The good, bad, and ugly of dispositional greed.

Greed is the insatiable desire for more. It is an important economic motive with numerous implications for consumer behavior and decision processes. We describe research showcasing the good, the bad and the ugly of dispositional greed. The good of greed refers to the potential advantageous consequences for society as a whole and for greedy people themselves. The bad of greed refers to the potential harm that it causes to others, and the ugliness of greed refers to the disadvantageous consequences of being greedy for the people themselves

Greed:What Is It good for?

What is greed good for? Greed is ubiquitous, suggesting that it must have some benefits, but it is also often condemned. In a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 2,367, 51.3% female, Mage = 54.06, SD = 17.90), we examined two questions. First, inspired by Eriksson et al., we studied whether greedy people generate more personal and household income (economic outcomes), have more sexual partners, longer relationships, and more offspring (evolutionary outcomes), and are more satisfied in life (psychological outcomes). We found that greedy individuals had higher economic outcomes, mixed evolutionary outcomes, and lower psychological outcomes. Second, we compared greed and self-interest. We found that they differed in terms of economic outcomes, and partly in terms of evolutionary outcomes, but that they were similar in terms of psychological outcomes. This research provides insights into what greed is and does. Directions for further research are discussed

Why do people (not) share guilt with others?

Do people share their feelings of guilt with others and, if so, what are the reasons for doing this or not doing this? Even though the social sharing of negative emotional experiences, such as regret, has been extensively studied, not much is known about whether people share feelings of guilt and why. We report three studies exploring these questions. In Study 1, we re-analysed data about sharing guilt experiences posted on a social website called "Yahoo Answers", and found that people share intrapersonal as well as interpersonal guilt experiences with others online. Study 2 found that the main motivations of sharing guilt (compared with the sharing of regret) were "venting", "clarification and meaning", and "gaining advice". Study 3 found that people were more likely to share experiences of interpersonal guilt and more likely to keep experiences of intrapersonal guilt to themselves. Together, these studies contribute to a further understanding of the social sharing of the emotion guilt. </p

A translation and validation of the dispositional greed scale in Spanish

Greed is best defined as the “experience of desiring to acquire more and the dissatisfaction of never having enough” (Seuntjens, Zeelenberg, Breugelmans, &amp; Van De Ven, 2015, p. 518). The Dispositional Greed Scale (Seuntjens, Zeelenberg, Van De Ven, &amp; Breugelmans, 2015) is most often used to measure greed and has been validated for various languages, although not for Spanish. We present the first Spanish translation of the DGS. We tested two parallel translations of the scale (N = 305) using two related but distinct words for greedy: codicioso and avaricioso. Both translations showed unidimensional factor structure, with acceptable reliability. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed evidence for scalar equivalence of both translations. A comparison with data from a previous English version of the scale showed evidence of metric equivalence. Additionally, we found the expected relationships between greed and envy, materialism, need for achievement, and self-improvement. We conclude the DGS-Spanish has been successful in capturing the essential features of the DGS

The relative importance of joke and audience characteristics in eliciting amusement

The current work estimated the relative importance of joke and audience characteristics for the occurrence of amusement. Much psychological research has focused on stimulus characteristics when searching for sources of funniness. Some researchers have instead highlighted the importance of perceiver characteristics, such as dispositional cheerfulness. Across five preregistered studies (Ns = 118–54,905) with varied stimuli and perceiver samples (website visitors, students, Mechanical Turk and Prolific users), variance-decomposition analyses found that perceiver characteristics account for more variance in funniness ratings than stimulus characteristics. Thus, psychological theories focusing on between-persons differences have a relatively high potential for explaining and predicting humor appreciation (here, funniness ratings). Crucially, perceiver-by-stimulus interactions explained the largest amount of variance, highlighting the importance of fit between joke and audience characteristics when predicting amusement. Implications for humor-appreciation theories and applications are discussed

A culture of greed:Bubble formation in experimental asset markets with greedy and non-greedy traders.

This study investigates the relationship between the motive of greed and various asset market indicators, such as trading activity and bubble formation (i.e., mispricing, overpricing, and price amplitude). We ran experimental asset markets that allowed us to measure individuals’ greed in order to create markets populated with greedy individuals and markets with non-greedy individuals. Regarding trading activity, we found that greedier individuals had higher trading activity on the individual level but not on the market level. On the market level, high-greed markets exhibited less frequent and smaller price bubbles than markets with less greedy traders. If our findings translate to actual markets, greed itself might not contribute to asset market bubbles

Temptation-based reasoning:When tempted, everything becomes a (better) reason to indulge

Building on theories of motivated reasoning and reason-based choice, we propose that people interpret reasons for indulgence in a different light depending on how tempting behavior is. Experiments 1a and 1b find that the more tempting the behavior is, the more people think a given reason ("it is a Tuesday") is an acceptable reason to indulge. Furthermore, we find that both recalled prior good behavior (Experiment 2a) and recalled prior frustrations (Experiment 2b) are interpreted as good reasons to indulge when confronted with tempting behavior. Finally, Experiment 3 replicates that people see a prior good deed (taking part in the studies) as a better reason for indulgence when the indulgence is more tempting, which makes them more likely to actually choose an unhealthy food option. This process of temptation-based reasoning sheds new light on existing theories on how people deal with temptations, notably those on self-licensing, comfort buying, and comfort eating

Take it or leave it for something better? Responses to fair offers in ultimatum bargaining

We investigated if responders accept a 50-50 split in a modified version of the ultimatum game, in which rejection yields a higher payoff (€7) than accepting the equal offer (€5). Therefore, the decision to accept the 50-50 split in this modified ultimatum game cannot be perceived as a self-interest act, as opposed to the standard game, in which acceptance may reflect resignation in the knowledge that the equal split is the best one can expect. A substantial proportion of responders accepts the equal split in this modified game (Study 1), which clearly establishes egalitarian preferences. Further studies show that the willingness to accept is not an artifact of indifference towards the extra payoff (Study 2), but reflects true concerns for proposers’ outcomes (Study 3)