, a default nudge, or a social norm nudge condition. In the default nudge condition, the affirmative answer was pre-selected, and in the social norm nudge condition it was stated that most people answered affirmative. The results showed a trend for lower expected autonomy in nudge conditions, but did not find significant evidence. In Study 2, with a sample size of 454, the same design was used in an actual choice setting. Only the default nudge was found to be effective, and no difference in autonomy was found. In Study 3, Studies 1 and 2 were replicated. Explanation of the nudge was added as an independent variable and the social norm nudge condition was dropped, resulting in six conditions and 1322 participants. The results showed that participants indeed expected default nudges to harm their autonomy, but only if the nudge was explained. When actually nudged, no effect on autonomy was found, independent of the presence of an explanation.
... Accuracy in VDM trials was defined based on the individual subjective ratings provided during the Rate I and Rate II task phases. It was not uncommon for individuals to change their valuation of some images after being forced to make a choice between them [the "choice-induced preferences effect" (57)]. However, large changes in the ratings of an image within a short period of time may indicate careless responses. ...
Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often have difficulty making decisions. Valuation and value-based judgements are particularly difficult. The mechanisms underlying these impairments are still poorly understood. Previous work has suggested that individuals with OCD require more information prior to making a choice during perceptual discrimination tasks. Little previous work has examined value-guided choice in OCD. Here we examined perceptual and value-based decision making in adults with OCD, using a novel task in which the two types of decision are tested in parallel using the same individually calibrated sets of visual stimuli (Perceptual and Value-based decision-making task, PVDM). Twenty-seven unmedicated participants with OCD (16 female) and thirty-one healthy controls (15 female) were tested. Data were analyzed using hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling (HDDM). Decision formation was altered in OCD, but differentially between genders: males with OCD, but not females, accumulated more information (i.e., were more cautious) and were less effective in evidence accumulation than age- and IQ-matched healthy males. Furthermore, males with OCD, but not females, were less likely than controls to adjust the process of evidence accumulation across decision contexts. These unexpectedly gender-dimorphic effects suggest that more attention should be paid to gender differences in studies of OCD, and of pathophysiology more broadly.
... Altruistic self-concept motivates people to maintain and reinforce one's selfimage [30], put more emphasis on other-regarding behavior [31] and increases one's warmglow altruism [32,33]. To be specific, previous studies find that when primed with altruistic self-concept, prosocial individuals are persistently doing good and maintain their positive self-concept [34,35,36]. These studies attribute the phenomenon to the principle of moral reinforcement, which suggests that individuals will avoid experiencing the disutility of being dissonant with their established self-concept. ...
We study experimentally the effect of personality traits on the willingness to make and keep a promise to volunteer. In our experiment, Amazon Mechanical Turk participants were given the option to volunteer by donating time and effort to a charity. They also answered a series of questionnaires, including the Big Five personality test and attitudinal questions that we used to construct an index representing altruistic self-concept. Self-concept refers to the way we describe and evaluate ourselves. We find that altruistic self-concept mediates how personality affects volunteering decisions. In particular, agreeableness has a strong influence on the probability of making and keeping promises to volunteer through its effect on altruistic self-concept. Our findings have useful implications for non-profit organizations.
... Importantly, behavior can also influence preferences(Ariely & Norton, 2008;Slovic, 1995). ...
The well-known “high-choice news avoidance thesis” and the alternative “network structure perspective” stipulate somewhat conflicting expectations about news consumption in today’s digital media systems. Based on annual survey data from Norway, the article examines news avoidance from 1997–2016, a period when digitalization processes transformed the media environment. Results show that news avoidance increased only marginally. The decrease in use of traditional media is largely compensated for by online news. However, news avoidance is increasingly polarized along educational lines, and it is unclear to what degree online news consumption equals traditional news media consumption in qualitative terms.
... Self-perception (Bem, 1972;Freedman & Fraser, 1966) and consistency needs (Festinger, 1957;Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959;Thøgersen, 2004) appear to be partially responsible for positive spillovers. According to self-perception theory, engaging in an initial behavior changes one's self-perception as a certain type of person (e. g., an environmentalist), and this self-perception leads people to act in line with how such a person might behave (Ariely & Norton, 2008). ...
Changing defaults—the preselection that becomes effective without active choice—is becoming a prominent policy tool, after having been proven to be effective in areas as varied as retirement savings, organ donation and product customization. Yet, little is known about how default effects spill over to subsequent similar behaviors. In an online shopping scenario, we found standard default effects on the share of organically produced products in the overall selection of products. These effects did not spill over to subsequent active shopping choices. This was true for defaults that were hard and easy to change (Exp. 1, N = 90), for immediate and delayed subsequent choices (Exp. 2, N = 106) and for self‐selected defaults (Exp. 3, N = 181). These findings suggest that the reach and scalability of default manipulations in policy making may be limited, but also speak against the possibility for negative spillover.
When choosing between immediate and future rewards, how do people deal with uncertainty about the value of the future outcome or the delay until its occurrence? Skylark et al. (2020) suggested that people employ a delay-reward heuristic: the inferred value of an ambiguous future reward is a function of the stated delay, and vice-versa. The present paper investigates the role of this heuristic in choice behaviour. In Studies 1a–2b, participants inferred the value of an ambiguous future reward or delay before the true value was revealed and a choice made. Preference for the future option was predicted by the discrepancy between the estimated and true values: the more pleasantly surprising the delayed option, the greater the willingness to choose it. Studies 3a–3c examined the association between inference and preference when the ambiguous values remained unknown. As predicted by the use of a delay-reward heuristic, inferred delays and rewards were positively related to stated rewards and delays, respectively. More importantly, choices were associated with inferred rewards and, in some circumstances, delays. Critically, estimates and choices were both order-dependent: when estimates preceded choices, estimates were more optimistic (people inferred smaller delays and larger rewards) and were subsequently more likely to choose the delayed option than when choices were made before estimates. These order effects argue against a simple model in which people deal with ambiguity by first estimating the unknown value and then using their estimate as the basis for decision. Rather, it seems that inferences are partly constructed from choices, and the role of inference in choice depends on whether an explicit estimate is made prior to choosing. Finally, we also find that inferences about ambiguous delays depend on whether the estimate has to be made in “days” or in a self-selected temporal unit, and replicate previous findings that older participants make more pessimistic inferences than younger ones. We discuss the implications and possible mechanisms for these findings.
Objective
Lack of choice over treatment may increase the nocebo effect, whereby unpleasant side effects can be triggered by the treatment context, beyond any inherent physiological effects of the treatment itself. Excessive choice may also increase the nocebo effect. The current studies tested these possibilities.
