Can't resist
Nicole Mead & Vanessa Patrick
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 2016, Pages 20-35
Abstract:
The present investigation began with the conjecture that people may do better by saying "some other time" instead of "no, not ever" in response to temptations. Drawing from learning theories, we hypothesized that people interpret unspecific postponement ("I can have it some other time") as a signal that they do not strongly value the postponed temptation. In this way, unspecific postponement may reduce desire for and consumption of postponed temptations, both in the present moment and over time. Four experiments tested those hypotheses. A multiphase study using the free-choice paradigm supported the learning account for the effects of postponement: unspecific postponement reduced immediate desire for a self-selected temptation which in turn statistically accounted for diminished consumption during the week after the manipulation - but only when postponement was induced, not when it was imposed (Experiment 1). Supporting the hypothesis that unspecific but not specific postponement connotes weak valuation, only unspecific postponement reduced attention to (Experiment 2) and consumption of (Experiment 3) the postponed temptation. Additionally, unspecific postponement delayed consumption primarily among those who were highly motivated to forgo consumption of the temptation (Experiment 3). A final multiphase experiment compared the effectiveness of unspecific postponement to the classic self-control mechanism of restraint, finding that unspecific postponement (vs. restraint) reduced consumption of the temptation in the heat of the moment and across 1 week postmanipulation (Experiment 4). The current research provides novel insight into self-control facilitation, the modification of desire, and the differential effects of unspecific and specific intentions for reducing unwanted behavior.
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The benefits of behaving badly on occasion: Successful regulation by planned hedonic deviations
Rita Coelho do Vale, Rik Pieters & Marcel Zeelenberg
Journal of Consumer Psychology, January 2016, Pages 17-28
Abstract:
This research tests the idea that goal-pursuit that requires extended inhibition of desires, such as weight loss and financial saving, can benefit from including planned hedonic deviations in the goal-striving plan. Two controlled experiments (simulated and real dieting) demonstrate that including planned goal deviations during extended goal striving, compared with following a straight and rigid goal striving process, (1) helps regain self-regulatory resources, (2) helps maintain consumers' motivation to pursue with regulatory tasks, and (3) has a positive impact on affect experienced, which all contribute to facilitate long-term goal-adherence. A third study, conducted with current goal-strivers provides further evidence of the benefits of planned hedonic deviations for goal pursuit across a variety of goals. This reveals that it may be beneficial for long-term goal-success to occasionally be bad, as long it is planned.
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Risk Preferences and Misconduct: Evidence from Politicians
Dylan Minor
Harvard Working Paper, December 2015
Abstract:
When seeking new leaders, business and government organizations alike often need individuals that are less risk averse, or even risk-seeking, in order to improve performance. However, individuals amenable to increased risk-taking may be more likely to engage in misconduct. To study this issue, we explore US political scandals and the implicated politicians' portfolio choices. We find that a politician allocating all of her portfolio to risky investments has double the odds of being involved in a political sandal compared to a politician allocating all of her portfolio to safe investments. This suggests that those who are more willing to take risks in their personal finances are also more likely to engage in misconduct. We validate portfolio choice as a measure of risk preferences by correlating actual high-stakes investment choices (average $700,000 US) to conventional laboratory lottery choices (average $51 US) of wealthy investors.
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Adolescents in Peer Groups Make More Prudent Decisions When a Slightly Older Adult Is Present
Karol Silva, Jason Chein & Laurence Steinberg
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adolescents make more reckless decisions when with peers than when alone, which poses a challenge for organizations that place adolescents in situations in which risky and myopic decision making is problematic. We asked whether the effect of peers on adolescents' decision making is mitigated by the presence of a slightly older adult. We examined whether target subjects' risk taking was greater when they were in groups of 4 late-adolescent males (ages 18-22) than when they were in groups that mixed 3 late-adolescent males with 1 slightly older adult (age 25-30); risk taking in both of these conditions was compared with that of adolescents tested alone. We found that adolescents took more risks and expressed stronger preference for immediate rewards when they were grouped with 3 same-age peers than when they were alone. When 1 adolescent was replaced by someone slightly older, however, adolescents' decision making and reward processing resembled that seen when adolescents were tested alone. Adding a young adult to a work team of adolescents may improve group decision making.
