Want
Jonah Berger & Devin Pope
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Individuals, groups, and teams who are behind their opponents in competition tend to be more likely to lose. In contrast, we show that through increasing motivation, being slightly behind can actually increase success. Analysis of more than 18,000 professional basketball games illustrates that being slightly behind at halftime leads to a discontinuous increase in winning percentage. Teams behind by a point at halftime, for example, actually win more often than teams ahead by one, or approximately six percentage points more often than expected. This psychological effect is roughly half the size of the proverbial home-team advantage. Analysis of more than 45,000 collegiate basketball games finds consistent, though smaller, results. Experiments corroborate the field data and generalize their findings, providing direct causal evidence that being slightly behind increases effort and casting doubt on alternative explanations for the results. Taken together, these findings illustrate that losing can sometimes lead to winning.
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Winners Love Winning and Losers Love Money
Karim Kassam et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Salience and satisfaction are important factors in determining the comparisons that people make. We hypothesized that people make salient comparisons first, and then make satisfying comparisons only if salient comparisons leave them unsatisfied. This hypothesis suggests an asymmetry between winning and losing. For winners, comparison with a salient alternative (i.e., losing) brings satisfaction. Therefore, winners should be sensitive only to the relative value of their outcomes. For losers, comparison with a salient alternative (i.e., winning) brings little satisfaction. Therefore, losers should be drawn to compare outcomes with additional standards, which should make them sensitive to both relative and absolute values of their outcomes. In Experiment 1, participants won one of two cash prizes on a scratch-off ticket. Winners were sensitive to the relative value of their prizes, whereas losers were sensitive to both the relative and the absolute values of their prizes. In Experiment 2, losers were sensitive to the absolute value of their prize only when they had sufficient cognitive resources to engage in effortful comparison.
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The Impact of Mimicry on Sales - Evidence from Field and Lab Experiments
Andreas Herrmann et al.
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
A buyer's observation that one or more people are consuming a product can lead that buyer to consume the product as well. The evidence supporting unconscious and unintentional (automatic) mimicry of consumption suggests that it is a pervasive and robust phenomenon. However, up until now most findings on the antecedents of mimicry have been obtained from lab studies. Using a field study, the current research shows that passengers in a train mimic the consumption behavior of other passengers. Two subsequent lab studies suggest that mimicry of consumption is all the more powerful the more people there are consuming and the more intense and consistent their consumption behavior is. However, the impact of the number of people on the willingness to engage in mimicry reaches a peak at approximately eight people and is relatively constant thereafter.
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Ulrike Malmendier & Young Han Lee
American Economic Review, April 2011, Pages 749-787
Abstract:
We employ a novel approach to identify overbidding in auctions. We compare online auction prices to fixed prices for the same item on the same webpage. In detailed data on auctions of a board game, 42 percent of auctions exceed the simultaneous fixed price. The result replicates in a broad cross-section of auctions (48 percent overbidding). A small fraction of overbidders, 17 percent of bidders, suffices to generate the large fraction of auctions with overbidding. We show that the observed behavior is inconsistent with rational behavior, even allowing for uncertainty about prices and switching costs, since the expected auction price also exceeds the fixed price. Limited attention best explains our results.
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Negotiation as a form of persuasion: Arguments in first offers
Yossi Maaravi, Yoav Ganzach & Asya Pazy
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article we examined aspects of negotiation within a persuasion framework. Specifically, we investigated how the provision of arguments that justified the first offer in a negotiation affected the behavior of the parties, namely, how it influenced counteroffers and settlement prices. In a series of 4 experiments and 2 pilot studies, we demonstrated that when the generation of counterarguments was easy, negotiators who did not add arguments to their first offers achieved superior results compared with negotiators who used arguments to justify their first offer. We hypothesized and provided evidence that adding arguments to a first offer was likely to cause the responding party to search for counterarguments, and this, in turn, led him or her to present counteroffers that were further away from the first offer.