Method
Participants took part in studies ostensibly investigating the influence of beta-blockers (Study 1, n = 71) and benzodiazepines (Study 2, n = 120) on anxiety. All treatments were placebos. In Study 1, participants were randomly allocated to three groups: no-treatment control, no-choice, and choice between two treatments. In Study 2, a ten-choice group was added. Participants were warned about possible treatment side effects. These warned symptoms were assessed, and scores summed. Nocebo effects were evidenced by significantly higher warned symptoms scores in any placebo-treated group compared to the control group.
Results
In both studies, the no-choice groups experienced a nocebo effect (S1: p = .003, ηp²=0.121; S2: p = .022, ηp²=0.045). A significant nocebo effect was not present in groups who chose between two treatments (S1: p = .424, ηp²=0.009; S2: p = .49, ηp²=0.004). In Study 2, choosing between ten treatments resulted in a nocebo effect (p = .006, ηp²=0.065).
Conclusion
Lack of choice resulted in the development of nocebo effects, while having a limited choice between two placebos did not generate significant nocebo effects. However, a larger choice between ten placebos generated a nocebo effect of similar magnitude to lack of choice. Facilitating (some) choice in medical care may reduce the development of nocebo effects, but more extensive choice options may not offer similar benefits.
Although researchers have indicated that individuals with depleted self‐control resources have lower self‐control behavior and exhibit more deceptive behaviors, recent psychological studies have shown that ritual can improve self‐control and increase the likelihood that the individual makes prosocial decisions. However, little is known about whether ritual can regulate an individual's engagement in deceptive behavior when their self‐control resources are depleted. This study adopted the spot‐the‐difference task to investigate the influences of ritual and self‐control resources depletion on simple self‐control behavior and deceptive behavior (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2); furthermore, relevant neural processes were explored using event‐related potentials (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 showed that individuals with depleted self‐control resources had lower self‐control behavior and individuals performing a ritual had higher self‐control behavior. Experiment 2 showed that individuals with depleted self‐control resources exhibited more deceptive behaviors and individuals performing a ritual exhibited fewer deceptive behaviors; furthermore, ritual reduced deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. Experiment 3 found that individuals with depleted self‐control resources had larger P2 amplitudes after performing a ritual. Moreover, individuals with depleted self‐control resources had larger LPP amplitudes over parietal sites after performing a ritual. These findings suggested that performing ritual may be an effective measure of inhibiting individuals with depleted self‐control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior. Our findings verify the ego‐depletion model and provide a new perspective for reducing deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. We provide evidence that rituals could modulate deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. This reveals that performing rituals may be an effective measure for inhibiting individuals with depleted self‐control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior. Our findings verify the ego‐depletion model and provide a new perspective for reducing deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. We provide evidence that rituals could modulate deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self‐control resources. This reveals that performing rituals may be an effective measure for inhibiting individuals with depleted self‐control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior.
Building on theoretical and empirical literatures showing that choices not only reflect but also create preferences, we develop a two-stage compound task mechanism to promote pro-sociality. The first stage involves incentivizing participants to complete a compound task consisting of a targeted pro-social activity—volunteering– and a complement activity—writing about volunteering. The second stage involves incentivizing participants to repeatedly complete only the writing about volunteering. We conduct a field experiment and show that, conditional on completing first-stage volunteering + writing, intrinsic interest in volunteering is promoted even when people fail to complete the second-stage writing about volunteering. By contrast, participants assigned in the second stage either to volunteering, or to volunteering + writing, but who failed to complete these tasks, did not develop intrinsic interest in volunteering. These results are consistent with the theory underlying our two-stage compound-task mechanism.
This article seeks to propose a framework and corresponding paradigm for evaluating explanations provided by explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). The article argues for the need for evaluation paradigms – different people performing different tasks in different contexts will react differently to different explanations. It reviews previous research evaluating XAI explanations while also identifying the main contribution of this work – a flexible paradigm researchers can use to evaluate XAI models, rather than a list of factors. The article then outlines a framework which offers causal relationships between five key factors – mental models, probability estimates, trust, knowledge, and performance. It then outlines a paradigm consisting of a training, testing and evaluation phase. The work is discussed in relation to predictive models, guidelines for XAI developers, and adaptive explainable artificial intelligence - a recommender system capable of predicting what the preferred explanations would be for a specific domain-expert on a particular task.
Human beings have countless desires but bounded resources, and this limitation makes them choose between alternatives. Consumers are encouraged to be aware of the best alternative use of a resource (e.g., money, and time), which is known as the opportunity cost of their choice. The current systematic review addresses existing debates and ambiguities surrounding opportunity cost consideration by consumers. We review the origins, different definitions, antecedents, associated decisions, and outcomes of opportunity costs consideration through a detailed examination of the relevant literature from multiple disciplines such as marketing, psychology, and economics. The SPAR‐4‐SLR protocol is used to conduct the review and the ADO (Antecedents, Decisions, Outcomes) framework is used to organize our findings. We highlight and reconcile two different perspectives on the conceptualization of opportunity cost as the forgone value (by considering willingness to pay) versus the physical market value of the second‐best alternative. Different antecedents of opportunity cost consideration are categorized into three categories: Individual differences, Situational variables, and Information processing method. We discuss when and why consumers tend to neglect the opportunity cost, in which situations they are more likely to overestimate the opportunity cost, and what is the difference between consideration of opportunity cost of time and money. Results show that despite what the economics literature suggests, opportunity cost consideration does not always lead to positive outcomes. Based on the literature of regret theory, and differences between maximizers and satisficers, we discuss how opportunity cost considerations might lead to choice discomfort, regret, and dissatisfaction. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Judgments differ from decisions. Judgments are more abstract, decontextualized, and bear fewer consequences for the agent. In pursuit of experimental control, psychological experiments on bias create a simplified, bare-bone representation of social behavior. These experiments resemble conditions in which people judge others, but not how they make real-world decisions.
In this chapter we provide an overview of the pharmacological and circuit mechanisms that determine the willingness to expend effort in pursuit of rewards. A particular focus will be on the role of the mesolimbic dopamine system, as well the contributing roles of limbic and cortical brains areas involved in the evaluation, selection, and invigoration of goal-directed actions. We begin with a review of preclinical studies, which have provided key insights into the brain systems that are necessary and sufficient for effort-based decision-making and have characterized novel compounds that enhance selection of high-effort activities. Next, we summarize translational studies identifying and expanding this circuitry in humans. Finally, we discuss the relevance of this work for understanding common motivational impairments as part of the broader anhedonia symptom domain associated with mental illness, and the identification of new treatment targets within this circuitry to improve motivation and effort-expenditure.
