Fast times
Fast Food and Financial Impatience: A Socioecological Approach
Sanford DeVoe, Julian House & Chen-Bo Zhong
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigated whether the prevalence of fast-food restaurants in the social ecology are associated with greater financial impatience at the national, neighborhood, and individual level. Study 1 shows that the proliferation of fast-food restaurants over the past 3 decades in the developed world was associated with a historic shift in financial impatience, as manifested in precipitously declining household savings rates. Study 2 finds that households saved less when living in neighborhoods with a higher concentration of fast-food restaurants relative to full-service restaurants. With a direct measure of individuals' delay discounting preferences, Study 3 confirms that a higher concentration of fast-food restaurants within one's neighborhood is associated with greater financial impatience. In line with a causal relationship, Study 4 reveals that recalling a recent fast-food, as opposed to full-service, dining experience at restaurants within the same neighborhood induced greater delay discounting, which was mediated behaviorally by how quickly participants completed the recall task itself. Finally, Study 5 demonstrates that pedestrians walking down the same urban street exhibited greater delay discounting in their choice of financial reward if they were surveyed in front of a fast-food restaurant, compared to a full-service restaurant. Collectively, these data indicate a link between the prevalence of fast food and financial impatience across multiple levels of analysis, and suggest the plausibility of fast food having a reinforcing effect on financial impatience. The present investigation highlights how the pervasiveness of organizational cues in the everyday social ecology can have a far-ranging influence.
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When the Going Gets Tough: Economic Threat Increases Financial Risk Taking in Games of Chance
Michael Wohl, Nyla Branscombe & Jamey Lister
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined the impact of anticipating poor economic conditions on financial risk taking. In Experiment 1, the salience of poor future economic prospects was manipulated among young adults. Those who were reminded of their poor future economic prospects were more likely to take the opportunity to gamble with their money than those in the control condition. In Experiment 2, we once again manipulated the salience of poor economic prospects. Extending the results of Experiment 1, participants who were reminded of their poor economic prospects bet more money on a spin of a roulette wheel than those in a control condition. Importantly, we show that the relationship between poor economic prospects and gambling is mediated by belief in the necessity of taking financial risks to make money. Implications of economic downturns for gambling and other forms of risk taking are discussed.
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When imagining future wealth influences risky decision making
Adam Eric Greenberg
Judgment and Decision Making, May 2013, Pages 268-277
Abstract:
The body of literature on the relationship between risk aversion and wealth is extensive. However, little attention has been given to examining how future realizations of wealth might affect (current) risk decisions. Using paired lottery choice experiments and exposing subjects experimentally to imagined future wealth frames, I find that individuals are more risk-seeking if they are asked to imagine that they will be wealthy in the future. Yet I find that individuals are not significantly more risk-averse if they are asked to imagine that they will be poor in the future. I discuss theoretical and policy implications of these findings, including why savings rates are so low in the United States.
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Adam Fetterman & Michael Robinson
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The head is thought to be rational and cold, whereas the heart is thought to be emotional and warm. In 8 studies (total N = 725), we pursued the idea that such body metaphors are widely consequential. Study 1 introduced a novel individual difference variable, one asking people to locate the self in the head or the heart. Irrespective of sex differences, head-locators characterized themselves as rational, logical, and interpersonally cold, whereas heart-locators characterized themselves as emotional, feminine, and interpersonally warm (Studies 1-3). Study 4 showed that head-locators were more accurate in answering general knowledge questions and had higher grade point averages, and Study 5 showed that heart-locators were more likely to favor emotional over rational considerations in moral decision making. Study 6 linked self-locations to reactivity phenomena in daily life - for example, heart-locators experienced greater negative emotion on high stressor days. In Study 7, we manipulated attention to the head versus the heart and found that head-pointing facilitated intellectual performance, whereas heart-pointing led to emotional decision making. Study 8 replicated Study 3's findings with a nearly year-long delay between the self-location and outcome measures. The findings converge on the importance of head-heart metaphors for understanding individual differences in cognition, emotion, and performance.
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Martin Obschonka et al.