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Honesty Pays: On the Benefits of Having and Disclosing Information in Coalition Bargaining
Ilja van Beest, Wolfgang Steinel & Keith Murnighan
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
People typically think of negotiations as competitive, which often leads them to engage in secrecy and even deception. In three experiments we show that this approach can backfire in coalition bargaining. Results show that, even though bargainers with an outcome advantage only obtain favorable outcomes when this information is public, they rarely choose to reveal this information. Fairness motivations fueled decisions to reveal this information and make attractive offers whereas self-interest fueled decisions not to reveal and make unattractive offers. Finally, perspective taking increased proselfs' inclinations to keep their advantage private whereas it increased prosocials' inclinations to reveal. These findings suggest that many people are not naturally inclined to reveal private information when they have an outcome advantage, but that fairness motives encourage revelation and, ironically, increase revealers' outcomes in coalition bargaining. Thus, in this context, honesty pays.
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The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value
Ryan Buell & Michael Norton
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when websites engage in operational transparency by signaling that they are exerting effort, people can actually prefer websites with longer waits to those that return instantaneous results - even when those results are identical. In five experiments that simulate service experiences in the domains of online travel and online dating, we demonstrate the impact of the labor illusion on service value perceptions, demonstrate that perceptions of service provider effort induce feelings of reciprocity which together mediate the link between operational transparency and increased valuation, and explore boundary conditions and alternative explanations.
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In Praise of Vagueness: Malleability of Vague Information as a Performance Booster
Himanshu Mishra, Arul Mishra & Baba Shiv
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is the eternal quest for precise information always worthwhile? Our research suggests that, at times, vagueness has its merits. Previous research has demonstrated that people prefer precise information over vague information because it gives them a sense of security and makes their environments more predictable. However, we show that the fuzzy boundaries afforded by vague information can actually help individuals perform better than can precise information. We document these findings across two laboratory studies and one quasi-field study that involved different performance-related contexts (mental acuity, physical strength, and weight loss). We argue that the malleability of vague information allows people to interpret it in the manner they desire, so that they can generate positive response expectancies and, thereby, perform better. The rigidity of precise information discourages desirable interpretations. Hence, on certain occasions, precise information is not as helpful as vague information in boosting performance.
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Keeping Up With the Joneses: Dolphins' Search Knowledge for Knowledge's Sake
Yaniv Shani, Marie Christine Cepicka & Nadav Shashar
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research on decision-making established that when not knowing the possible negative outcome of past experiences, individuals search for more information even when it confirms their early negative suspicion. It is argued that what drives this information search is the hope that the unpleasant state of "not knowing" ends when one faces the truth (Shani, Igou, & Zeelenberg, 2009; Shani, Tykocinski, & Zeelenberg, 2008; Shani & Zeelenberg, 2007). In this manuscript, we show that bottlenose dolphins as well, sometimes seek to increase their knowledge concerning food allocated to other dolphins in the group, even though such knowledge could not increase self-food availability. This search increases when own feed is augmented, and decreases when sexually engaged (a competing basic need to food and curiosity), suggesting that knowledge for knowledge's sake emerges particularly when the organisms' basic needs (e.g., food) have been satisfied, allowing higher-level psychological needs to emerge. This finding has diverse implications for understanding humans' curiosity and social comparison tendencies, as it appears that even in the animal kingdom information is viewed as a valuable asset of itself.
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Perception of the color red enhances the force and velocity of motor output
Andrew Elliot & Henk Aarts
Emotion, April 2011, Pages 445-449
Abstract:
The present research examined whether perception of the color red influences basic motor functioning. Prior research on color and motor functioning has been guided by ill-defined theoretical statements, and has been plagued by methodological problems. Drawing on theoretical and empirical work on the threat-behavior link in human and nonhuman animals, we proposed and tested the prediction that perceiving red enhances the force and velocity of motor output. Experiment 1 demonstrated that red, relative to gray (matched to red on lightness), facilitates pinchgrip force. Experiment 2 demonstrated that red, relative to gray (matched to red on lightness) and blue (matched to red on lightness and chroma) facilitates handgrip force and the velocity of that force. These findings clearly establish a link between red and basic motor action, illustrate the importance of rigorous experimental methods when testing color effects, and highlight the need to attend to the functional, as well as aesthetic, value of color.
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Kimberly Rios Morrison & Camille Johnson
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, May 2011, Pages 639-651
Abstract:
Four studies tested whether uncertainty about the self-concept can motivate people, particularly individualists who define themselves in terms of their personal traits and characteristics, to perceive their material possessions as extensions of themselves (i.e., as self-expressive). In Study 1, European American participants rated their favorite pair of blue jeans as more self-expressive after being induced to feel self-uncertain, whereas Asian American participants did not. In Study 2, participants who scored high on a measure of individualism rated their cars as more self-expressive following a self-uncertainty manipulation. In Study 3, individualists (but not collectivists) rated their favorite possessions as more self-expressive after being subject to self-uncertainty; a manipulation of self-irrelevant uncertainty did not produce these results. In Study 4, thinking about a self-expressive (relative to utilitarian) possession bolstered self-certainty among individualists, but not collectivists. Implications for research on culture, the self-concept, and possessions are discussed.