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Wearing a Bicycle Helmet Can Increase Risk Taking and Sensation Seeking in Adults
Tim Gamble & Ian Walker
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans adapt their risk-taking behavior on the basis of perceptions of safety; this risk-compensation phenomenon is typified by people taking increased risks when using protective equipment. Existing studies have looked at people who know they are using safety equipment and have specifically focused on changes in behaviors for which that equipment might reduce risk. Here, we demonstrated that risk taking increases in people who are not explicitly aware they are wearing protective equipment; furthermore, this happens for behaviors that could not be made safer by that equipment. In a controlled study in which a helmet, compared with a baseball cap, was used as the head mount for an eye tracker, participants scored significantly higher on laboratory measures of both risk taking and sensation seeking. This happened despite there being no risk for the helmet to ameliorate and despite it being introduced purely as an eye tracker. The results suggest that unconscious activation of safety-related concepts primes globally increased risk propensity.
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Unexpected but Incidental Positive Outcomes Predict Real-World Gambling
Ross Otto, Stephen Fleming & Paul Glimcher
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Positive mood can affect a person's tendency to gamble, possibly because positive mood fosters unrealistic optimism. At the same time, unexpected positive outcomes, often called prediction errors, influence mood. However, a linkage between positive prediction errors - the difference between expected and obtained outcomes - and consequent risk taking has yet to be demonstrated. Using a large data set of New York City lottery gambling and a model inspired by computational accounts of reward learning, we found that people gamble more when incidental outcomes in the environment (e.g., local sporting events and sunshine) are better than expected. When local sports teams performed better than expected, or a sunny day followed a streak of cloudy days, residents gambled more. The observed relationship between prediction errors and gambling was ubiquitous across the city's socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods and was specific to sports and weather events occurring locally in New York City. Our results suggest that unexpected but incidental positive outcomes influence risk taking.
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Laura Michaelson & Yuko Munakata
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Holding out for a delayed reward in the face of temptation is notoriously difficult, and the ability to do so in childhood predicts diverse indices of life success. Prominent explanations focus on the importance of cognitive control. However, delaying gratification may also require trust in people delivering future rewards as promised. Only limited experimental work has tested this idea, and such studies with children were focused on general reward expectations, so evidence was ambiguous as to whether social trust played a role. The present study provides the first targeted test of a role for social trust in children's willingness to delay gratification. Children observed an adult behave in either a trustworthy or untrustworthy manner toward another adult, then were tested in the classic delay of gratification task by that adult. Children were less likely to wait the full delay period, and waited less time overall, for a reward promised by an untrustworthy adult, relative to children tested by a trustworthy adult. These findings demonstrate that manipulations of social trust influence delaying gratification, and highlight intriguing alternative reasons to test for individual differences in delaying gratification and associated life outcomes.
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Conditional or Unconditional? The Effects of Implementation Intentions on Driver Behavior
Sarah Brewster et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Implementation intentions (if-then plans) exert conditional effects on behavior, meaning that their ability to change behavior is conditional upon encountering the critical situation specified in the if component of the plan. In the present study, we tested whether implementation intentions can exert unconditional effects on behavior. Consistent with the process of operant generalization, we hypothesized that implementation intentions would change behavior, not only in situations that are contextually identical to those specified in the if component but also in contextually similar situations. Implementation intentions were not expected to generate behavior-change in contextually different situations to those specified. Participants (N = 139) completed questionnaires measuring speeding behavior and motivation to speed. Experimental participants then specified implementation intentions to avoid speeding in critical situations that were contextually identical, similar, or different to those subsequently encountered on a driving simulator. Control participants received educational information about the risks of speeding. All participants then drove on a driving simulator. Consistent with the hypotheses participants in both the contextually identical and similar conditions exceeded the speed limit less frequently than did controls. There was no difference in speeding behavior between the contextually different and control conditions. Implications of the findings for behavior-change are discussed.
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Joel Nigg et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heritable neurodevelopmental condition, there is also considerable scientific and public interest in environmental modulators of its etiology. Exposure to neurotoxins is one potential source of perturbation of neural, and hence psychological, development. Exposure to lead in particular has been widely investigated and is correlated with neurodevelopmental outcomes, including ADHD. To investigate whether this effect is likely to be causal, we used a Mendelian randomization design with a functional gene variant. In a case-control study, we examined the association between ADHD symptoms in children and blood lead level as moderated by variants in the hemochromatosis (HFE) gene. The HFE gene regulates iron uptake and secondarily modulates lead metabolism. Statistical moderation was observed: The magnitude of the association of blood lead with symptoms of ADHD was altered by functional HFE genotype, which is consistent with a causal hypothesis.