Two experiments examined moral judgments about a decision-maker’s choices when he chose a sure-thing, 400 out of 600 people will be saved, or a risk, a two-thirds probability to save everyone and a one-thirds probability to save no-one. The results establish a moral echoing effect — a tendency to credit a decision-maker with a good outcome when the decision-maker made the typical choices of the sure-thing in a gain frame or the risk in a loss frame, and to discredit the decision-maker when there is a bad outcome and the decision-maker made the atypical choices of a risk in a gain frame or a sure-thing in a loss frame. The moral echoing effect is established in Experiment 1 (n=207) in which participants supposed the outcome would turn well or badly, and it is replicated in Experiment 2 (n=173) in which they knew it had turned out well or badly, for judgments of moral responsibility and blame or praise. The effect does not occur for judgments of cause, control, counterfactual alternatives, or emotions.

The effect of choice bracketing — the consideration of repeated decisions as a set versus in isolation — has important implications for products that are inherently time-sensitive and entail varying levels of risk, including retirement accounts, insurance purchases, and lottery preferences. We show that broader choice brackets lead to more optimal risk preferences across all risk types, including negative expected value and pure-loss gambles, suggesting that broad decision framing can help individuals make better choices over risks more generally. We also examine the mechanism behind these bracketing effects. We find that bracketing effects work by attenuating (magnifying) the weight placed on potential losses for positive EV (non-positive EV) gambles and by providing aggregated outcomes that might not otherwise be calculated. Thus, decision frames that provide probability distributions or aggregated outcomes can help individuals maximize expected value across different types of risky prospects.

Current theories of dishonest behavior suggest that both individual profits and the availability of justifications drive cheating. Although some evidence hints that cheating behavior is most prevalent when both self-profit and social justifications are present, the relative impact of each of these factors is insufficiently understood. This study provides a fine-grained analysis of the trade-off between self-profit versus social justifiability. In a non-student online sample, we assessed dishonest behavior in a coin-tossing task, involving six conditions which systematically varied both self-profit and social justifiability (in terms of social welfare), such that a decrease in the former was associated with the exact same increase in the latter. Results showed that self-profit outweighed social justifiability, but that there was also an effect of social justifications.

This study measures the perceived costs, perceived benefits, choice outcome satisfaction, and choice process satisfaction from consumers making hypothetical choices amongst prescription drug plans. I juxtapose the number of options the consumer is choosing between and his/her perceived variety of the choice set to understand which contributes more to explaining these outcomes. I find that once perceived variety is included in the model, the number of options (i) has no effect on perceived benefits and choice outcome satisfaction, (ii) increases perceived costs, and (iii) decreases choice process satisfaction. Furthermore, the concave relationship that has been shown to occur when the number of options increases is a function of the subjective perception of variety. Overall, these results contribute to our understanding of how assortment structure and the number of options affect choice outcome and process satisfaction. Additionally, this study provides some evidence that can inform U.S. national heath insurance policy and the current debate on choice in health care in the United States and other countries.

The present research investigated the reason for mixed evidence concerning the relationship between analytic cognitive style (ACS) and political orientation in previous research. Most past research operationalized ACS with the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), which has been criticized as relying heavily on numeracy skills, and operationalized political orientation with the single-item self-placement measure, which has been criticized as masking the distinction between social and economic conservatism. The present research recruited an Amazon Mechanical Turk sample and, for the first time, simultaneously employed three separate ACS measures (CRT, CRT2, Baserate conflict problems), a measure of attitudes toward self-critical and reflective thinking (the Actively Open-Minded Thinking Scale; AOT), and separate measures of social and economic conservatism, as well the standard measure of political orientation. As expected, the total ACS score (combination of the separate measures) was negatively related to social, but not economic, conservatism. However, the CRT by itself was not related to conservatism, in parallel with some past findings, while the two other measures of ACS showed the same pattern as the combined score. Trait reflectiveness (AOT) was related negatively to all measures of political conservatism (social, economic, and general). Results clearly suggest that the conclusion reached regarding the ACS-political orientation relationship depends on the measure(s) used, with the measure most commonly employed in past research (CRT) behaving differently than other measures. Future research must further pursue the implications of the known differences (e.g., reliance on numeracy vs. verbal skills) of ACS measures and distinguish different senses of reflectiveness.