Journal of Vocational Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is there an intimate biographical relationship between entrepreneurship and antisocial tendencies? Drawing from Zhang and Arvey's retrospective study [Zhang, Z., & Arvey, R. D. (2009). Rule breaking in adolescence and entrepreneurial status: An empirical investigation. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 436-447], which found a link between entrepreneurship status of male adults and their recalled early antisocial rule-breaking behavior in adolescence, the present study utilized prospective longitudinal data from a Swedish cohort study to clarify the connection between antisocial rule-breaking, crime, and entrepreneurship by applying a developmental perspective. Regression results, which controlled for early socioeconomic background and intellectual competencies, indeed identified early antisocial rule-breaking behavior in adolescence as a valid positive predictor of a subsequent entrepreneurial career in adulthood in men (but not in women). In contrast, registered crime (teenage crime, adult crime, and prototypical trajectories of criminal behavior) as well as rulebreaking attitude in adolescence, as a more latent form of early antisocial tendencies, were relatively unimportant in the prediction of entrepreneurship in both genders. The results are discussed with a focus on rule-breaking and agency theories of entrepreneurship, youth theories, and the importance of looking at gender differences in entrepreneurial development.
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Delaying gratification depends on social trust
Laura Michaelson et al.
Frontiers in Psychology, June 2013
Abstract:
Delaying gratification is hard, yet predictive of important life outcomes, such as academic achievement and physical health. Prominent theories focus on the role of self-control, hypersensitivity to immediate rewards, and the cost of time spent waiting. However, delaying gratification may also require trust in people delivering future rewards as promised. To test the role of social trust, participants were presented with character vignettes and faces that varied in trustworthiness, and then choose between hypothetical smaller immediate or larger delayed rewards from those characters. Across two experiments, participants were less willing to wait for delayed rewards from less trustworthy characters, and perceived trustworthiness predicted willingness to delay gratification. These findings provide the first demonstration of a causal role for social trust in willingness to delay gratification, independent of other relevant factors, such as self-control or reward history. Thus, delaying gratification requires choosing not only a later reward, but a reward that is potentially less likely to be delivered, when there is doubt about the person promising it. Implications of this work include the need to revise prominent theories of delay of gratification, and new directions for interventions with populations characterized by impulsivity.
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Eric Stone et al.
Judgment and Decision Making, May 2013, Pages 250-267
Abstract:
Prior research on self-other differences involving risk have found that individuals make riskier decisions for others than for the self in situations where risk taking is valued. We expand this research by examining whether the direction of self-other differences reverses when risk aversion is valued, as predicted by social values theory (Stone & Allgaier, 2008). Two studies tested for self-other differences in physical safety scenarios, a domain where risk aversion is valued. In Study 1, participants read physical safety and romantic relationship scenarios and selected what they would decide for themselves, what they would decide for a friend, or what they would predict their friend would decide. In Study 2, participants read public health scenarios and either decided or predicted for themselves and for a friend. In keeping with social values theory, participants made more risk-averse decisions for others than for themselves in situations where risk aversion is valued (physical safety scenarios) but more risk-taking decisions for others than for themselves in situations where risk taking is valued (relationship scenarios). Further, we show that these self-other differences in decision making do not arise from incorrectly predicting others' behaviors, as participants predicted that others' decisions regarding physical safety scenarios would be either similar (Experiment 1) or more risk taking (Experiment 2) than their own decisions.
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Consumption Benefits and Gambling: Evidence From the NCAA Basketball Betting Market
Brad Humphreys, Rodney Paulm & Andrew Weinbach
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The utility of gambling model posits that consumption benefits lead rational agents to gamble when faced with negative expected financial returns. We analyze the determinants of bet volume and dollars bet on NCAA basketball games from three on-line sports books to test the predictions of this model. Betting action depends on television coverage, team quality, and the expected closeness of the contest. Our results support the notion that consumption benefits, not financial gain, motivate gambling. Preferences of bettors appear similar to those of sports fans, suggesting that models of gamblers as wealth-maximizing investors may not explain observed betting behavior.
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"Show Me the Money": Vulnerability to Gambling Moderates the Attractiveness of Money Versus Suspense
Cheryl Hahn et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do people take risks to obtain rewards or experience suspense? We hypothesized that people vulnerable to gambling are motivated more by the allure of winning money whereas people less vulnerable to gambling are motivated more by the allure of suspense. Consistent with this hypothesis, participants with high scores on a subscale of the Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Survey - a measure of vulnerability to gambling - reported more of a motivation to earn money (pilot study), were more likely to accept a certain or near-certain amount of money than to gamble for that same amount (Studies 1-2), and worked harder to earn money (Study 3). People vulnerable to gambling also made more accurate predictions about how much they would gamble. People less vulnerable to gambling, in contrast, gambled more than people vulnerable to gambling, but did not know that they would.
