“Why Didn’t You Just Ask?” Underestimating the Discomfort of Help-Seeking

Across four studies we demonstrate that people in a position to provide help tend to underestimate the role that embarrassment plays in decisions about whether or not to ask for help. As a result, potential helpers may overestimate the likelihood that people will ask for help (Studies 1 and 2). Further, helpers may be less inclined to allocate resources to underutilized support programs than help-seekers because they are less likely to attribute low levels of use to help-seekers’ concerns with embarrassment (Study 3). Finally, helpers may misjudge the most effective means of encouraging help-seeking behavior - emphasizing the practical benefits of asking for help, rather than attempting to assuage help-seekers’ feelings of discomfort (Study 4)

Regulatory Focus and Interdependent Economic Decision-Making

Traditional theories of self-interest cannot predict when individuals pursue relative and absolute economic outcomes in interdependent decision-making, but we argue that regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997) can. We propose that a concern with security (prevention focus) motivates concerns with social status, leading to the regulation of relative economic outcomes, but a concern with growth (promotion focus) motivates the maximization of opportunities, leading to a focus on absolute outcomes. Two studies supported our predictions; regardless of prosocial or proself motivations, a promotion focus yielded greater concern with absolute outcomes, but a prevention focus yielded greater concern with relative outcomes. Also, Study 3 revealed that a prevention focus led to a greater rejection of a negative relative but positive absolute outcome in an ultimatum game because of concerns with status. This research reveals that apparently opposing orientations to interdependence – equality and relative gain – serve the same self-regulatory purpose: the establishment of security

Good Lamps Are the Best Police: Darkness Increases Dishonesty and Self-Interested Behavior

Darkness can conceal identity and encourage moral transgressions; it may also induce a psychological feeling of illusory anonymity that disinhibits dishonest and self-interested behavior regardless of actual anonymity. Three experiments provided empirical evidence supporting this prediction. In Experiment 1, participants in a room with slightly dimmed lighting cheated more and thus earned more undeserved money than those in a well-lit room. In Experiment 2, participants wearing sunglasses behaved more selfishly than those wearing clear glasses. Finally, in Experiment 3, an illusory sense of anonymity mediated the relationship between darkness and self-interested behaviors. Across all three experiments, darkness had no bearing on actual anonymity, yet it still increased morally questionable behaviors. We suggest that the experience of darkness, even when subtle, may induce a sense of anonymity that is not proportionate to actual anonymity in a given situation

It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture and Pain Tolerance

Recent research (Carney, Cuddy, & Yap, 2010) has shown that adopting a powerful pose changes people\u27s hormonal levels and increases their propensity to take risks in the same ways that possessing actual power does. In the current research, we explore whether adopting physical postures associated with power, or simply interacting with others who adopt these postures, can similarly influence sensitivity to pain. We conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants who adopted dominant poses displayed higher pain thresholds than those who adopted submissive or neutral poses. These findings were not explained by semantic priming. In Experiment 2, we manipulated power poses via an interpersonal interaction and found that power posing engendered a complementary (Tiedens & Fragale, 2003) embodied power experience in interaction partners. Participants who interacted with a submissive confederate displayed higher pain thresholds and greater handgrip strength than participants who interacted with a dominant confederate

If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests for Help

A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person’s perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential helpers were to appreciate the social costs of refusing a direct request for help (the costs of saying “no”), attending instead to the instrumental costs of helping (the costs of saying “yes”)

Underestimating Our Influence over Others at Work

Employees at all organizational levels have influence over their subordinates, their colleagues, and even their bosses. But are they aware of this influence? We present evidence suggesting that employees are constrained by cognitive biases that lead them to underestimate their influence over others in the workplace. As a result of this underestimation of influence, employees may be reluctant to spearhead organizational change, discount their own role in subordinates’ performance failures, and fail to speak up in the face of wrongdoing. In addition to reviewing evidence for this bias, we propose five moderators that, when present, may reverse or attenuate the underestimation effect (namely, comparative judgments, the objectification or dehumanization of an influence target, the actual degree of influence any one influencer has, the means of influence, and culture). Finally, we offer some practical solutions to help employees more fully recognize their influence over other members of the organization