Previous studies have found that the proportions of people who endorsed utilitarian decisions varied across different variants of the trolley dilemma. In this paper, we explored whether moral choices were associated with beliefs about outcome probabilities in different moral dilemmas. Results of two experiments showed that participants’ perceptions of outcome probabilities were different between two dilemmas that were similar to the classical switch case and footbridge case. Participants’ judgments of the outcome probabilities were associated with their moral choices. The results suggested that participants might not accept task instructions and thus did not perceive the outcomes in the dilemmas as certain. We argued that researchers who endorse descriptive tasks in moral reasoning research should be cautious about the findings and should take participants’ beliefs in the outcomes into account.

How do donors reason and justify their choices when faced with dilemmas in a charitable context? In two studies, Swedish students were confronted with helping dilemmas based on the identifiable victim effect, the proportion dominance effect and the ingroup effect. Each dilemma consisted of two comparable charity projects and participants were asked to choose one project over the other. They were then asked to provide justifications of their choice by stating the relative importance of different types of reasons. When faced with an identified victim dilemma, participants did not choose the project including an identified victim more often than the project framed statistically, but those who did emphasized emotional reasons (e.g., “Because I had more empathic feelings”), but not any other reasons, more than those choosing the statistical project. When faced with a Proportion dominance dilemma, participants more often chose the project with a high rescue proportion (e.g., you can save 100% out of 30) than the project with a low rescue proportion (e.g., you can save 4% out of 800), and those who did emphasized efficacy reasons (e.g., “Because my money can make a greater difference there”), but no other reasons, more than those favoring the low recue proportion project. Finally, when faced with an Ingroup dilemma, participants more often chose the project that could help ingroup-victims over the project that could help outgroup victims, and those who did emphasized responsibility reasons (e.g., “Because I have a greater obligation”), but no other reasons, more than those favoring outgroup projects. These results are consistent with and extend previous findings about how different helping effects are related to different psychological processes.

Naturalness is important and valued by most lay Western individuals. Yet, little is known about the lay meaning of “natural”. We examine the phenomenon of additivity dominance: adding something to a natural product (additive) reduces naturalness more than removing an equivalent entity (“subtractive”). We demonstrate additivity dominance for the first time using equivalent adding and subtracting procedures. We find that adding something reduces naturalness more than removing the same thing (e.g., adding pulp to orange juice reduces naturalness more than removing pulp from orange juice; Study 1); an organism with a gene added is less natural than one with a gene removed (Study 2); and framing a product as an additive (versus as a subtractive) reduces naturalness (Study 3). We begin to examine accounts of additivity dominance. We find that it is not due to the connotations of the word “additive” (Study 4). However, data are consistent with an extra processing account — where additives involve more processing (extracting and adding) than subtractives (only removing) — and with a contagion account — where adding is more contaminating than removing (Study 5).

Experiments on economic games typically fail to find positive reputational effects of using peer punishment of selfish behavior in social dilemmas. Theorists had expected positive reputational effects because of the potentially beneficial consequences that punishment may have on norm violators’ behavior. Going beyond the game-theoretic paradigm, we used vignettes to study how various social factors influence approval ratings of a peer who reprimands a violator of a group-beneficial norm. We found that ratings declined when punishers showed anger, and this effect was mediated by perceived aggressiveness. Thus the same emotions that motivate peer punishers may make them come across as aggressive, to the detriment of their reputation. However, the negative effect of showing anger disappeared when the norm violation was sufficiently severe. Ratings of punishers were also influenced by social distance, such that it is less appropriate for a stranger than a friend to reprimand a violator. In sum, peer punisher ratings were very high for a friend reprimanding a severe norm violation, but particularly poor for a stranger showing anger at a mild norm violation. We found no effect on ratings of whether the reprimand had the beneficial consequence of changing the violator’s behavior. Our findings provide insight into how peer punishers can avoid negative reputational effects. They also point to the importance of going beyond economic games when studying peer punishment.