Increasingly, the health claims made by food products focus on the marketing of specific molecular enrichments. Research exploring consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for health claims assumes that individuals hold perfect information on the benefits of the enrichment, and that their valuations depend solely on whether or not they need to improve their health. While health interventions are aimed at individuals at higher health risk, consumers may be unaware of the health risks that they face, limiting the effectiveness of a generic targeting strategy. Using an orthogonal experimental design, we explore the impact of two factors on the WTP for vitamin D enrichment in eggs: whether the information is person‐specific or generic; and the presence of a health claim explaining the vitamin D enrichment. Results indicate that it is the provision of information, not the health claim, that influences WTP. Both generic and personalised information lead to similar increases in the WTP for vitamin D enrichment. While we only observe a direct effect of generic information on the WTP for vitamin D enrichment, personal information may also operate by increasing the perceived risk of vitamin D deficiency. Our results support the use of personalised health information during the choice task as a means of increasing the sales of healthy products.
Recent decision‐making research provides empirical evidence that human risk preferences are constructed “on the fly” during risk elicitation, influenced by the decision‐making context and the method of risk elicitation (Kusev et al., 2020). In this article, we explore the lability of human risk preferences and argue that the most recent choices guide decision‐making. Accordingly, our novel proposal and experimental method provide a psychological tool that measures people's shift in preferences. Specifically, in our experiment (240 participants, registered UK users of an online survey panel), we developed and employed a two‐stage risk elicitation experimental method. The results from the experiment revealed that providing participants with false feedback on their initial decisions (stage 1) changes their risk preferences at the feedback stage of the experiment in the direction of the false feedback. Moreover, participants' final decisions (stage 2) were influenced by the type of feedback (correct or false) and informed by their altered risk preferences at the feedback stage of the experiment. In conclusion, our work provides experimental evidence that human preferences are constructed “on the fly,” influenced by the decision‐making context and recent decision‐making experience (e.g., Kusev et al., 2020; Slovic, 1995).
It is widely recognized that human behavior is far from being perfectly rational. Many insights from psychology, sociology, and even biology show that we are susceptible to perceptual, judgmental, and behavioral biases and to psychological and social “soft” influencing of decision making. The latter gains more traction, both in society and in business, than any neutral problem-solving goal. In general, persons are more receptive and biased towards attitude and moral stances than towards rational argumentation: At any given moment in time, some problems are intractable by given technical means but they still need to be overcome in some way. Behavioral economics shows us that human behavior is not rational and consistent, as textbook theory suggests. Entrepreneurs act opportunistically but market pressure is driving firms also towards “bad” opportunism; however, ethics can limit this propensity. Psychological and social influencing, described in behavioral economics, can guide the behavior towards being more aligned with the public good. Our research question is whether and how such influencing can be compatible with capitalist entrepreneurship, for example, by generating green investment funds. Our derived research goal is then to explore the mechanisms behind influencing, their relation to moral behavior and ethics – especially in today’s atmosphere of multiple crisis. The research method used is to first qualitatively review mechanisms of influencing. However, the complex, intertemporal context calls for procedures of inclusive action, which we outline in a conceptual approach in the spirit of business informatics. We conclude that under specific conditions entrepreneurship may indeed prove instrumental for overcoming crises.
What makes a neo-Nazi become a convinced anti-fascist or a radical left-winger become a devout Salafist? How do they manage to fit into their new environment and gain acceptance as a former enemy? The people featured in this book made highly puzzling journeys, first venturing into extremist milieus and then deciding to switch to the opposite side. By using their extraordinary life-stories and their own narratives, this book provides the first in-depth analysis of how and why people move between seemingly opposing extremist environments that can sometimes overlap and influence each other. It aims to understand how these extremists manage to convince their new group that they can be trusted, which also allows us to dive deep into the psychology of extremism and terrorism. This fascinating work will be of immense value to those studying radicalization and counter-radicalization in terrorism studies, social psychology and political science.
Uncertainty is an intrinsic part of life; most events, affairs, and questions are uncertain. A key problem in behavioral sciences is how the mind copes with uncertain information. Quantum probability theory offers a set of principles for inference, which align well with intuition about psychological processes in certain cases: cases when it appears that inference is contextual, the mental state changes as a result of previous judgments, or there is interference between different possibilities. We motivate the use of quantum theory in cognition and its key characteristics. For each of these characteristics, we review relevant quantum cognitive models and empirical support. The scope of quantum cognitive models encompasses fallacies in decision-making (such as the conjunction fallacy or the disjunction effect), question order effects, conceptual combination, evidence accumulation, perception, over-/underdistribution effects in memory, and more. Quantum models often formalize psychological ideas previously expressed in heuristic terms, allow unified explanations of previously disparate findings, and have led to several surprising, novel predictions. We also cast a critical eye on quantum models and consider some of their shortcomings and issues regarding their further development.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Several studies suggest that consumers match stimuli across sensory modalities, with angular (vs. round) typefaces typically associated with sourness (vs. sweetness). Drawing on findings from the field of crossmodal correspondences, this study (N = 220) examined potential typeface effects in naturalistic settings and found that exposure to angular (vs. round) typeface increased (decreased) consumers' preferences for sour (sweet) food but had no impact on their expectations or perceptions of these tastes. Moreover, while typeface did not have a direct effect on food choices, consumers exposed to angular (vs. round) typeface reported a greater relative preference for sour over sweet foods, resulting in sourer (vs. sweeter) food choices. However, the effects of typeface on preferences and food choices were moderated by consumers' age, and only applied to older (vs. younger) consumers, with different taste preferences among older and younger consumers constituting a possible explanation for such age-contingent findings. Thus, exposure to angular (vs. round) typeface increased older consumers' choice likelihood of sourer (vs. sweeter) food alternatives, with this effect being mediated by increased preferences for sour relative to sweet foods. Taken together, the current research reveals how, why, and when typefaces may be crossmodally linked to consumers' preferences, purchase patterns, and choice behavior.
Widespread evidence from psychology and neuroscience documents that previous choices unconditionally increase the later desirability of chosen objects, even if those choices were uninformative. This is problematic for economists who use choice data to estimate latent preferences, demand functions, and social welfare. The evidence on this mere choice effect , however, exhibits serious shortcomings which prevent evaluating its possible relevance for economics. In this paper, we present a novel, parsimonious experimental design to test for the economic validity of the mere choice effect addressing these shortcomings. Our design uses well-defined, monetary lotteries, all decisions are incentivized, and we effectively randomize participants’ initial choices without relying on deception. Results from a large, pre-registered online experiment find no support for the mere choice effect. Our results challenge conventional wisdom outside economics. The mere choice effect does not seem to be a concern for economics, at least in the domain of decision making under risk.