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Self-Regulating Smoking and Snacking Through Physical Activity
Hwajung Oh & Adrian Taylor
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Objective: Emotional snacking contributes to weight gain after smoking cessation. Exercise acutely reduces cravings for cigarettes and snack food. This study examined if different exercise intensities acutely reduces snack and cigarette cravings and attentional bias (AB) to video clips of snacks and cigarettes among abstinent smokers.
Methods: Abstinent smokers (and snackers; N = 23) randomly did 15 mins of moderate and vigorous cycling and a passive control in a cross-over design. Visual initial AB (IAB) and maintained AB (MAB) were assessed pre- and after treatment while watching paired snacking/neutral or smoking/neutral video clips. Desire to snack and smoke were assessed throughout.
Results: ANOVAs revealed significant condition × time interactions for initial and maintained AB for smoking [IAB: F(1.58, 34.75) = 3.58, MAB: F(2, 44) = 4.52, p < .05] and snacking [IAB: F(2, 44) = 8.13, MAB: F(2, 44) = 5.08, p < .01]. IAB for both smoking and snacking were lower after moderate and vigorous exercise than the control. MAB was lower only after vigorous exercise. Fully repeated ANOVAs revealed a condition × time interaction for desire to smoke, F(3.31, 72.75) = 12.62, and snack F(4.34, 95.52) = 9.51, p < .001. Cravings were lower after moderate and vigorous exercise, compared with control.
Conclusions: Exercise acutely reduces both AB and cravings for cigarettes and snacks and may help self-regulation of smoking and snacking. Vigorous exercise was only more advantageous for reducing MAB.
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Adapting to an initial self-regulatory task cancels the ego depletion effect
Junhua Dang et al.
Consciousness and Cognition, September 2013, Pages 816-821
Abstract:
The resource-based model of self-regulation provides a pessimistic view of self-regulation that people are destined to lose their self-control after having engaged in any act of self-regulation because these acts deplete the limited resource that people need for successful self-regulation. The cognitive control theory, however, offers an alternative explanation and suggests that the depletion effect reflects switch costs between different cognitive control processes recruited to deal with demanding tasks. This account implies that the depletion effect will not occur once people have had the opportunity to adapt to the self-regulatory task initially engaged in. Consistent with this idea, the present study showed that engaging in a demanding task led to performance deficits on a subsequent self-regulatory task (i.e. the depletion effect) only when the initial demanding task was relatively short but not when it was long enough for participants to adapt. Our results were unrelated to self-efficacy, mood, and motivation.
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Pubertal Development and Peer Influence on Risky Decision Making
Natalie Kretsch & Kathryn Paige Harden
Journal of Early Adolescence, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adolescents engage in more risky behavior when they are with peers and show, on average, heightened susceptibility to peer influence relative to children and adults. However, individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence are not well understood. The current study examined whether the effect of peers on adolescents' risky decision making was moderated by pubertal status. Participants (58 youth, ages 11-16, 50% male, 63.9% African American) completed a computerized measure of risky decision making, once alone and once in the presence of two peers. Pubertal status was assessed using self-report. Adolescents made riskier decisions in the presence of peers, and more advanced pubertal development predicted greater risky decision making, controlling for chronological age. The effect of peer presence on risky decision making was attenuated for adolescents with more advanced pubertal development. These findings suggest that the presence of peers may override biologically based individual differences in propensity for risk taking.
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A Twin Study of Sex Differences in Self-Control
Danielle Boisvert et al.
Justice Quarterly, May/June 2013, Pages 529-559
Abstract:
Research has shown that males, on average, exhibit lower levels of self-control compared to females. While previous research points to socialization processes as a way to explain the gender gap, the current study investigates whether there are genetic differences in self-control that are operating across the sexes in adolescence and adulthood. First, the results revealed that the same genetic factors influence levels of self-control in males and females. This implies that the genetic influences on self-control are not gender-specific. Second, the results also revealed that the magnitude of the genetic effects on self-control is the same across the sexes. These findings are aligned with other studies that have found no significant sex differences in the genetic effects on constructs related to low self-control, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other self-regulatory problems. The implications of these findings for Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory are discussed.