Sense and Sensibility
Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects
George Newman, Gil Diesendruck & Paul Bloom
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do people purchase objects that were once owned by celebrities, such as film stars or politicians, and also by despised individuals, such as serial killers and notorious dictators? The present studies examine three potential explanations: mere associations, market demands, and contagion (the belief that these objects contain some remnants of their previous owners). Results indicate that while market demands do play a role, contagion appears to be the critical factor impacting the valuation of celebrity possessions. Manipulating the degree of physical contact that a celebrity has with an object dramatically influences consumers' willingness to purchase it, and individual differences in sensitivity to contagion moderate this effect. Additionally, the valuation of celebrity possessions is principally explained by measures of contagion, and subliminally activating the concept of contagion changes consumers' willingness to purchase celebrity objects. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Smells Like Safe Sex: Olfactory Pathogen Primes Increase Intentions to Use Condoms
Joshua Tybur, Angela Bryan, Renee Magnan & Ann Caldwell Hooper
Psychological Science, forthcoming
"In the pathogen-prime condition, while participants were out of the room, the experimenter sprayed the wall of the room with a single pump of 'Liquid ASS,' a novelty odor liquid that smells strongly of common bacterial threats (e.g., feces). In the control condition, the experimenter did not administer the spray. After returning from getting water, participants reported their intentions to purchase and use condoms over the next 6 months...An independent-samples t test demonstrated that participants in the pathogen-prime condition reported greater intentions to use condoms (M = 4.48, SD = 1.70) than did participants in the control condition (M = 3.74, SD = 1.85), t(97) = 2.06, p < .05, d = 0.42. The effect was identical across individuals who had and had not had sexual intercourse in the past year, F(1, 95) = 0.13, p = .72, and persisted after controlling for gender, SOI-R, and baseline condom attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy, t(92) = 2.03, p < .05, semipartial r = .17...Indeed, the pathogen prime accounted for more unique variance in intentions to use condoms than did condom attitudes and perceptions of condom norms, both of which are commonly viewed as critical predictors of intentions to use condoms"
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How the brain responds to the destruction of money
Cristina Becchio et al.
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, February 2011, Pages 1-10
Abstract:
Is our attitude to money like that to any other tool even though its use is symbolic and is not implemented in its physical structure? Knowledge of the functional use of concrete tools, such as hammers or screwdrivers, has been associated with activation of a left hemisphere network including the posterior temporal cortex, supramarginal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and lateral precuneus. Here we demonstrate that observing bank notes being cut up or torn, a critical violation of their function, elicits activation within the same temporo-parietal network. Moreover, this activation is the greater the higher the value of the banknote. This lends plausibility to a genuinely psychological interpretation of the explanation of money as a tool for parametrically symbolizing exchange.
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Visual Distortion of Body Size Modulates Pain Perception
Flavia Mancini et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Pain is a complex subjective experience that is shaped by numerous contextual factors. For example, simply viewing the body reduces the reported intensity of acute physical pain. In this study, we investigated whether this visually induced analgesia is modulated by the visual size of the stimulated body part. We measured contact heat-pain thresholds while participants viewed either their own hand or a neutral object in three size conditions: reduced, actual size, or enlarged. Vision of the body was analgesic, increasing heat-pain thresholds by an average of 3.2 °C. We further found that visual enlargement of the viewed hand enhanced analgesia, whereas visual reduction of the hand decreased analgesia. These results demonstrate that pain perception depends on multisensory representations of the body and that visual distortions of body size modulate sensory components of pain.
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Second-hand stress: Inhalation of stress sweat enhances neural response to neutral faces
Denis Rubin, Yevgeny Botanov, Greg Hajcak & Lilianne Mujica-Parodi
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigated whether human chemosensory-stress cues affect neural activity related to the evaluation of emotional stimuli. Chemosensory stimuli were obtained from the sweat of 64 male donors during both stress (first-time skydive) and control (exercise) conditions, indistinguishable by odor. We then recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from an unrelated group of 14 participants while they viewed faces morphed with neutral-to-angry expressions and inhaled nebulized stress and exercise sweat in counter-balanced blocks, blind to condition. Results for the control condition ERPs were consistent with previous findings: the late positive potential (LPP; 400-600 ms post stimulus) in response to faces was larger for threatening than both neutral and ambiguous faces. In contrast, the stress condition was associated with a heightened LPP across all facial expressions; relative to control, the LPP was increased for both ambiguous and neutral faces in the stress condition. These results suggest that stress sweat may impact electrocortical activity associated with attention to salient environmental cues, potentially increasing attentiveness to otherwise inconspicuous stimuli.
