Eyes on the account size:Interactions between attention and budget in consumer choice*

The context surrounding a consumer decision, such as one's overall budget available for pur-chases, can exert a strong effect on the subjective value of a product. Across three eye-tracking studies, we explore the attentional processes through which budget size influences consumers' purchasing behavior. Higher budgets increased and sped up purchasing even when items were affordable at all budget sizes. Moreover, attention interacted with budget size to promote pur-chasing at higher budgets. Finally, individual differences in the magnitude of the budget effect related to attentional patterns: those whose decisions depended more on budget exhibited more budget-price transitions and less variability in search patterns compared to those whose decisions were less dependent on budget. These findings indicate that attention moderates the effect of budgets on purchasing decisions, allowing low budgets to serve as self-control devices and large budgets to generate impulse purchases

Self-serving Bias in Redistribution Choices: Accounting for Beliefs and Norms

People with higher-incomes tend to support less redistribution than lower-income people. This has been attributed not only to self-interest, but also to psychological mechanisms including differing beliefs about the hard work or luck underlying inequality, differing fairness views, and differing perceptions of social norms. In this study, we directly measure each of these mechanisms and compare their mediating roles in the relationship between status and redistribution. In our experiment, participants complete real-effort tasks and then are randomly assigned a high or low pay rate per correct answer to exogenously induce (dis)advantaged status. Participants are then paired and those assigned the role of dictator decide how to divide their joint earnings. We find that advantaged dictators keep more for themselves than disadvantaged dictators and report different fairness views and beliefs about task performance, but not different beliefs about social norms. Further, only fairness views play a significant mediating role between status and allocation differences, suggesting this is the primary mechanism underlying self-serving differences in support for redistribution

Amount and time exert independent influences on intertemporal choice

Intertemporal choices involve trade-offs between the value of rewards and the delay before those rewards are experienced. Canonical intertemporal choice models such as hyperbolic discounting assume that reward amount and time until delivery are integrated within each option prior to comparison1,2. An alternative view posits that intertemporal choice reflects attribute-wise processes in which amount and time attributes are compared separately3–6. Here, we use multi-attribute drift diffusion modelling (DDM) to show that attribute-wise comparison represents the choice process better than option-wise comparison for intertemporal choice in a young adult population. We find that, while accumulation rates for amount and time information are uncorrelated, the difference between those rates predicts individual differences in patience. Moreover, patient individuals incorporate amount earlier than time into the decision process. Using eye tracking, we link these modelling results to attention, showing that patience results from a rapid, attribute-wise process that prioritizes amount over time information. Thus, we find converging evidence that distinct evaluation processes for amount and time determine intertemporal financial choices. Because intertemporal decisions in the lab have been linked to failures of patience ranging from insufficient saving to addiction7–13, understanding individual differences in the choice process is important for developing more effective interventions

An Experimental Test of Risk Perceptions under a New Hurricane Classification System

During a hurricane, it is vital that individuals receive communications that are easy to process and provide sufficient information to allow informed hurricane preparedness decisions and prevent loss of life. We study how the hurricane warning scale (traditional Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale versus the newly developed Tropical Cyclone Severity Scale) impacts intent to evacuate and understanding of hurricane severity. We use a between-subject design where participants are assigned to either the traditional SSHWS or the new TCSS scale. We will collect data in a large-scale (~4000 participants) online experiment to examine potential differences in comprehension, risk perception, anticipated evacuation and preparation decisions among residents in U.S. coastal states prone to hurricanes. We test the hypotheses that the new scale increases understanding about the main hazard, increases evacuation intent for severe events, and increases relevant precautionary measures

Self-serving Bias in Redistribution Choices: Accounting for Beliefs and Norms

Data and analysis code to replicate the analyses from: Self-serving Bias in Redistribution Choices: Accounting for Beliefs and Norm