Give it some thought
Psychological Strategies for Winning a Geopolitical Forecasting Tournament
Barbara Mellers et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Five university-based research groups competed to recruit forecasters, elicit their predictions, and aggregate those predictions to assign the most accurate probabilities to events in a 2-year geopolitical forecasting tournament. Our group tested and found support for three psychological drivers of accuracy: training, teaming, and tracking. Probability training corrected cognitive biases, encouraged forecasters to use reference classes, and provided forecasters with heuristics, such as averaging when multiple estimates were available. Teaming allowed forecasters to share information and discuss the rationales behind their beliefs. Tracking placed the highest performers (top 2% from Year 1) in elite teams that worked together. Results showed that probability training, team collaboration, and tracking improved both calibration and resolution. Forecasting is often viewed as a statistical problem, but forecasts can be improved with behavioral interventions. Training, teaming, and tracking are psychological interventions that dramatically increased the accuracy of forecasts. Statistical algorithms (reported elsewhere) improved the accuracy of the aggregation. Putting both statistics and psychology to work produced the best forecasts 2 years in a row.
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Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking
Marily Oppezzo & Daniel Schwartz
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford's alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of participants' creativity on the GAU, but only increased 23% of participants' scores for the CRA. In Experiment 2, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated, or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost. Experiment 3 generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking. Experiment 4 tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity.
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Forceful Phantom Firsts: Framing Experiences as Firsts Amplifies their Influence on Judgment
Robyn LeBoeuf, Elanor Williams & Lyle Brenner
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
First experiences are highly influential. Here, the authors show that non-first experiences can be made to seem like firsts and consequently to have a disproportionate influence on judgment. In six experiments, one piece of a series of information was framed to appear to have "first" status: for example, a weather report that appeared at the end of a sequence of weather reports happened to correspond to the first day of a vacation, and a customer review that appeared at the end of a sequence of hotel reviews happened to be the new year's first review. Such information had greater influence on subsequent judgments (e.g., of the next day's weather or of the hotel's quality) than did identical information not framed as a first. This effect seems to arise largely because "phantom first" pieces of information receive greater weight than, but not necessarily more attention than, other pieces of information.
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Redesigning Photo-ID to Improve Unfamiliar Face Matching Performance
David White et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Viewers find it difficult to match photos of unfamiliar faces for identity. Despite this, the use of photographic ID is widespread. In this study we ask whether it is possible to improve face matching performance by replacing single photographs on ID documents with multiple photos or an average image of the bearer. In 3 experiments we compare photo-to-photo matching with photo-to-average matching (where the average is formed from multiple photos of the same person) and photo-to-array matching (where the array comprises separate photos of the same person). We consistently find an accuracy advantage for average images and photo arrays over single photos, and show that this improvement is driven by performance in match trials. In the final experiment, we find a benefit of 4-image arrays relative to average images for unfamiliar faces, but not for familiar faces. We propose that conventional photo-ID format can be improved, and discuss this finding in the context of face recognition more generally.
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Jennifer Howell, Benjamin Crosier & James Shepperd
Journal of Research in Personality, June 2014, Pages 102-109
Abstract:
Are people who lack personal and interpersonal resources more likely to avoid learning potentially threatening information? We conducted four studies assessing three different populations (undergraduates, high school students, and a nationally-representative sample of adults), using a variety of measures and methods (e.g., single and multi-item self-report measures, a behavioral measure, social network analysis), across three information contexts (i.e., general health information, specific disease risk, socially-evaluative information). The consistent finding is that people who lack personal and interpersonal resources to manage threat are more likely to avoid learning potentially-threatening information. The results indicate that personal and interpersonal resources represent generalizable and robust predictors of information avoidance.
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Robert Reinhart & Geoffrey Woodman
Journal of Neuroscience, 19 March 2014, Pages 4214-4227
Abstract:
Adaptive human behavior depends on the capacity to adjust cognitive processing after an error. Here we show that transcranial direct current stimulation of medial-frontal cortex provides causal control over the electrophysiological responses of the human brain to errors and feedback. Using one direction of current flow, we eliminated performance-monitoring activity, reduced behavioral adjustments after an error, and slowed learning. By reversing the current flow in the same subjects, we enhanced performance-monitoring activity, increased behavioral adjustments after an error, and sped learning. These beneficial effects fundamentally improved cognition for nearly 5 h after 20 min of noninvasive stimulation. The stimulation selectively influenced the potentials indexing error and feedback processing without changing potentials indexing mechanisms of perceptual or response processing. Our findings demonstrate that the functioning of mechanisms of cognitive control and learning can be up- or down-regulated using noninvasive stimulation of medial-frontal cortex in the human brain.