Underestimating One\u27s Influence in Help-Seeking

[Excerpt] Robert Cialdini\u27s book, Influence (Cialdini, 1984), has counseled countless readers on the art and science of persuasion. Some have read the book looking for tips on how to become more persuasive, while others have flipped the pages searching for clues on how to protect themselves from persuasive attempts. Whatever they are hoping to find, readers come away with a similar emotional response. Almost without exception, their common reaction is a feeling of surprise. Scan the reviews of Influence available online and you will be told in clear detail about a strong sense of shock, awe, and amazement, all centered around how gullible people seem, how transparent effective persuasion tools are, and how willing we all may be to say yes to a clever phrasing of a direct request. The effects described in Influence are indeed surprising, but, at the same time, they are also empowering to the casual reader. They verify that tools of persuasion are not possessed exclusively by individuals with unique skills and rare talents; instead, they are simple and subtle approaches to presenting a decision so that others will feel compelled to comply. These tools can be understood, customized, and implemented by anyone—not just used car dealers, door-to-door salesmen, and brand advertisers. In short, what is particularly surprising about Cialdini\u27s book is not his compelling description of how people can be easily influenced, but how easy it may be for each of us to become influential ourselves. If we appreciate the pressure that others face when deciding whether to agree with our requests for help, we may be in a much better position to get help. This insight has inspired our own research on the topic of help-seeking and compliance. Specifically, we have examined the extent to which people are aware of the most basic weapon of influence—making a direct request for help. Given that we regularly ask people for help or are subject to help requests ourselves, we should be fairly accurate in estimating the likelihood that others will say yes to a direct request. However, our research tells a different story—one that suggests people are woefully inaccurate when it comes to predicting others\u27 helpfulness. Rather than give people the benefit of the doubt, most of us wrongly assume that others will say no in response to our requests (e.g., to buy a box of cookies or to write a letter of recommendation). In the sections that follow, we describe this systematic bias, highlight its potential utility, and address some of its adverse consequences

Liking the Same Things, but Doing Things Differently: Outcome Versus Compatibility in Partner Preferences for Joint Tasks

We propose a distinction between two types of interpersonal compatibility in determining partner preferences for joint tasks: outcome compatibility and strategic compatibility. We argue that these two types of compatibility correspond to preferences for similar and complementary task partners, respectively. Five studies support this distinction. A pilot study demonstrates that established scales for measuring attitudes and values (variables associated with similarity effects) capture more information about desired outcomes, whereas established scales for measuring dominance (the variable most widely associated with complementarity effects) capture more information about desired strategies. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrate that framing the same variable as either an outcome variable or a strategic variable can predict partner preference (i.e., similar or complementary). Finally, Studies 2a and 2b address why complementarity may offer a strategic advantage over similarity in task pursuit: complementarity allows two individuals with contrasting strategic preferences to “divide and conquer” tasks that require multiple strategies

Security Seeking in a Regulatory Focus Whodunit: The Case of the Relative Orientation in Behavioral Economics

[Excerpt] As a complement to other chapters in this handbook, this chapter’s initial focus is about understanding security concerns in interdependent economic decision-making, that is, contexts wherein individuals are asked with distributing resources between two or more parties, typically themselves and another. The economics component of economic decision-making concerns the manufacturing, distribution, and exchange of resources, whether money or ornament-shaped chocolates. The decision-making component involves applying psychological principles, such as motivation, to understanding how individuals choose among alternatives. For these reasons, it is a topic that falls under the study of behavioral economics (Camerer & Loewenstein, 2004; De Cremer, Zeelenberg, & Murnighan, 2006). It is the interdependent component of economic decision-making, however, that helps us investigate individuals\u27 intentions to cooperate or compete, to explore self-interest and its manifestation in individuals\u27 treatment (or lack thereof) of other parties. This intersection of topics allows us to answer the types of questions raised by examples like the one described above, such as, Why might someone sacrifice her own absolute gains simply to avoid receiving less than someone else? Understanding the answers to these kinds of questions about how resources are manufactured, distributed, and exchanged is a topic with great ramifications for, among other things, domestic and international politics (e.g., Lancaster, 2007; Waltz, 1979), the funding of research disciplines or functional areas within organizations, deal-making and dispute resolution, and basic survival functions, through the sharing of food, shelter, and other basic resources (e.g., Boyd & Silk, 2012; Hill, 2002)

Underestimating Our Influence over Others’ Unethical Behavior and Decisions

We examined the psychology of “instigators,” i.e., people who surround an unethical act and influence the wrongdoer (the “actor”) without directly committing the act themselves. In four studies, we found that instigators of unethical acts underestimated their influence over actors. In Studies 1 and 2, university students enlisted other students to commit a “white lie” (Study 1) or commit a small act of vandalism (Study 2) after making predictions about how easy it would be to get their fellow students to do so. In Studies 3 and 4, online samples of participants responded to hypothetical vignettes, e.g., about buying children alcohol, and taking office supplies home for personal use. In all 4 studies, instigators failed to recognize the social pressure they levied on actors through simple unethical suggestions, i.e., the discomfort actors would experience by making a decision that was inconsistent with the instigator’s suggestion