Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： China has already entered an important stage of both the consumer demand sustained growth and consumption structure upgraded being speeded up, thus the question of how to make the happy consumption or how to “buy” happiness has caused wide concern in public and government. Psychologist found that people derive more happiness from experiential consumption than from material consumption. And money priming would activate “value maximization mindset”; time priming would activate “emotional mindset” on the other hand, then to influence consumer’s decision-making. Based on these findings, this project started from the perspective of dual-process theory, using both the method of behavioral science and cognitive neuroscience, to reveal essence of the phenomenon of dual cognitive processing in consumer decision, and to clarify the relationship between money, time, consumer and happiness.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： In 2017, Richard H. Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. A key contribution towards this was his work on progressing his theory of mental accounting. Of late this theory has been used to explain some behavioral anomalies contrary to the “rational economic man” hypothesis in two major areas including consumer decision-making and financial and management decision-making. This article takes the applied research in the two fields as the external logic, and the three major process of mental accounting as the internal logic, mainly exploring ten behavioral phenomenon anomalous, including the “label effect”, “budget effect”, “price illusions”, “decoupling effect” and “utility bias” in consumer decision-making; “fly-paper effect”, the “puzzle of remuneration perception”, “puzzle of taxes and investments”, the “puzzle of accounting information disclosure” and “disposition effect” in financial and management decision making. We hope to demonstrate the latest developments in mental accounting theory. Additionally, we also discuss two possible applications for the future. Firstly, further research might also be interested in the possible internal processes and mechanisms of mental accounting and its impact on human decision-making through eye-motion tracking technology and the technology of cognitive neuroscience. Secondly, future research may be concerned with the applications of mental accounting towards nudge theory; particularly in the context of government and organizational management.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Information overload occurs when the current information processing requirements exceed information processing capacities. Information overload can impair the quality of decisions, prolong decision-making time, reduce decision satisfaction, and cause chronic stress. The attentional resources theory and limited working memory capacity can be used to explain why information overload damages decisions. Attention resources for filtering and managing information are consumed quickly under information overload and the allocation and utilization of attention resources can be disrupted by irrelevant information, which causes the efficiency of information processing to be reduced. Moreover, the available working memory for information processing can't process massive amounts of information in a limited time. As a result, decision performance is damaged by information overload. Future research should further explore the information processing model under information overload, the eye movement empowerment method allows us to examine attention resource usage under information overload. A dynamic coupling model of conscious and unconscious thought is required to provide a method to guide individuals to alleviate information overload. Additionally, intelligent agents and interactive memory systems should be investigated to find their potential roles in alleviating information overload within larger organizations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The development of the Internet era has led to the three major changes: the interconnectedness of all things, the scarcity of time, and the exhaustion of emotions. A key concept that connects these three growing trends is autonomy. When employees fail to control their own time at work, they experience the scarcity of time and emotional exhaustion. Previous research has found that constant Internet connectivity increases an individual’s autonomy in general scenarios. However, when employees are in a state of unbalanced power-dependency, constant Internet connectivity might decrease autonomy. Based on the power-dependency theory, follower’s asymmetric dependence and paternalistic authoritarian leadership are required in these unbalanced relationships. This project aims at exploring from a new perspective when and why constant Internet connectivity reduces autonomy and what the corresponding consequences are. The theoretical model challenges the prevailing notion that Internet connectivity increases autonomy, and it constructs a new theoretical basis for understanding employees’ autonomy in the context of Internet connectivity.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Early research on power has provided considerable evidence for the negative effects of power on prosocial behavior and its internal mechanisms. Although an increasing number of studies have attempted to test the positive effects of power on prosocial behavior, the mechanism of this positive effect is still not clear. By reviewing and integrating the relevant literature, sense of responsibility has been identified as a critical mediator in this positive effect. In addition, individuals with high levels of power may increase their sense of responsibility because of different reasons. Given the individual's own needs, relationships with others as well as organization, we systematically figure out that need for power maintenance, perception of dependency, and organizational identification would lead to high levels of responsibility, which then triggers powerful individuals to conduct more prosocial behaviors. Moreover, we also identified potential moderators at individual level, interpersonal level, and organizational level. Future research could focus on how power results in increased sense of responsibility from various ways including exploring this relationship in Chinese culture, adopting multiple research designs beyond experimental studies, as well as manipulating interventions for helping powerful individuals increase their levels of sense of responsibility.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The eye-tracking technique has been widely used in behavioural decision-making research owing to its advantages: 1) does not interfere with the decision-making process, 2) objectively collects information and 3) provides accurate and rich process data. To reveal the causality between eye movement and decision making, gaze manipulation could be utilised to examine whether shifting visual attention can alter choice behaviour. Gaze manipulation is classified into two types: exogenous manipulation and gaze-contingent manipulation. The two types of gaze manipulation have the same goals but have different characteristics, thus typically limiting their use for different research areas. Researchers can use exogenous manipulations, including spatial cueing, visual salience and exposure time to enforce participants’ bias towards attending to a particular stimulus since the initial stage of decision making and to alter their choice finally. Fixation count and fixation duration are two common indexes used for exogenous manipulation. One of the limitations of exogenous manipulation is participants’ possible susceptibility to the demand effect. Participants might infer that the stimulus which presents for longer or brighter is the one they are supposed to choose. Designing the framework of exogenous manipulation experiment is easy, and its conclusion has profound significance in our daily life. Therefore, exogenous manipulation can be used to explore which marketing methods can effectively promote customer purchasing and how to improve the