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Overconfidence Across World Regions
Lazar Stankov & Jihyun Lee
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article, nine world regions (based on samples from 33 nations) are compared in their performance on a cognitive ability test and confidence ratings obtained from the items of the same test. Our results indicate that differences between the world regions are greater on cognitive ability than they are on confidence ratings. Consequently, overconfidence - that is, the degree to which people overestimate their performance on cognitive tasks - is pronounced within the world regions that have lower scores on measures of cognitive ability. A less pronounced overconfidence is also present among the high-achieving world regions. Our findings support a cognitive hypothesis according to which individuals suffer from illusory superiority if the task is difficult. Thus, a commonly observed overconfidence can be seen as a self-deceiving, probably unconscious, mechanism that cushions a person (and countries) from experiencing negative feelings due to cognitive failures.
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Negatively-Biased Credulity and the Cultural Evolution of Beliefs
Daniel Fessler, Anne Pisor & Carlos David Navarrete
PLoS ONE, April 2014
Abstract:
The functions of cultural beliefs are often opaque to those who hold them. Accordingly, to benefit from cultural evolution's ability to solve complex adaptive problems, learners must be credulous. However, credulity entails costs, including susceptibility to exploitation, and effort wasted due to false beliefs. One determinant of the optimal level of credulity is the ratio between the costs of two types of errors: erroneous incredulity (failing to believe information that is true) and erroneous credulity (believing information that is false). This ratio can be expected to be asymmetric when information concerns hazards, as the costs of erroneous incredulity will, on average, exceed the costs of erroneous credulity; no equivalent asymmetry characterizes information concerning benefits. Natural selection can therefore be expected to have crafted learners' minds so as to be more credulous toward information concerning hazards. This negatively-biased credulity extends general negativity bias, the adaptive tendency for negative events to be more salient than positive events. Together, these biases constitute attractors that should shape cultural evolution via the aggregated effects of learners' differential retention and transmission of information. In two studies in the U.S., we demonstrate the existence of negatively-biased credulity, and show that it is most pronounced in those who believe the world to be dangerous, individuals who may constitute important nodes in cultural transmission networks. We then document the predicted imbalance in cultural content using a sample of urban legends collected from the Internet and a sample of supernatural beliefs obtained from ethnographies of a representative collection of the world's cultures, showing that beliefs about hazards predominate in both.
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To Switch or Not To Switch: Understanding Social Influence in Online Choices
Haiyi Zhu & Bernardo Huberman
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors designed and ran an experiment to measure social influence in online recommender systems, specifically, how often people's choices are changed by others' recommendations when facing different levels of confirmation and conformity pressures. In this experiment, participants were first asked to provide their preference from pairs of items. They were then asked to make second choices about the same pairs with knowledge of other people's preferences. The results show that other people's opinions significantly sway people's own choices. The influence is stronger when people are required to make their second decision sometime later (22.4%) rather than immediately (14.1%). Moreover, people seem to be most likely to reverse their choices when facing a moderate, as opposed to large, number of opposing opinions. Finally, the time people spend making the first decision significantly predicts whether they will reverse their decisions later on, whereas demographics such as age and gender do not. These results have implications for consumer behavior research as well as online marketing strategies.
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Reversal of fortune: A statistical analysis of penalty calls in the National Hockey League
Jason Abrevaya & Robert McCulloch
Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper analyzes a unique data set consisting of all penalty calls in the National Hockey League between the 1995-1996 and 2001-2002 seasons. The primary finding is the prevalence of "reverse calls:" if previous penalties have been on one team, then the next penalty is more likely to be on the other. This pattern is consistent with a simple behavioral rationale based on the fundamental difficulty of refereeing a National Hockey League game. Statistical modeling reveals that the identity of the next team to be penalized also depends on a variety of other factors, including the score, the time in the game, the time since last penalty, which team is at home, and whether one or two referees are calling the game. There is also evidence of differences among referees in their tendency to reverse calls.
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Deception and decision making in professional basketball: Is it beneficial to flop?
Elia Morgulev et al.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, June 2014, Pages 108-118
Abstract:
We examine the behavior of professional referees and players in the context of offensive fouls in basketball. Over 500 incidents that had the potential to meet the criteria of an offensive foul were recorded from the 2009/10 season of the Israeli Basketball Super League and were analyzed by basketball experts. Falling intentionally in order to improve the chances to get an offensive foul is a very common behavior of defenders (almost two thirds of the recorded falls). It seems to be helpful at first, increasing indeed the chances to get an offensive foul, but a more careful analysis shows that the entire impact of an intentional fall on the team seems to be negative. We suggest that both rational reasons and biased decision making lead players to frequently act against their team's interest by falling. Referees almost never call an offensive foul if the player remained on his feet, and are generally calling fewer fouls than the number judged by experts as appropriate. We explain the referees' behavior both by using the representativeness heuristic and by examining closely the referees' interests and observing that to some extent even their officiating mistakes may be rational.
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Maura Sullivan et al.
Academic Medicine, forthcoming
Purpose: Because of the automated nature of knowledge, experts tend to omit information when describing a task. A potential solution is cognitive task analysis (CTA). The authors investigated the percentage of knowledge experts omitted when teaching a cricothyrotomy to determine the percentage of additional knowledge gained during a CTA interview.
