Is It About Giving Or Receiving? the Determinants of Kindness and Happiness in Paying It Forward

Three studies examined two forces behind paying-it-forward: reciprocation and generosity. In the absence of direct social pressure, generosity had a stronger influence on behavior than reciprocation. However, giving did not make people feel happier than receiving a kind act. Gift-givers and receivers displayed asymmetric beliefs about their and others' happiness

Examination of the Sampling Origin and the Range Hypothesis of Loss Aversion in 50-50 Gamble Settings

We examined the relative sensitivities toward financial losses and gains in 50-50 gamble decision-makings. People are relatively more sensitive to losses when they actively engage with relatively higher gain values by rejecting/accepting them. However, merely seeing, actively thinking about, or subjectively evaluating them does not influence the loss aversion ratio

Pre-registration of an online study 2

We are conducting an online study using Amazon Mturk. We pre-register our plans for survey questions, data collection, and statistical analysis

Emotion, Norms, and Anchors: Three Investigations On Consumer Decisions Under Elective Pricing

This dissertation documents consumers’ decision-making when they have an opportunity be both maximally selfish and kind toward others. Using Consumer Elective Pricing, we explore how social forces operate in influencing consumers’ decisions. A set of three investigations examines how emotion, perceptions of social norms, and anchoring as judgment heuristics operate in influencing consumers’ decisions. We find that each of the three social forces uniquely shapes consumers’ behavior under elective pricing. Consumers are sensitive to the presence of charitable giving but largely insensitive to the scope of their giving when they pay what they want and a portion of their payment goes to charity (Chapter 2). When paying forward, consumers infer a higher level of kindness in others when they are informed about others’ kind behavior, raising their own payments to match their perceptions of social norms (Chapter 3). Inconsistent with the prior relevant research on anchoring effects, we find that consumers are not significantly influenced by payment anchors unless anchors are hypothetically presented in lab settings, have no actual financial consequences, or have large distributive (we also term subjective) gaps (Chapter 4). In a series of field and lab studies, this set of three investigations sheds light on the psychology that enforces the deviations from the “rational” economic decisions

Evaluations Are Inherently Comparative, But Are Compared To What?

Understanding how objective quantities are translated into subjective evaluations has long been of interest to social scientists, medical professionals, and policymakers with an interest in how people process and act on quantitative information. The theory of decision by sampling proposes a comparative procedure: Values seem larger or smaller based on how they rank in a comparison set, the decision sample. But what values are included in this decision sample? We identify and test four mechanistic accounts, each suggesting that how previously encountered attribute values are processed determines whether they linger in the sample to guide the subjective interpretation, and thus the influence, of newly encountered values. Testing our ideas through studies of loss aversion, delay discounting, and vaccine hesitancy, we find strongest support for one account: Quantities need to be subjectively evaluated—rather than merely encountered—for them to enter the decision sample, alter the subjective interpretation of other values, and then guide decision making. Discussion focuses on how the present findings inform understanding of the nature of the decision sample and identify new research directions for the longstanding question of how comparison standards influence decision-making