| Abstracts |
Avoiding the risk of responsibility by seeking uncertainty: Responsibility aversion and preference for indirect agency when choosing for others
James M. Leonhardt, L. Robin Keller, Cornelia Pechmann
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Uncertainty-seeking behavior is currently understood as the result of loss aversion which motivates a preference for the possibility to avoid or lessen an otherwise sure loss. However, when choosing among negative options on behalf of others, we offer responsibility aversion as another possible motive for uncertainty-seeking behavior. Within our conceptual model, responsibility aversion is defined as the preference to minimize one's causal role in outcome generation. Compared to certain options, uncertain options lessen the decision maker's causal role in outcome generation because the outcomes are partially determined by chance. The presence of chance increases indirect agency on behalf of the decision maker and lessens his or her perceived risk of responsibility. The results of five studies support a responsibility aversion motivation behind uncertainty-seeking behavior.
|
Enhanced active choice: A new method to motivate behavior change
Punam Anand Keller, Bari Harlam, George Loewenstein, Kevin G. Volpp
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
High rates of medication non-adherence have significant public health and economic consequences. In other contexts such as savings behavior, opt-out policies, in which the alternative preferred by the policy maker is made the default, have gotten great traction but may not be feasible in health care settings. After reviewing previous applications, we present a series of studies, including two field experiments, that test the effectiveness of an alternative, ‘active choice’ policy in which there is no default, but decision makers are required to make a choice (Carroll, Choi, Laibson, Madrian, & Metrick, 2009; Spital, 1993, 1995). In addition, we propose and test a modified version of active choice, that we call ‘enhanced active choice’ that favors one alternative by highlighting losses incumbent in the in the non-preferred alternative. We recommend Enhanced Active Choice as a complement to automatic enrollment or when automatic enrollment is infeasible or unethical.
|
Food, sex and the hunger for distinction
Jonah Berger, Baba Shiv
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Consumer preferences are often influenced by the distinctiveness of the options involved, but do needs for distinctiveness display motivational reward properties? Four studies suggest that they do. Activating needs for distinctiveness impacts the desirability of other, seemingly unrelated rewards, and reciprocally, preferences for distinctiveness are impacted by the presence of seemingly unrelated reward stimuli. Further, these cross-domain spillover effects were moderated by sensitivity to the general reward system and satiated by even seemingly unrelated intervening rewards. These findings shed light on the nature of distinctiveness and its implications for consumer behavior.
|
Losses, gains, and brains: Neuroeconomics can help to answer open questions about loss aversion
Scott I. Rick
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Much is understood about loss aversion (the tendency for losses to have greater hedonic impact than comparable gains), but open questions remain. First, there is debate about whether loss aversion is best understood as the byproduct of a single system within the brain that treats losses and gains asymmetrically or the interaction of separate deliberative and emotional systems. Second, some have questioned whether loss aversion alone is the best account for the endowment effect. Alternative accounts, based on the differential focus induced by buying versus selling, the order in which buyers and sellers consider positive and negative aspects of the good, the extent to which ownership induces liking, and the desire to avoid making a bad deal, have been proposed. Third, it is unclear whether losses are actually experienced more intensely than comparable gains, or whether people simply behave as if they were. Some have argued that loss aversion is nothing more than an affective forecasting error, while others have argued that there are many situations in which losses are actually more impactful than comparable gains. This review synthesizes the insights that behavioral researchers and neuroeconomists have contributed to each debate, and highlights potential avenues for future research.
|
Procedural influences on judgements and behavioral decisions
Robert S. Wyer, Jr.
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Individuals' decisions are not only influenced by their immediate objective and the relevance of the available information to the attainment of this objective. When several different cognitive procedures could be used to make a decision, the nature of this decision can depend on the procedure that happens to be used. The selection of this procedure, which might come into play at different stages of cognitive functioning, can be affected by factors that are totally irrelevant to the judgment or decision to be made or to the goal that is being pursued. In fact, procedures that have been employed in one situation can influence behavior in a quite different situation in the pursuit of a quite unrelated objective. Examples of these effects are reviewed and interpreted in terms of three basic principles of cognitive functioning that pertain to cognitive efficiency, knowledge accessibility and the impact of subjective experience.
|
Psychological ownership and affective reaction: Emotional attachment process variables and the endowment effect
Suzanne B. Shu, Joann Peck
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
This research proposes that the concept of emotional attachment, and specifically the independent constructs of psychological ownership and affective reaction, can help explain many of the endowment effect findings documented in the literature. We define these constructs and then test them across a set of nine studies in which we both replicate previous and generate new endowment effect findings, and then show that psychological ownership and affective reaction can mediate the effects. In doing so, we offer direct empirical support for the idea of emotional attachment as a driver of loss aversion while also providing practitioners and future endowment effect researchers with new insights about the psychological processes that underlie the endowment effect.
|
The course of motivation
Maferima Toure-Tillery, Ayelet Fishbach
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
This article explores the course of motivation in pursuing various goals. We distinguish between two dimensions of motivation: the motivation to attain a focal goal (outcome-focused dimension) and the motivation to “do things right” in the process of reaching that goal (means-focused dimension). We identify the conditions under which the motivation to reach a focal goal increases versus decreases over the course of goal pursuit. We then propose that the motivation to “do things right” follows a u-shaped pattern, such that it is higher at the beginning and end of goal pursuit than in the middle.
|
The intermediate alternative effect: Considering a small tradeoff increases subsequent willingness to make large tradeoffs
Gabriele Paolacci, Katherine A. Burson, Scott I. Rick
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Prior research has consistently demonstrated that people are reluctant to trade a good they own for an alternative good, particularly when the alternative (or “target”) represents a substantial departure from the “endowment”. We demonstrate that the endowment effect can be reduced by first making participants consider trading their endowment for an intermediate alternative (which shares some characteristics of the endowment and some characteristics of the target). We find that this “intermediate alternative effect” operates primarily by shifting one's reference point in the direction of the target alternative. Even when the intermediate alternative is not adopted, the extent to which one's endowment is treated as a reference point is weakened, which can also facilitate subsequent trading.
|
The role of regulatory fit on the attraction effect
Subimal Chatterjee, Rajat Roy, Ashwin Vinod Malshe
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
Abstract not currently available
|
The supremacy of singular subjectivity: Improving decision quality by removing objective specifications and direct comparisons
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher K. Hsee, Yi Liu, Li Zhang
2011 Vol. 21 No. 4
When making purchase decisions, consumers want objective product specifications and seek direct product comparison. The present research demonstrates that consumers can make better decisions (i.e., choose what yields a better consumption experience) if objective specifications are removed and direct comparison is inhibited than if not, and this is true even if consumers cannot experience the target products themselves at the time of choice (such as in online shopping). The reason is that consumption is largely subjective and non-comparative, and decisions based on subjective and non-comparative information are often more compatible with consumption. In general discussion, we explore the boundary conditions of our findings and the implications of this research for a new way of marketing that emphasizes subjectivity over objectivity and non-comparison over comparison.
|