With a pair of oppositely valenced stimuli, rating the first one sometimes leads to a more extreme evaluation for the second (e.g., if the second is negatively valenced, rating the first stimulus would lead to a more negative rating for the second). We considered an evaluation bias in the case of clinical diagnosis relating to eating disorders. A population sample which included experienced clinical psychologists and psychiatrists showed partial evidence of an evaluation bias, when judging descriptions of individuals designed to be consistent with eating disorders or not. Quantum probability theory, the probability rules from quantum mechanics without any of the physics, is particularly well‐suited to modeling the evaluation bias (and constructive influences generally), because a measurement (or judgment) can change the state of the system. We applied a previous quantum model to the present result, an extension of the model embodying noisy processes, and belief adjustment model. We discuss how model fits inform an examination of rationality in the observed behavior.
Using an online experiment, we investigate intertemporal preferences to infer people’s willingness to accept negative interest rates (NIRs) on their savings. We find some tolerance of NIRs, i.e., of people being willing to hold money in the bank rather than spend it, thereby accepting less savings at some future time. This tolerance strongly depends on the amount of savings, time horizon, actual savings behavior, and anchoring. Specifically, the higher the amount, the lower is the tolerance of NIRs, consistent with a reverse magnitude effect. Moreover, as the time horizon increases, the tolerance of NIRs decreases. Regular savers are more likely to tolerate NIRs than nonregular savers, which is consistent with status quo bias, higher familiarity with savings deposits, or a future-oriented mindset. We also find a higher tolerance of NIRs on savings when participants are anchored towards NIRs, i.e., when participants are first presented with NIRs and then with positive interest rates (PIRs).
Curiosity pervades all aspects of human behaviour and decision-making. Recent research indicates that the value of information is determined by its propensity to reduce uncertainty, and the hedonic value of the outcomes it predicts. Previous findings also indicate a preference for options that are freely chosen, compared to equivalently valued alternatives that are externally assigned. Here, we asked whether the value of information also varies as a function of self- or externally-imposed choices. Participants rated their preference for information that followed either a self-chosen decision, or an externally imposed condition. Our results showed that choosing a lottery significantly increased the subjective value of information about the outcome. Computational modelling indicated that this change in information-seeking behaviour was not due to changes in the subjective probability of winning, but instead reflected an independent effect of choosing on the value of resolving uncertainty. These results demonstrate that agency over a prospect is an important source of information value.
Trade-offs between attributes are common when making product choices. Prior research suggests that consumers tend to avoid the extremes and opt for the middle options when they make a trade-off decision between two key product attributes (e.g., tastiness and healthiness of food items) in one step. In this research, we examine how consumers make such trade-off decisions in a two-step choice process in which consumers first choose between product categories competing on two key attributes and then make a final choice within the chosen category. In three studies, we show that when holding the actual choice options unchanged, consumers are more likely to make a more extreme final choice, prioritizing a single attribute rather than compromising when they follow a two-step choice process instead of a one-step process.
When an economic agent makes a choice, stochastic models predicting those choices can be updated. The structural assumptions embedded in the prior model condition the updated one, to the extent that the same evidence produces different predictions even when previous ones were identical. We provide a general framework for models of stochastic choice allowing for arbitrary forms of (structural) updating and show that different models can be sharply separated by their structural properties, leading to axiomatic characterizations. Our framework encompasses Bayesian updating given beliefs over deterministic preferences (as implied by popular random utility models) and standard neuroeconomic models of choice, which update decision values in the brain through reinforcement learning.
Since the influential work of Schelling, binary choice games with externalities (situations in which the consequences of the choices of an agent are affected by the actions of other agents) have become central within social dilemma literature. Previous literature has developed models with agents mainly based on classic probability theory where populations formed by impulsive agents (i.e., they tend to switch strategies even when the difference between payoffs is extremely small) are one of the most common case. However, recent theoretical and empirical findings have showed how the recurrent contextual effects observed in psychology studies are better predicted by the probability theory employed in quantum physics. In this paper, we study the dynamics in binary choices when introducing quantum cognition in the Schelling model, distinguishing between context-insensitive agents (compatible choices in the quantum framework) and context sensitive agents (incompatible choices). We observed that: (i) in the context insensitive model, quantum agents population dynamics can be interpreted as a particular case of the impulsive agents population; (ii) the context-sensitive quantum population dynamics cannot be replicated by a context-insensitive population; (iii) assuming all things being equal, the future choice of the context-sensitive quantum agents is unpredictable. These results suggest that the quantum framework can be seen as an ideal tool to improve the modeling attempt of binary choice with externalities.
We investigate the often-stated, but disputed claim in the political science and political communication literature that increasing media choice widens inequalities in political knowledge. The assumption is that in a high-choice media environment, the politically interested will consume more news while the uninterested will avoid such content, leading, in turn, to widening differences in political knowledge. Although previous studies show that high media choice increases political knowledge gaps in the United States, comparative longitudinal evidence is currently lacking. To fill this gap, we draw on data from four rounds of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Overall, we do not find general support for the high-choice knowledge gap thesis. In most countries, there is no indication that inequality in political knowledge has increased over time. Building on recent insights from political communication research, we question key assumptions of the high choice knowledge gap thesis.
Hayek’s seminal contribution to theoretical neurosciences, The Sensory Order (1952) remains neglected in current efforts at integrating the neurosciences, psychology and economics. I defend the view that Hayek presents the case for an evolutionary alternative to leading paradigms in the field and look at two in more detail: the good-based model in neuroeconomics and the dual systems approach in behavioural economics. In both cases, essential Hayekian insights remain valid in the context of modern neuroscience, allow for taking account of recent research, and sketch a dynamic and selectionist model of choice.
When judging the value of a good, people may be overly influenced by the state in which they previously consumed it. For example, someone who tries out a new restaurant while very hungry may subsequently rate it as high quality, even if the food is mediocre. We produce a simple framework for this form of attribution bias that embeds a standard model of decision making as a special case. We test for attribution bias across two consumer decisions. First, we conduct an experiment in which we randomly manipulate the thirst of participants prior to consuming a new drink. Second, using data from thousands of amusement park visitors, we explore how pleasant weather during their most recent trip affects their stated and actual likelihood of returning. In both of these domains, we find evidence that people misattribute the influence of a temporary state to a stable quality of the consumption good. We provide evidence against several alternative accounts for our findings and discuss the broader implications of attribution bias in economic decision making.