Recently, Scholten and Read (2014) found new violations of dominance in intertemporal choice. Although adding a small receipt before a delayed payment or adding a small delayed receipt after an immediate receipt makes the prospect objectively better, it decreases the preference for that prospect (better is worse). Conversely, although adding a small payment before a delayed receipt or adding a small delayed payment after an immediate payment makes the prospect objectively worse, it increases the preference for that prospect (worse is better). Scholten and Read explained these violations in terms of a preference for improvement. However, to produce violations such as these, we find that the temporal sequences need not be constructed as Scholten and Read suggested. In this study, adding a small receipt before a dated receipt (thus constructed as improving) or adding a receipt after a dated payment (thus constructed as improving) decreases preferences for those prospects. Conversely, adding a small payment after a dated receipt (thus constructed as deteriorating) or adding a small payment before a delayed payment (thus constructed as deteriorating) increases preferences for those prospects.

In an experimental gift-exchange game, we explore the transformative capacity of vulnerable trust, which we define as trusting untrustworthy players when their untrustworthiness is common knowledge between co-players. In our experiment, there are two treatments: the “Information” treatment and the “No-Information” treatment in which we respectively disclose or not information about trustees’ trustworthiness. Our laboratory evidence consistently supports the transformative capacity of trustors’ vulnerable trust, which generates higher transfers, more trustworthiness and increased reciprocity by untrustworthy trustees.

The prominent dual process model of moral cognition suggests that reasoners intuitively detect that harming others is wrong (deontological System-1 morality) but have to engage in demanding deliberation to realize that harm can be acceptable depending on the consequences (utilitarian System-2 morality). But the nature of the interaction between the processes is not clear. To address this key issue we tested whether deontological reasoners also intuitively grasp the utilitarian dimensions of classic moral dilemmas. In three studies subjects solved moral dilemmas in which utilitarian and deontological considerations cued conflicting or non-conflicting decisions while performing a demanding concurrent load task. Results show that reasoners’ sensitivity to conflicting moral perspectives, as reflected in decreased decision confidence and increased experienced processing difficulty, was unaffected by cognitive load. We discuss how these findings argue for a hybrid dual process model interpretation in which System-1 cues both a deontological and utilitarian intuition.

Prospect Theory proposed that the (dis)utility of losses is always more than gains due to a phenomena called ‘loss-aversion’, a result obtained in multiple later studies over the years. However, some researchers found reversed or no loss-aversion for affective judgments of small monetary amounts but, those findings have been argued to stem from the way gains versus losses were measured. Thus, it was not clear whether loss-aversion does not show with affective judgments for smaller magnitudes, or it is a measurement error. This paper addresses the debate concerning loss-aversion (in the prospect theoretic sense) and judgments about the intensity of gains and losses. We measured affective prospective judgments for monetary amounts using measurement scales that have been argued to be suitable for measuring loss-aversion and hence rule out any explanations regarding measurement. Both in a gambling scenario (Experiments 1 and 2) and in the context of fluctuating prices (Experiments 3a and 3b), potential losses never loomed larger than gains for low magnitudes, indicating that it is not simply a measurement error. Moreover, for the same participant, loss aversion was observable at high magnitudes. Further, we show that loss-aversion disappears even for higher monetary values, if contextually an even larger anchor is provided. The results imply that Prospect Theory’s value function is contextually dependent on magnitudes.