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Temper, Temperature, and Temptation: Heat-Related Retaliation in Baseball
Richard Larrick et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this study, we analyzed data from 57,293 Major League Baseball games to test whether high temperatures interact with provocation to increase the likelihood that batters will be hit by a pitch. Controlling for a number of other variables, we conducted analyses showing that the probability of a pitcher hitting a batter increases sharply at high temperatures when more of the pitcher's teammates have been hit by the opposing team earlier in the game. We suggest that high temperatures increase retaliation by increasing hostile attributions when teammates are hit by a pitch and by lowering inhibitions against retaliation.
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Weighty Matters: Importance Literally Feels Heavy
Iris Schneider et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work showed that concrete experiences of weight influence people's judgments of how important certain issues are. In line with an embodied simulation account but contrary to a metaphor-enriched perspective, this work shows that perceived importance of an object influences perceptions of weight. Two studies manipulated information about a book's importance, after which, participants estimated its weight. Importance information caused participants to perceive the book to be heavier. This was not merely a semantic association, because weight perceptions were affected only when participants physically held the book. Furthermore, importance information influenced weight perceptions but not perceptions of monetary value. These findings extend previous research by showing that the activation direction from weight to importance can be reversed, thus suggesting that the connection between importance and weight goes beyond metaphorical mappings. Implications for the debate on interpretation of findings on the interplay between bodily states and abstract information are discussed.
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Cleansing the Soul by Hurting the Flesh: The Guilt-Reducing Effect of Pain
Brock Bastian, Jolanda Jetten & Fabio Fasoli
Psychological Science, forthcoming
"When reminded of an immoral deed, people are motivated to experience physical pain. Participants who wrote about an unethical behavior not only held their hands in ice water longer but also rated the experience as more painful than did participants who wrote about an everyday interaction. Critically, experiencing pain reduced people's feelings of guilt, and the effect of the painful task on ratings of guilt was greater than the effect of a similar but nonpainful task."
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Gardening Promotes Neuroendocrine and Affective Restoration from Stress
Agnes Van Den Berg & Mariëtte Custers
Journal of Health Psychology, January 2011, Pages 3-11
Abstract:
Stress-relieving effects of gardening were hypothesized and tested in a field experiment. Thirty allotment gardeners performed a stressful Stroop task and were then randomly assigned to 30 minutes of outdoor gardening or indoor reading on their own allotment plot. Salivary cortisol levels and self-reported mood were repeatedly measured. Gardening and reading each led to decreases in cortisol during the recovery period, but decreases were significantly stronger in the gardening group. Positive mood was fully restored after gardening, but further deteriorated during reading. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that gardening can promote relief from acute stress.
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The Brightness-Weight Illusion: Darker Objects Look Heavier but Feel Lighter
Peter Walker, Brian Francis & Leanne Walker
Experimental Psychology, November/December 2010, Pages 462-469
Abstract:
Bigger objects look heavier than smaller but otherwise identical objects. When hefted as well as seen, however, bigger objects feel lighter (the size-weight illusion), confirming that the association between visual size and weight has a perceptual component. Darker objects also look heavier than brighter but otherwise identical objects. It is uncertain, however, if this association also has a perceptual element, or if it simply reflects the fact that, in English at least, the same verbal label (light) is applied to both surface brightness and weight. To address this, we looked for a brightness equivalent of the size-weight illusion. Paired-comparison judgments of weight were obtained for balls differing only in color. Based on vision alone, darker objects were judged to be heavier. When the balls were hefted as well as seen, this association was reversed (i.e., a brightness-weight illusion), consistent with it having a perceptual component. To gauge the strength of the illusion (in grams), a white and a black ball (both 129 g) were each compared against a set of mid-gray balls varying in weight. When the balls were hefted as well as seen, the white ball felt approximately 8 g heavier than the black ball, a difference corresponding to 6.2% of their actual weight. Possible environmental origins of the association between surface lightness and weight are considered.