Nudging is one of the strategies from behavioral economics that aims to influence behavior by changing the environment. We propose that it could also be a valuable means to influence behavior in educational contexts. However, implementation of nudging in education is yet sparse. We describe the relevant issues to consider when applying nudging in education, arguing that a focus on the long-term effects and underlying processes of a nudge is necessary for successful implementation. Then, we aim to facilitate this implementation of nudging in education by making a distinction between nudges that is relevant for overcoming these issues. Based on the framework proposed by Hansen and Jespersen (European Journal of Risk Regulation, 4(1), 3–28, 2013), we distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 nudges, and transparent and non-transparent nudges, resulting in four nudge categories. For each of these nudge categories, we determine its suitability for different educational goals. The resulting decision matrix can help researchers and practitioners when designing nudges for an educational context.
Decision-making is guided by memories of option values. However, retrieving items from memory renders them malleable. Here, we show that merely retrieving values from memory and making a choice between options is sufficient both to induce changes to stimulus-reward associations in the hippocampus and to bias future decision-making. After allowing participants to make repeated choices between reward-conditioned stimuli, in the absence of any outcome, we observe that participants prefer stimuli they have previously chosen, and neglect previously unchosen stimuli, over otherwise identical-valued options. Using functional brain imaging, we show that decisions induce changes to hippocampal representations of stimulus-outcome associations. These changes are correlated with future decision biases. Our results indicate that choice-induced preference changes are partially driven by choice-induced modification of memory representations and suggest that merely making a choice - even without experiencing any outcomes - induces associative plasticity. Decision-making is traditionally thought to be guided by memories of option values. Here, the authors challenge this view by showing that merely making a choice – even without experiencing any outcomes – alters neural representations of stimulus-reward associations and biases future decisions.
Many mobile apps are developed specifically for use by children. As a consequence, children become actors in world where they use passwords to authenticate themselves from a very young age. As such, there is a need for guidance to inform educators and parents about how to prepare children for responsible password practice. Very little attention has been paid to determining which password-related principles young children should know, and the age at which this information should be imparted. To address this deficiency, we commenced by deriving an ontology of “best practice” password principles from official sources. These password principles encode essential knowledge for password users of all ages and provide a benchmark that can be used to ground a set of age-appropriate ontologies. We compared this benchmark “good practice” ontology to the advice provided by a wide-ranging snapshot of password-related children’s books and parents’ online resources. We then consulted the research literature to identify the skills required to understand and apply each principle, and removed those that were unsuitable for young children. We then consulted parents of young children to help us to confirm the classification of the ontology’s principles in terms of age appropriateness. Parents also helped us to rephrase each principle to maximise accessibility and understandability for each age group. We conclude with our final set of three age-appropriate password best practice ontologies as a helpful resource for early education professionals and parents.
As sodium and sugar intake in South Korea exceed recommended levels, the government and food industry have been attempting to reduce the amount of sodium and sugar in the food products. In line with these efforts, this study sought to examine how the purchase intention for low-sodium/low-sugar products vary based on consumers’ previous choices of low-sodium/low-sugar products and other consumer-related factors. For this study, two online survey-based experiments were conducted: one using soy sauce to represent a sodium-based product and the other using yogurt to represent a sugar-based product. The significant variables that influenced the purchase intention for both were the consumers’ previous low-sodium/low-sugar product choices and their propensity for food neophobia. Consumers who had previously selected regular products showed a lower intention to purchase low-sodium soy sauce or low-sugar yogurt. In addition, those who had a strong tendency toward food neophobia also had a significantly lower purchase intention for these products. Moreover, the lower the consumer′s unhealthy = tasty intuition (UTI), the higher the purchase intention for the low-sodium soy sauce, but UTI did not act as a significant variable for the low-sugar yogurt. These results demonstrate that government interventions for low-sodium products and low-sugar products should be differentiated.
Publisher Summary Individuals come to “know” their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/ or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs. Thus, to the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's inner states. This chapter traces the conceptual antecedents and empirical consequences of these propositions, attempts to place the theory in a slightly enlarged frame of reference, and clarifies just what phenomena the theory can and cannot account for in the rapidly growing experimental literature of self-attribution phenomena. Several experiments and paradigms from the cognitive dissonance literature are amenable to self-perception interpretations. But precisely because such experiments are subject to alternative interpretations, they cannot be used as unequivocal evidence for self-perception theory. The reinterpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena and other self-perception phenomena have been discussed. The chapter highlights some differences between self-perception and interpersonal perception and shift of paradigm in social psychology. It discusses some unsolved problems, such as the conceptual status of noncognitive response classes and the strategy of functional analysis.
In six experiments we show that initial valuations of familiar products and simple hedonic experiences are strongly influenced
by arbitrary “anchors” (sometimes derived from a person's social security number). Because subsequent valuations are also
coherent with respect to salient differences in perceived quality or quantity of these products and experiences, the entire
pattern of valuations can easily create an illusion of order, as if it is being generated by stable underlying preferences.
The experiments show that this combination of coherent arbitrariness (1) cannot be interpreted as a rational response to information, (2) does not decrease as a result of experience with a good,
(3) is not necessarily reduced by market forces, and (4) is not unique to cash prices. The results imply that demand curves
estimated from market data need not reveal true consumer preferences, in any normatively significant sense of the term.
We investigated the hypothesis that people's facial activity influences their affective responses. Two studies were designed to both eliminate methodological problems of earlier experiments and clarify theoretical ambiguities. This was achieved by having subjects hold a pen in their mouth in ways that either inhibited or facilitated the muscles typically associated with smiling without requiring subjects to pose in a smiling face. Study 1's results demonstrated the effectiveness of the procedure. Subjects reported more intense humor responses when cartoons were presented under facilitating conditions than under inhibiting conditions that precluded labeling of the facial expression in emotion categories. Study 2 served to further validate the methodology and to answer additional theoretical questions. The results replicated Study 1's findings and also showed that facial feedback operates on the affective but not on the cognitive component of the humor response. Finally, the results suggested that both inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms may have contributed to the observed affective responses.
The function of the mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC: including Brodman areas 10/12/32) remains an enigma. Current theories suggest a role in representing internal information, including emotional introspection, autonomic control, and a "default state" of semantic processing. Recent evidence also suggests that parts of this region may also play a role in processing reward outcomes. In this study, we investigated the possibility that a region of the MPFC would be preferentially recruited by monetary reward outcomes using a parametric monetary incentive delay (MID) task. Twelve healthy volunteers participated in functional magnetic resonance scans while playing the MID task. Group analyses indicated that while the ventral striatum was recruited by anticipation of monetary reward, a region of the MPFC instead responded to rewarding monetary outcomes. Specifically, volume-of-interest analyses indicated that when volunteers received $5.00 after anticipating a $5.00 win, MPFC activity increased, whereas when volunteers did not receive $5.00 after anticipating a $5.00 win, MPFC activity decreased, relative to outcomes with no incentive value. These findings suggest that in the context of processing monetary rewards, a region of the MPFC preferentially tracks rewarding outcomes.
