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Anchors Aweigh! How Early Perceptual Information Biases Subsequent Judgments

Anchoring and adjustment, a ubiquitous heuristic process in judgment and decision making, has been vastly demonstrated in the numerical domain. With the help of four studies, we demonstrate the anchoring and adjustment bias in perceptual domains. Additionally, we outline a process of perceptual anchoring and provide a way for a potential resolution to the disagreement among different process accounts for the anchoring phenomenon.

By |2022-02-17T05:30:57+00:00March 9th, 2021|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights|Tags: , , , , |
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Biased by Design? Motivated Reasoning by Politicians vs. the Public

Governments around the world proclaim their interest in evidence-based policymaking. However, before evidence can affect policies, it needs to be used by human decision-makers. New research shows that politicians, like their voters, are subject to psychological biases, leading them to misinterpret policy information if it challenges their existing attitudes and beliefs. Moreover, they are more resistant to efforts to reduce those biases, and more likely to double down on their political beliefs even when at odds with the evidence at hand.

By |2022-02-17T05:31:28+00:00February 2nd, 2021|Categories: Government & Civic Behavior, Morality & Prosocial Behavior|Tags: , , , , , |
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Black Magic: How Product Colors Influence Prosocial Behaviors

There are “moral meanings” that people ascribe to objects in white and black colors. We show that consumers see buying a product in white color as an act that is morally good and buying a product in black color as an act that is morally bad. Those who buy white-colored products feel licensed to behave less prosocially afterward, while those who buy black-colored products are more prosocial as they feel a need to compensate for their initial misconduct.

By |2022-02-17T05:53:53+00:00January 5th, 2021|Categories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Morality & Prosocial Behavior|Tags: , , , , , , |
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Budget Depreciation: When Budgeting Early Increases Spending

Budgeting in advance is a good practice to control spending. Research reported in this article, however, shows that budgeting too early for a specific purchase may increase spending. This is due to what the authors term 'budget depreciation', a process in which consumers adapt to the reference point set by the budget, lower their pain-of-payment from the budgeted amount, and increase their willingness-to-spend.

By |2022-02-17T05:32:39+00:00December 1st, 2020|Categories: Finance & Investing, Society & Everyday Life|Tags: , , , , |
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Honest Mistake or Perhaps Not: How Social Norms Influence Dishonest Behavior

Minor acts of dishonesty that range from cheating on one’s taxes to petty institutional corruption are very prevalent in everyday life social settings. How others behave in these settings or what they believe is the proper course of action may lead to minor or major acts of dishonesty. Our research finds that exposure to increased peer cheating promoted major dishonesty, while the presence of rule reminders reduced minor acts of dishonesty without influencing major dishonesty.

By |2022-02-17T05:34:35+00:00November 3rd, 2020|Categories: Emerging & Developing Economies, Government & Civic Behavior, Morality & Prosocial Behavior|Tags: , , , , , , |
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Fake News, False Memories and Flawed Decisions: A Behavioural Solution

At first glance, fake news and false memories appear to be separate phenomena. But they have much in common as dangerous sources of misinformation. This article argues that fake news generates false memories, which in turn leads to flawed decision-making. Ignoring this interplay amplifies risk for individuals, businesses and policymakers who rely on information accuracy. Behavioural science techniques can nudge decision-makers towards more proactive critical thinking and self-checking to minimise this predictable and avoidable error.

By |2022-02-17T05:37:09+00:00October 13th, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Morality & Prosocial Behavior, Society & Everyday Life|Tags: , , , , , , |
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Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels

There is a growing concern that the academic literature, because of publication biases and other limitations of single-shot, lab-based studies, overstates the power of nudges in real life. We examined this issue in a 10-week RCT in 60 supermarkets comparing 4 front-of-pack simplified nutrition labels. The good news is that the ordering of the nutrition labels was the same as in published lab-based studies. The bad news is that our effect sizes were, on average, 17 times smaller than in the published literature.

By |2022-06-30T01:20:06+00:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Research Methods|Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Behavioral Economics Guide 2020 Launch – Event Video

On September 24, 2020, we teamed up with the Think Forward Initiative to celebrate the launch of the Behavioral Economics Guide 2020. Our panel of speakers presented their work around the event's main topic 'What can behavioral economics contribute to tackle the threat of climate change?'. Here's a video recording of the event.

By |2022-02-17T05:37:58+00:00October 2nd, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights|
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Sports in the Service of Economics

An increasing number of academic studies have used sports data to investigate economic behavior. Sports data are not only readily available, they also provide an excellent laboratory to study human behavior in real competitive environments. In this article, I will present several examples of my own work that have used sports data to explain fundamental economic theories, as well as articles that showed divergences of economic decision making from neo-classical theories.

By |2022-02-17T05:38:38+00:00September 8th, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Society & Everyday Life|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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Why We Know so Little About Culture and Decision-Making

There is a lot of evidence on the variation of human experience and that economic, social and linguistic environments strongly shape people’s behaviour, motivations and preferences. Despite this, these topics have not received a lot of attention in decision making psychology. In this article, I shed some light on the background of why this is the case.

By |2022-06-30T01:20:31+00:00August 3rd, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Research Methods, Society & Everyday Life|Tags: , , , , , |
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