How far is the suffering? The role of psychological distance and victims\u2019 identifiability in donation decisions

We are regularly told about people at various locations around the globe, both near and far, who are in distress or in dire need. In the present research, we examined how the prospective donor\u2019s psychological distance from a given victim may interact with the victim\u2019s identification to determine the donor\u2019s willingness to accede to requests for donations to help the victim in question. In three studies, we measured willingness to donate (Studies 1 & 2) and actual donations (Study 3) to identified or unidentified victims, while measuring (Study 1) or manipulating (Studies 2 & 3) the psychological distance between prospective donors and the recipients. Results indicate that increasing the psychological distance between prospective donors and victims decreases willingness to help \u2014 but only when the victims are unidentified, not when they are identified. This suggests that victim\u2019s identification mitigates the effect of distance on donor\u2019s willingness to help

Asymmetry between cost and benefit: The role of social value orientation, attention, and age

Previous work showed that the willingness to help is impacted by the perception of the cost for the donor and the benefit for the recipient. Here we set up to extend this literature by investigating the role played by social value orientation (SVO), attention, and age (early adolescents vs. middle-late adolescents vs. young adults). Results showed that these three variables have a significant impact on the perception of the cost and the benefit of a donation. Exploratory analyses showed that perception of the cost is predicted by a three-way interaction be- tween SVO, attention, and age (but the same three-way interaction does not predict the perception of the benefit). Finally, we found that the way the perceived cost and the perceived benefit impact the willingness to help is different for early adolescents compared to the other two groups. Early adolescents’ decisions are less impacted by perceived cost (and more impacted by perceived benefit)

A psychometric modeling approach to fuzzy rating data

Modeling fuzziness and imprecision in human rating data is a crucial problem in many research areas, including applied statistics, behavioral, social, and health sciences. Because of the interplay between cognitive, affective, and contextual factors, the process of answering survey questions is a complex task, which can barely be captured by standard (crisp) rating responses. Fuzzy rating scales have progressively been adopted to overcome some of the limitations of standard rating scales, including their inability to disentangle decision uncertainty from individual responses. The aim of this article is to provide a novel fuzzy scaling procedure which uses Item Response Theory trees (IRTrees) as a psychometric model for the stage-wise latent response process. In so doing, fuzziness of rating data is modeled using the overall rater's pattern of responses instead of being computed using a single-item based approach. This offers a consistent system for interpreting fuzziness in terms of individual-based decision uncertainty. A simulation study and two empirical applications are adopted to assess the characteristics of the proposed model and provide converging results about its effectiveness in modeling fuzziness and imprecision in rating data

Others’ opinions count, but not all of them: anchoring to ingroup versus outgroup members’ behavior in charitable giving

Because of the large amount of information and the difficulty in selecting an appropriate recipient in the context of charitable giving, people tend to make extensive use of heuristics, which sometimes leads them to wrong decisions. In the present work, we focused on exploring how individuals are influenced by anchoring heuristics and how group membership interacts with this heuristic. In Experiment 1, two different groups of participants were informed about low versus high average donations of other people, and a third control group did not receive any information about the others’ donations. The results showed that participants were willing to donate significantly more in the high-anchor condition compared to the low-anchor condition, as well as about the same amount of money in the low-anchor condition and no-anchor condition. Experiment 2 and 3 showed that high anchors are more effective when the information about others’ donations reflects members of the ingroup rather than the outgroup. Other variables related to these results are further discussed

Biases, reasoning and personality in finance

Poster presentato al 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Cape Town, 22-27 July 2012 , 201

Joint analysis of the intention to vaccinate and to use contact tracing app during the COVID-19 pandemic

Pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures will overlap for a period after the onset of the pandemic, playing a strong role in virus containment. We explored which factors influence the likelihood to adopt two different preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. An online snowball sampling (May–June 2020) collected a total of 448 questionnaires in Italy. A Bayesian bivariate Gaussian regression model jointly investigated the willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and to download the national contact tracing app. A mixed-effects cumulative logistic model explored which factors affected the motivation to adopt one of the two preventive measures. Despite both COVID-19 vaccines and tracing apps being indispensable tools to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, our results suggest that adherence to the vaccine or to the national contact tracing app is not predicted by the same factors. Therefore, public communication on these measures needs to take in consideration not only the perceived risk associated with COVID-19, but also the trust people place in politics and science, their concerns and doubts about vaccinations, and their employment status. Further, the results suggest that the motivation to comply with these measurements was predominantly to protect others rather than self-protection

Cognitive Biases: Empirical evidence from a Stock Market Simulation

Poster presentato alla Giornata di Studio "Metodi qualitativi e quantitativi in psicologia" organizzata dall'Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo e dall'Associazione Italiana di Psicologia a Urbino il 22 Giugno 201

The Interplay of Perceived Risks and Benefits in Deciding to Become Vaccinated against COVID-19 While Pregnant or Breastfeeding: A Cross-Sectional Study in Italy

The present study examined the role of the perception of risks and benefits for the mother and her babies in deciding about the COVID-19 vaccination. In this cross-sectional study, five hypotheses were tested using data from a convenience sample of Italian pregnant and/or breastfeeding women (N = 1104, July–September 2021). A logistic regression model estimated the influence of the predictors on the reported behavior, and a beta regression model was used to evaluate which factors influenced the willingness to become vaccinated among unvaccinated women. The COVID-19 vaccination overall risks/benefits tradeoff was highly predictive of both behavior and intention. Ceteris paribus, an increase in the perception of risks for the baby weighed more against vaccination than a similar increase in the perception of risks for the mother. Additionally, pregnant women resulted in being less likely (or willing) to be vaccinated in their status than breastfeeding women, but they were equally accepting of vaccination if they were not pregnant. COVID-19 risk perception predicted intention to become vaccinated, but not behavior. In conclusion, the overall risks/benefits tradeoff is key in predicting vaccination behavior and intention, but the concerns for the baby weigh more than those for the mother in the decision, shedding light on this previously neglected aspect

Emotional intelligence buffers the effect of physiological arousal on dishonesty

We studied the emotional processes that allow people to balance two competing desires: benefitting from dishonesty and keeping a positive self-image. We recorded physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate) during a computer card game in which participants could cheat and fail to report a certain card when presented on the screen to avoid losing their money. We found that higher skin conductance corresponded to lower cheating rates. Importantly, emotional intelligence regulated this effect; participants with high emotional intelligence were less affected by their physiological reactions than those with low emotional intelligence. As a result, they were more likely to profit from dishonesty. However, no interaction emerged between heart rate and emotional intelligence. We suggest that the ability to manage and control emotions can allow people to overcome the tension between doing right or wrong and license them to bend the rules

\u201cGive, but Give until It Hurts\u201d: The Modulatory Role of Trait Emotional Intelligence on the Motivation to Help

Two studies investigated the effect of trait Emotional Intelligence (trait EI) on people\u2019s moti- vation to help. In Study 1, we developed a new computer-based paradigm that tested partic- ipants\u2019 motivation to help by measuring their performance on a task in which they could gain a hypothetical amount of money to help children in need. Crucially, we manipulated partici- pants\u2019 perceived efficacy by informing them that they had been either able to save the chil- dren (positive feedback) or unable to save the children (negative feedback). We measured trait EI using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire\u2013Short Form (TEIQue-SF) and assessed participants\u2019 affective reactions during the experiment using the PANAS-X. Results showed that high and low trait EI participants performed differently after the presen- tation of feedback on their ineffectiveness in helping others in need. Both groups showed increasing negative affective states during the experiment when the feedback was negative; however, high trait EI participants better managed their affective reactions, modulating the impact of their emotions on performance and maintaining a high level of motivation to help. In Study 2, we used a similar computerized task and tested a control situation to explore the effect of trait EI on participants\u2019 behavior when facing failure or success in a scenario unre- lated to helping others in need. No effect of feedback emerged on participants\u2019 emotional states in the second study. Taken together our results show that trait EI influences the impact of success and failure on behavior only in affect-rich situation like those in which people are asked to help others in need