The precise role of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in affective processing is still debated. One view suggests OFC represents stimulus reward value and supports learning and relearning of stimulus-reward associations. An alternate view implicates OFC in behavioral control after rewarding or punishing feedback. To discriminate between these possibilities, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging in subjects performing a reversal task in which, on each trial, selection of the correct stimulus led to a 70% probability of receiving a monetary reward and a 30% probability of obtaining a monetary punishment. The incorrect stimulus had the reverse contingency. In one condition (choice), subjects had to choose which stimulus to select and switch their response to the other stimulus once contingencies had changed. In another condition (imperative), subjects had simply to track the currently rewarded stimulus. In some regions of OFC and medial prefrontal cortex, activity was related to valence of outcome, whereas in adjacent areas activity was associated with behavioral choice, signaling maintenance of the current response strategy on a subsequent trial. Caudolateral OFC-anterior insula was activated by punishing feedback preceding a switch in stimulus in both the choice and imperative conditions, indicating a possible role for this region in signaling a change in reward contingencies. These results suggest functional heterogeneity within the OFC, with a role for this region in representing stimulus-reward values, signaling changes in reinforcement contingencies and in behavioral control.
Economics, psychology, and neuroscience are converging today into a single, unified discipline with the ultimate aim of providing a single, general theory of human behavior. This is the emerging field of neuroeconomics in which consilience, the accordance of two or more inductions drawn from different groups of phenomena, seems to be operating. Economists and psychologists are providing rich conceptual tools for understanding and modeling behavior, while neurobiologists provide tools for the study of mechanism. The goal of this discipline is thus to understand the processes that connect sensation and action by revealing the neurobiological mechanisms by which decisions are made. This review describes recent developments in neuroeconomics from both behavioral and biological perspectives.
A fundamental assumption of theories of decision-making is that we detect mismatches between intention and outcome, adjust our behavior in the face of error, and adapt to changing circumstances. Is this always the case? We investigated the relation between intention, choice, and introspection. Participants made choices between presented face pairs on the basis of attractiveness, while we covertly manipulated the relationship between choice and outcome that they experienced. Participants failed to notice conspicuous mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they were presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. We call this effect choice blindness.
Economic choice is the behaviour observed when individuals select one among many available options. There is no intrinsically 'correct' answer: economic choice depends on subjective preferences. This behaviour is traditionally the object of economic analysis and is also of primary interest in psychology. However, the underlying mental processes and neuronal mechanisms are not well understood. Theories of human and animal choice have a cornerstone in the concept of 'value'. Consider, for example, a monkey offered one raisin versus one piece of apple: behavioural evidence suggests that the animal chooses by assigning values to the two options. But where and how values are represented in the brain is unclear. Here we show that, during economic choice, neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encode the value of offered and chosen goods. Notably, OFC neurons encode value independently of visuospatial factors and motor responses. If a monkey chooses between A and B, neurons in the OFC encode the value of the two goods independently of whether A is presented on the right and B on the left, or vice versa. This trait distinguishes the OFC from other brain areas in which value modulates activity related to sensory or motor processes. Our results have broad implications for possible psychological models, suggesting that economic choice is essentially choice between goods rather than choice between actions. In this framework, neurons in the OFC seem to be a good candidate network for value assignment underlying economic choice.
Although previous studies have implicated a diverse set of brain regions in reward-related decision making, it is not yet known which of these regions contain information that directly reflects a decision. Here, we measured brain activity using functional MRI in a group of subjects while they performed a simple reward-based decision-making task: probabilistic reversal-learning. We recorded brain activity from nine distinct regions of interest previously implicated in decision making and separated out local spatially distributed signals in each region from global differences in signal. Using a multivariate analysis approach, we determined the extent to which global and local signals could be used to decode subjects' subsequent behavioral choice, based on their brain activity on the preceding trial. We found that subjects' decisions could be decoded to a high level of accuracy on the basis of both local and global signals even before they were required to make a choice, and even before they knew which physical action would be required. Furthermore, the combined signals from three specific brain areas (anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and ventral striatum) were found to provide all of the information sufficient to decode subjects' decisions out of all of the regions we studied. These findings implicate a specific network of regions in encoding information relevant to subsequent behavioral choice.
• anterior cingulate cortex
• distributed encoding
• prefrontal cortex
Who knows what I want to do? Who knows what anyone wants to do? How can you be sure about something like that? Isn't it all a question of brain chemistry, signals going back and forth, electrical energy in the cortex? How do you know whether something is really what you want to do or just some kind of nerve impulse in the brain. Some minor little activity takes place somewhere in this unimportant place in one of the brain hemispheres and suddenly I want to go to Montana or I don't want to go to Montana. (White Noise, Don DeLillo) 1.
Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.
Although previous studies have implicated a diverse set of brain regions in reward-related decision making, it is not yet known which of these regions contain information that directly reflects a decision. Here, we measured brain activity using functional MRI in a group of subjects while they performed a simple reward-based decision-making task: probabilistic reversal-learning. We recorded brain activity from nine distinct regions of interest previously implicated in decision making and separated out local spatially distributed signals in each region from global differences in signal. Using a multivariate analysis approach, we determined the extent to which global and local signals could be used to decode subjects' subsequent behavioral choice, based on their brain activity on the preceding trial. We found that subjects' decisions could be decoded to a high level of accuracy on the basis of both local and global signals even before they were required to make a choice, and even before they knew which physical action would be required. Furthermore, the combined signals from three specific brain areas (anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and ventral striatum) were found to provide all of the information sufficient to decode subjects' decisions out of all of the regions we studied. These findings implicate a specific network of regions in encoding information relevant to subsequent behavioral choice.