Method: Three experts were videotaped teaching a cricothyrotomy in 2010 at the University of Southern California. After transcription, they participated in CTA interviews for the same procedure. Three additional surgeons were recruited to perform a CTA for the procedure, and a "gold standard" task list was created. Transcriptions from the teaching sessions were compared with the task list to identify omitted steps (both "what" and "how" to do). Transcripts from the CTA interviews were compared against the task list to determine the percentage of knowledge articulated by each expert during the initial "free recall" (unprompted) phase of the CTA interview versus the amount of knowledge gained by using CTA elicitation techniques (prompted).
Results: Experts omitted an average of 71% (10/14) of clinical knowledge steps, 51% (14/27) of action steps, and 73% (3.6/5) of decision steps. For action steps, experts described "how to do it" only 13% (3.6/27) of the time. The average number of steps that were described increased from 44% (20/46) when unprompted to 66% (31/46) when prompted.
Conclusions: This study supports previous research that experts unintentionally omit knowledge when describing a procedure. CTA is a useful method to extract automated knowledge and augment expert knowledge recall during teaching.
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Brianna Middlewood & Karen Gasper
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 100-106
Abstract:
What makes information relevant? We hypothesized that text displayed in a symmetrical, rather than asymmetrical, layout would be more appealing to people, and that appeal would then be used to infer that the topic is personally relevant. Relevance, in turn, should increase the degree to which people engage with the information presented in the message. In three experiments, respondents read text arranged symmetrically or asymmetrically. As predicted, symmetry influences relevance indirectly through appeal, such that symmetrical articles were more appealing than asymmetrical articles, and appeal predicted relevance. Relevance, then, predicted the desire to acquire and act on the information in the article (Experiment 2) and increased attention to argument quality, for participants were more influenced by strong, rather than weak, arguments (Experiment 3). Perceptions of reading difficulty and trustworthiness did not account for the findings, indicating that it is the appeal of symmetry which promoted issue relevance.
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Ryan Hamilton, Kathleen Vohs & Ann McGill
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Consumers value word-of-mouth communications in large part because customer reviews are more likely to include negative information about a product or service than are communications originating from the marketer. Despite the fact that negative information is frequently valued by those receiving it, baldly declaring negative information may come with social costs to both communicator and receiver. For this reason, communicators sometimes soften pronouncements of bad news by couching them in dispreferred markers, including phrases such as, "I'll be honest," "God bless it," or "I don't want to be mean, but ." The present work identified and tested in five experiments a phenomenon termed the dispreferred marker effect, in which consumers evaluate communicators who use dispreferred markers as more credible and likable than communicators who assert the same information without dispreferred markers. We further found that the dispreferred marker effect can spill over to evaluations of the product being reviewed, increasing willingness to pay and influencing evaluations of the credibility and likability of the evaluated product's personality.
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Social influence constrained by the heritability of attitudes
Nicholas Schwab
Personality and Individual Differences, August 2014, Pages 54-57
Abstract:
Previous work by Tesser (1993) and Bourgeois (2002) found that heritable attitudes are more resistant to social influence and attitude change. The present study sought to replicate and extend previous work by utilizing attitudes and heritability estimates not previously used in studies examining the effect of heritable attitudes on social influence processes. It was hypothesized that attitudes with higher heritability estimates would change less after group discussion relative to attitudes with lower heritability estimates. As predicted, highly heritable attitudes did show greater resistance to social influence in the context of group discussion. The present findings add further support to the notion that attitude heritability is an important element of attitude change and extend previous work through the study of novel attitudes and heritability estimates.
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Judging a Part by the Size of its Whole: The Category Size Bias in Probability Judgments
Mathew Isaac & Aaron Brough
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Whereas prior research shows that consumers' probability judgments are sensitive to the number of categories into which a set of possible outcomes is grouped, this research demonstrates that categorization can bias predictions even when the number of categories is fixed. Specifically, five experiments document a category size bias in which consumers perceive an outcome as more likely to occur when it is categorized with many rather than few alternative possibilities, even when the grouping criterion is irrelevant and the objective probability of each outcome is identical. For example, participants in one study irrationally predicted being more likely to win a lottery if their ticket color matched most (vs. few) of the other gamblers' tickets - and wagered nearly 25% more as a result. These findings suggest that consumers' perceptions of risk and probability are influenced not only by the number of categories into which possible outcomes are classified, but also by category size.
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Michael Hughes et al.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, April 2014, Pages 325-341
Abstract:
Given the prevalence of online media today, credibility continues to be a popular subject of empirical research. However, studies examining the effects of discrediting strategies are rare. This issue is significant given the popularity of online media and the ease of such sources to spread misinformation. Therefore, the present study examines the effects of attacking the expertise and trustworthiness of a proponent of a major social issue. Results showed that support as well specific combinations of discrediting attack strategies significantly reduced message board readers' perceptions of the proponent's credibility. In addition, attacks on either the proponent's expertise or trustworthiness resulted in a reduced likelihood of readers taking action with respect to the issue.