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Norbert Schwarz & Jing Xu
Journal of Consumer Psychology, April 2011, Pages 142-145
Abstract:
Why do consumers need advice on how to spend their money to improve their enjoyment of life? Why don't they learn this from daily experience? We propose that consumers' opportunity to learn from experience is impaired because hedonic experiences are fleeting. Once some time has passed, consumers rely on their general knowledge to reconstruct what the experience must have been, which is also the knowledge they use in hedonic prediction and choice. Given this overlap in inputs, prediction, choice and memory usually converge, leaving consumers with the impression that their predictions were correct and their choices wise. The actual in situ experience, however, may have been quite different. We illustrate these dynamics with a product many consumers want to spend their money on, namely, a luxury car.
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The Pantomime of Persuasion: Fit Between Nonverbal Communication and Influence Strategies
Bob Fennis & Marielle Stel
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
How can we be more successful in persuading others and increase the odds of behavioral compliance? We argue that when a verbal influence strategy is embedded in a nonverbal style that fits its orientation, this boosts the strategy's effectiveness, whereas a misfit attenuates its impact. In field-experiment 1, agents tried to persuade participants in buying a candybox by using an approach-oriented strategy (Door-In-The-Face, DITF). An eager nonverbal style increased the impact of the DITF, whereas vigilant nonverbal cues rendered it ineffective. Conversely, field-experiment 2 showed that an avoidance-oriented strategy (Disrupt-Then-Reframe) benefited from being presented in a vigilant, rather than an eager nonverbal style, which similarly attenuated its impact. Hence, eager nonverbal cues promote the effectiveness of approach-oriented influence strategies whereas vigilant cues do the opposite and increase the impact of avoidance-oriented influence strategies.
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"I Hope I'm Not Disturbing You, Am I?" Another Operationalization of the Foot-in-the-Mouth Paradigm
Sebastien Meineri & Nicolas Gueguen
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, April 2011, Pages 965-975
Abstract:
A study by Howard (1990) proposed a compliance technique built on a social routine. We tested a technique based on an alternative routine. Our hypothesis was that asking people about their availability before making a request would result in increased compliance. A group of 1,791 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire by phone for a consumer survey. The results showed that compliance rates were higher when the requester inquired about respondents' availability and waited for a response than when he pursued his set speech without waiting and inquiring about respondents' availability. The results are discussed based on 2 complementary consistency mechanisms (Aune & Basil, 1994; Tedeschi, Schlenker, & Bonoma, 1971).
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Smiles make it easier and so do frowns: Masked affective stimuli influence mental effort
Guido Gendolla & Nicolas Silvestrini
Emotion, April 2011, Pages 320-328
Abstract:
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that exposure to masked emotional expressions during the performance of cognitive tasks influences effort mobilization. In support of the predictions, participants who processed masked sad faces during task performance under "do your best" instructions showed stronger sympathetic nervous system discharge to the heart (shorter pre-ejection period, higher systolic blood pressure) than participants who were exposed to masked smiling faces or angry faces. Assessed task appraisals suggest that these effects on effort-related cardiovascular reactivity occurred because the masked emotional stimuli influenced the level of experienced task difficulty. The findings are compatible with the effects of consciously experienced affect on effort-related cardiovascular response.
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A Brief Pause between a Tagline and Brand Increases Brand Name Recognition and Preference
Antonia Mantonakis
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores the outcome of the visual encoding of brands in meaningful sentences (i.e. in taglines) on brand name recognition and preference. In this paper, it is shown that, above and beyond the role of conceptual priming during encoding at increasing recognition memory, there is a role of creating a temporal delay, or pause, between meaningful cues in the sentence and a key word (Experiment 1) or brand (Experiments 2a and 3) on memory. The pause is also associated with increased preference towards brands (Experiment 2b). These findings demonstrate a new way to enhance recognition of brand names that is not due to a pure generation effect but rather by increasing attention, which increases processing fluency of the target.