In applied sciences large-scale surveys are a popular means to acquire insights in the choices that people make in different contexts. In transportation research, for example, tens of thousands stated their choices between alternatives characterized by cost and time attributes. In this study I explore the extent to which the data acquired in such studies may exhibit the co-occurrence of different choice algorithms within such survey populations. For that purpose I propose a novel version of the outcome-oriented approach. It is applied to the outcomes of two Dutch value-of-time surveys. If the recorded choice patterns are viewed apart, most could be the result of several different algorithms, in line with the main criticism of the outcome-oriented approach. The novel version considers the causal relationships between an individual’s personal circumstances, his use of a particular algorithm and the resulting choice pattern. It employs inferential statistics for analyses of the frequencies of the expected and actually recorded choice patterns within groups of respondents. Applied to the Dutch survey results this allowed disentangling, at the aggregate level, the overlap in explaining compensatory and non-compensatory algorithms to a large extent. It revealed that weighted additive (WADD) algorithms incorporating different degrees of loss aversion could explain most recorded choice behaviour while none of the many non-compensatory algorithms that were considered yielded a more than marginal explanation. Replications of this study, preferably by re-analysing other large-scale surveys with more complicated choice sets, is recommended to find out whether or not these findings are incidental.

Judgments and decisions can rely on rules to integrate cue information or on the retrieval of similar exemplars from memory. Research on exemplar-based processes in judgment has discovered several task variables influencing the dominant mode of processing. This research often aggregates data across participants or classifies them as using either exemplar-based or cue-based processing. It has been argued for theoretical and empirical reasons that both kinds of processes might operate together or in parallel. Hence, a classification of strategies may be a severe oversimplification that also sacrifices statistical power to detect task effects. We present a simple measurement tool combining both processing modes. The simple model contains a mixture parameter quantifying the relative contribution of both kinds of processes in a judgment and decision task. In three experiments, we validate the measurement model by demonstrating that instructions and task variables affect the mixture parameter in predictable ways, both in memory-based and screen-based judgments.

Recent research suggests that people discount or neglect expectations of reciprocity in trust dilemmas. We examine the underlying processes and boundary conditions of this effect, finding that expectations have stronger effects on trust when they are made accessible and when they are provided as objective probabilities (Study 1). Objective expectations have stronger effects when they are based on precise, rather than ambiguous, probabilities (Study 2). We also find that trust decisions differ from individual risk-taking decisions: people are more willing to trust, and expectations have stronger effects on trusting behavior (Study 2). These results show that the availability and ambiguity of expectations shape trust decisions, and that people differentially weight expectations in dilemmas of trust and individual risk-taking.

Should a Catholic hospital abort a life-threatening pregnancy or let a pregnant woman die? Should a religious employer allow his employees access to contraceptives or break with healthcare legislation? People and organizations of faith often face moral decisions that have significant consequences. Research in psychology found that religion is typically associated with deontological judgment. Yet deontology consists of many principles, which may, at times, conflict. In three studies, we design a conflict between moral principles and find that the relationship between moral judgment and religiosity is more nuanced than currently assumed. Studies 1 and 2 show that, while religious U.S. Christians and Israeli Jews are more likely to form deontological judgments, they divide between the deontological principles of inaction and indirectness. Using textual analysis, we reveal that specific beliefs regarding divine responsibility and human responsibility distinguish inaction from indirectness deontologists. Study 3 exploits natural differences in religious saliency across days of the week to provide causal evidence that religion raises deontological tendencies on Sundays and selectively increases the appeal of inaction deontology for those who believe in an interventionist and responsible God.

The results of song contests offer a unique opportunity to analyze possible distortions arising from various biases in performance evaluations using observational data. In this study we investigate the influence of contestants’ order of appearance on their ranking. We found that, in the New Wave Song Contest, expert judgments were significantly influenced by the contestant’s running number, an exogenous factor that, being assigned randomly, clearly did not influence the output quality. We also found weaker statistical evidence of such an ordering effect in Eurovision Song Contest finals of 2009–2012.

In sport betting, bettors exhibit home bias when they tend to bet on their home team more often. The paper offers a straightforward method of empirical identification of the home bias in the real-world betting market. Using Czech betting data on the league and the national ice-hockey matches, the paper provides support for the existence of the home bias in the Czech betting market.