In the article by S. Schachter and J. Singer, which appeared in Psychological Review (1962, 69(5), 379-399) the following corrections should be made: The superscript "a" should precede the word "All" in the footnote to Table 2. The superscript "a" should appear next to the column heading "Initiates" in Table 3. The following Tables 6-9 should be substituted for those which appeared in print. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 196306064-001.) It is suggested that emotional states may be considered a function of a state of physiological arousal and of a cognition appropriate to this state of arousal. From this follows these propositions: (a) Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has no immediate explanation, he will label this state and describe his feelings in terms of the cognitions available to him. (b) Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has a completely appropriate explanation, no evaluative needs will arise and the individual is unlikely to label his feelings in terms of the alternative cognitions available. (c) Given the same cognitive circumstances, the individual will react emotionally or describe his feelings as emotions only to the extent that he experiences a state of physiological arousal. An experiment is described which, together with the results of other studies, supports these propositions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The chapter presents the two very different basic processes that link attitudes and behavior, along with variants that amount to a mixture of the essentials of each process. Conditions that promote one process or the other also are discussed in the chapter. This discussion of mixed models illustrates the complexity of the role of spontaneous and deliberative processing to understand the manner in which attitudes influence behavior. The basic difference between the two types of models of the attitude-behavior process centers on the extent to which deciding on a particular course of action involves conscious deliberation about a spontaneous reaction to one's perception of the immediate situation. An individual may analyze the costs and benefits of a particular behavior and, in so doing, deliberately reflect on the attitudes relevant to the behavioral decision. These attitudes may serve as one of possibly many dimensions that are considered in arriving at a behavior plan, which may then be enacted.
One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past 2 decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed in the process of elicitation. This concept is derived in part from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation often give rise to systematically different responses. These "preference reversals" violate the principle of procedure invariance that is fundamental to theories of rational choice and raise difficult questions about the nature of human values. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? Describing and explaining such failures of invariance will require choice models of far greater complexity than the traditional models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A distinction is made between decision utility, experienced utility, and predicted utility and an experiment is reported addressing people's ability to forecast experienced utility. Subjects in two experiments made predictions of their future liking for stimuli to which they were then exposed daily for one week. The stimuli were ice cream in a pilot study, plain yogurt in the main study, and short musical pieces in both studies. Decreased liking was the modal prediction, even when the true outcome was increased liking, or reduced dislike. There was substantial stability of tastes, but there were also substantial individual differences in the size and even the sign of changes in liking with repeated exposure. There was little or no correlation between the predictions of hedonic change that individuals made and the changes they actually experienced.
Voluntary acts are preceded by electrophysiological “readiness potentials” (RPs). With spontaneous acts involving no preplanning, the main negative RP shift begins at about—550 ms. Such RPs were used to indicate the minimum onset times for the cerebral activity that precedes a fully endogenous voluntary act. The time of conscious intention to act was obtained from the subject's recall of the spatial clock position of a revolving spot at the time of his initial awareness of intending or wanting to move (W). W occurred at about—200 ms. Control experiments, in which a skin stimulus was timed (S), helped evaluate each subject's error in reporting the clock times for awareness of any perceived event.
For spontaneous voluntary acts, RP onset preceded the uncorrected Ws by about 350 ms and the Ws corrected for S by about 400 ms. The direction of this difference was consistent and significant throughout, regardless of which of several measures of RP onset or W were used. It was concluded that cerebral initiation of a spontaneous voluntary act begins unconsciously. However, it was found that the final decision to act could still be consciously controlled during the 150 ms or so remaining after the specific conscious intention appears. Subjects can in fact “veto” motor performance during a 100–200-ms period before a prearranged time to act.
The role of conscious will would be not to initiate a specific voluntary act but rather to select and control volitional outcome. It is proposed that conscious will can function in a permissive fashion, either to permit or to prevent the motor implementation of the intention to act that arises unconsciously. Alternatively, there may be the need for a conscious activation or triggering, without which the final motor output would not follow the unconscious cerebral initiating and preparatory processes.
This paper considers the role of reasons and arguments in the making of decisions. It is proposed that, when faced with the need to choose, decision makers often seek and construct reasons in order to resolve the conflict and justify their choice, to themselves and to others. Experiments that explore and manipulate the role of reasons are reviewed, and other decision studies are interpreted from this perspective. The role of reasons in decision making is considered as it relates to uncertainty, conflict, context effects, and normative decision rules.
Despite substantial advances, the question of how we make decisions and judgments continues to pose important challenges for scientific research. Historically, different disciplines have approached this problem using different techniques and assumptions, with few unifying efforts made. However, the field of neuroeconomics has recently emerged as an inter-disciplinary effort to bridge this gap. Research in neuroscience and psychology has begun to investigate neural bases of decision predictability and value, central parameters in the economic theory of expected utility. Economics, in turn, is being increasingly influenced by a multiple-systems approach to decision-making, a perspective strongly rooted in psychology and neuroscience. The integration of these disparate theoretical approaches and methodologies offers exciting potential for the construction of more accurate models of decision-making.
Two core meanings of “utility” are distinguished. “Decision utility” is the weight of an outcome in a decision. “Experienced
utility” is hedonic quality, as in Bentham's usage. Experienced utility can be reported in real time (instant utility), or
in retrospective evaluations of past episodes (remembered utility). Psychological research has documented systematic errors
in retrospective evaluations, which can induce a preference for dominated options. We propose a formal normative theory of
the total experienced utility of temporally extended outcomes. Measuring the experienced utility of outcomes permits tests
of utility maximization and opens other Unes of empirical research.
Neural responses accompanying anticipation and experience of monetary gains and losses were monitored by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Trials comprised an initial "prospect" (expectancy) phase, when a set of three monetary amounts was displayed, and a subsequent "outcome" phase, when one of these amounts was awarded. Hemodynamic responses in the sublenticular extended amygdala (SLEA) and orbital gyrus tracked the expected values of the prospects, and responses to the highest value set of outcomes increased monotonically with monetary value in the nucleus accumbens, SLEA, and hypothalamus. Responses to prospects and outcomes were generally, but not always, seen in the same regions. The overlap of the observed activations with those seen previously in response to tactile stimuli, gustatory stimuli, and euphoria-inducing drugs is consistent with a contribution of common circuitry to the processing of diverse rewards.
The brain circuitry processing rewarding and aversive stimuli is hypothesized to be at the core of motivated behavior. In this study, discrete categories of beautiful faces are shown to have differing reward values and to differentially activate reward circuitry in human subjects. In particular, young heterosexual males rate pictures of beautiful males and females as attractive, but exert effort via a keypress procedure only to view pictures of attractive females. Functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T shows that passive viewing of beautiful female faces activates reward circuitry, in particular the nucleus accumbens. An extended set of subcortical and paralimbic reward regions also appear to follow aspects of the keypress rather than the rating procedures, suggesting that reward circuitry function does not include aesthetic assessment.
Reward processing involves both appetitive and consummatory phases. We sought to examine whether reward anticipation vs outcomes would recruit different regions of ventral forebrain circuitry using event-related fMRI. Nine healthy volunteers participated in a monetary incentive delays task in which they either responded to a cued target for monetary reward, responded to a cued target for no reward, or did not respond to a cued target during scanning. Multiple regression analyses indicated that while anticipation of reward vs non-reward activated foci in the ventral striatum, reward vs non-reward outcomes activated foci in the ventromedial frontal cortex. These findings suggest that reward anticipation and outcomes may differentially recruit distinct regions that lie along the trajectory of ascending dopamine projections.
Using event-related fMRI we investigated the rewarding properties of cultural objects (cars) signaling wealth and social dominance. It has been shown recently that reward mechanisms are involved in the regulation of social relations like dominance and social rank. Based on evolutionary considerations we hypothesized that sports cars in contrast to other categories of cars, e.g. limousines and small cars, are strong social reinforcers and would modulate the dopaminergic reward circuitry. Twelve healthy male subjects were studied with fMRI while viewing photographs of different car classes followed by an attractivity rating. Behaviorally sports cars were rated significantly more attractive than limousines and small cars. Our fMRI results revealed significantly more activation in ventral striatum, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and occipital regions for sports cars in contrast to other categories of cars. We could thus demonstrate that artificial cultural objects associated with wealth and social dominance elicit activation in reward-related brain areas.
Advances in neurobiology permit neuroscientists to manipulate specific brain molecules, neurons and systems. This has lead to major advances in the neuroscience of reward. Here, it is argued that further advances will require equal sophistication in parsing reward into its specific psychological components: (1) learning (including explicit and implicit knowledge produced by associative conditioning and cognitive processes); (2) affect or emotion (implicit 'liking' and conscious pleasure) and (3) motivation (implicit incentive salience 'wanting' and cognitive incentive goals). The challenge is to identify how different brain circuits mediate different psychological components of reward, and how these components interact.
Tested the hypothesis that the greater the inducement offered for performing a counterattitudinal task, the greater the dissonance-if the individuals choose not to comply with the attitude-discrepant request. If was predicted that dissonance aroused by noncompliance would be reduced by a strengthening of the original attitude. 20 undergraduates were offered either a high or a low incentive ($1.50 or $.50) for writing an essay advocating the use of codes of dress in secondary schools. The situation was devised in such a way that all Ss chose not to write the essay. Results of an attitude questionnaire indicate that high incentive Ss became more strongly opposed to dress code regulations than either the low incentive group or a control group (n = 10).
It is suggested that emotional states may be considered a function of a state of physiological arousal and of a cognition appropriate to this state of arousal. From this follows these propositions: (a) Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has no immediate explanation, he will label this state and describe his feelings in terms of the cognitions available to him (b) Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has a completely appropriate explanation, no evaluative needs will arise and the individual is unlikely to label his feelings in terms of the alternative cognitions available. (c) Given the same cognitive circumstances, the individual will react emotionally or describe his feelings as emotions only to the extent that he experiences a state of physiological arousal. An experiment is described which, together with the results of other studies, supports these propositions.
Coca-Cola (Coke) and Pepsi are nearly identical in chemical composition, yet humans routinely display strong subjective preferences for one or the other. This simple observation raises the important question of how cultural messages combine with content to shape our perceptions; even to the point of modifying behavioral preferences for a primary reward like a sugared drink. We delivered Coke and Pepsi to human subjects in behavioral taste tests and also in passive experiments carried out during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Two conditions were examined: (1) anonymous delivery of Coke and Pepsi and (2) brand-cued delivery of Coke and Pepsi. For the anonymous task, we report a consistent neural response in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that correlated with subjects' behavioral preferences for these beverages. In the brand-cued experiment, brand knowledge for one of the drinks had a dramatic influence on expressed behavioral preferences and on the measured brain responses.
This review outlines recent findings from human neuroimaging concerning the role of a highly interconnected network of brain areas including orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, striatum and dopaminergic mid-brain in reward processing. Distinct reward-related functions can be attributed to different components of this network. Orbitofrontal cortex is involved in coding stimulus reward value and in concert with the amygdala and ventral striatum is implicated in representing predicted future reward. Such representations can be used to guide action selection for reward, a process that depends, at least in part, on orbital and medial prefrontal cortex as well as dorsal striatum.
This research explored cases where people are drawn to make judgments between individuals based on questionable criteria, in particular those individuals' social group memberships. We suggest that individuals engage in casuistry to mask biased decision making, by recruiting more acceptable criteria to justify such decisions. We present 6 studies that demonstrate how casuistry licenses people to judge on the basis of social category information but appear unbiased--to both others and themselves--while doing so. In 2 domains (employment and college admissions decisions), with 2 social categories (gender and race), and with 2 motivations (favoring an in-group or out-group), the present studies explored how participants justify decisions biased by social category information by arbitrarily inflating the relative value of their preferred candidates' qualifications over those of competitors.
Hedonic experience is arguably at the heart of what makes us human. In recent neuroimaging studies of the cortical networks that mediate hedonic experience in the human brain, the orbitofrontal cortex has emerged as the strongest candidate for linking food and other types of reward to hedonic experience. The orbitofrontal cortex is among the least understood regions of the human brain, but has been proposed to be involved in sensory integration, in representing the affective value of reinforcers, and in decision making and expectation. Here, the functional neuroanatomy of the human orbitofrontal cortex is described and a new integrated model of its functions proposed, including a possible role in the mediation of hedonic experience.
To make a decision, a system must assign value to each of its available choices. In the human brain, one approach to studying valuation has used rewarding stimuli to map out brain responses by varying the dimension or importance of the rewards. However, theoretical models have taught us that value computations are complex, and so reward probes alone can give only partial information about neural responses related to valuation. In recent years, computationally principled models of value learning have been used in conjunction with noninvasive neuroimaging to tease out neural valuation responses related to reward-learning and decision-making. We restrict our review to the role of these models in a new generation of experiments that seeks to build on a now-large body of diverse reward-related brain responses. We show that the models and the measurements based on them point the way forward in two important directions: the valuation of time and the valuation of fictive experience.
Prospect theory, loss aversion, mental accounts, hyperbolic discounting, cues, and the endowment effect can all be seen as examples of situationalism -- the view that people isolate decisions and overweight immediate aspects of the situation relative to longer term concerns. But outside of the laboratory, emotionally-powerful situational factors -- frames, social influence, mental accounts -- are almost always endogenous and often the result of self-interested entrepreneurs. As such, laboratory work and, indeed, psychology more generally, gives us little guidance as to market outcomes. Economics provides a stronger basis for understanding the supply of emotionally-relevant situational variables. Paradoxically situationalism actually increases the relative importance of economics.
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Cultural objects modulate reward circuitry
- Erk
Neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex encode economic value
- Padoa-Schioppa
The human orbitofrontal cortex: linking reward to hedonic experience
- Kringelbach