effectiveness of advertising design in consumer behaviour research. Gaze-contingent manipulation is an experimental paradigm that interrupts decision makers’ decision processes on the basis of their gaze behaviour. In this paradigm, participants’ gaze is monitored and information relating to their fixation duration in a trial is used to trigger the decision prompt and remind participants to indicate their choice. Last fixation and fixation duration are two common manipulation indexes in such research. This paradigm overcomes the negative impact on the demand effect because researchers need not change the stimuli. However, participants’ eye movements may occasionally fail to trigger the decision prompt which might then generate timed-out trials. Gaze-contingent manipulation has been widely used in consumption choice, intertemporal choice, risky choice, moral choice and cognitive choice, among others, to explore the causal link between eye movement and decision making and to test and compare different decision models on the basis of the decision-making process. Gaze manipulation study has crucial theoretical and practical significance. On the one hand, examining the causal link between eye movement and decision making may help test and compare different decision-making models to provide process evidence that will support the hypotheses of decision-making models. On the other hand, gaze manipulation can alter decision-makers’ choices on the condition that researchers need not change the value of the choice and interfere with the decision-making process. Thus, it can provide ideas to improve decision making from the perspective of information processing. To improve the gaze manipulation experiment and cater for practical needs, we give three suggestions to advance gaze manipulation study. Firstly, future research should fully consider the differences in individual preference and choice strategy to reduce the number of timed-out trials. Before the experiment, researchers should test individual preference and choice strategy differences under different parameters and set unique stimuli for each participant. Secondly, future research should integrate gaze manipulation with computational modelling or other methods to enrich the manipulation indexes. By computational modelling, researchers can determine key indexes with high explanatory power for outcome and improve the effectiveness of gaze manipulation. By machine learning, researchers can remove the redundancy from massive data and effectively and accurately determine manipulation indexes. Thirdly, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, future research should extend the research field to human resource management and provide suggestions for the changing work style.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Research in the fields of financial investing, health, and organizational work has revealed that individuals are more likely to take risks when faced with stress. Prior studies have explained the underlying processes between stress and risk-taking from the perspectives of value appraisal, risk perception, and decision strategy. However, these studies were more akin to explore how people react more than why people react in risk-seeking ways under stress. Therefore, in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the association between stress and risk-seeking, this study aimed to reveal the direct and root reasons that explain an individual’s risk-taking behavior under stress and to clarify the internal mechanisms of this association. Several theories have suggested the reasons by which stress affects risk-seeking. For example, expected utility theory proposes that individuals tend to attach greater subjective value to the risk options in stressful situations. Prospect theory further suggests that stress affects both of the subjective value and subjective probability of risk options. These two theories consider cognitive changes as the possible reason that explains the “stress-risk-seeking” association. The dual-process theory further proposes that the said changes in the cognitive process are due to the depletion of cognitive resources under stress. Therefore, individuals tend to prefer labor-saving heuristic processing to adapt to the environment. The sensitive theory provides an explanation of the cognitive changes from an evolutionary perspective, suggesting that stress can unbalance individuals' psychological needs, crave higher rewards, and therefore, show more risk-seeking behaviors. The current study proposes that stress affects individuals’ value appraisal, risk perception and decision strategy through changes in cognitive resources and psychological needs. Specifically, on the one hand, stress occupies cognitive resources and weakens executive function, which is manifested in difficulties in suppressing dominant responses, slower task switching speed, and impaired working memory. On the other hand, stress unbalances individuals’ psychological needs and increases chances of reward-seeking, which is manifested in being more sensitive to high-reward options and positive reinforcement. Then, changes in executive function and psychological needs cause individuals to overestimate the positive outcomes of risky options and to reduce the perceived probability of negative outcomes and therefore, adopt heuristic strategies that consume less cognitive resources. Then, the heuristic strategies affect individuals’ risky behaviors through distorting their evaluations of risks, such as neglecting the possibility of negative outcomes and merely pursuing high-return options. In addition, our model accounts for boundary conditions in which the effects of stress on reward-seeking may differ by gender, materialism, and levels of stress coping; and the effects of stress on executive control may be moderated by factors such as age, stressors, social support, and domain specificity. Finally, we encourage future research to explore the association between stress and risk-seeking from three aspects. First, how would the dynamic changes of executive function under stress affect risk-seeking; Second, how does the interaction between cognition and emotion under stress affect risk-seeking; and Third, carry out intervention to regulate stress and reduce risk-taking behaviors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Mortality cues, ubiquitous inside and outside the workplace, are specific events and experiences that trigger individuals’ death awareness, whose double-edged effect on employee performance has been supported by a body of studies. Existing studies have explained this effect drawing on terror management theory and generativity theory. Studies from the perspective of terror management have indicated that individuals' death anxiety will induce their self-protection motivations, which in turn predicts their work withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism, turnover, and so on. On the other hand, studies from the perspective of generativity theory have suggested that individuals will actively reflect on their long-term life meaning in the face of mortality cues, and generate prosocial motivations that motivate them to make profound contributions to society, which in turn promotes their positive work behaviors such as helping others in the workplace. However, given that some studies have found that death anxiety has a positive effect on employee performance, and each of the above perspectives focuses on explaining a single effect of mortality cues, previous studies still fail to provide an overarching theoretical explanation for the key question “how and when does mortality cues have a double-edged effect on employee performance?”. Building on the unified perspective of transactional stress theory, this current review systematically sorts out the double-edged effect of mortality cues on employee task performance, organizational behavior, and counterproductive behavior, then analyzes the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions of this double-edged effect. Specifically, mortality cues can be conceptualized as a stressor both impeding and facilitating individuals’ personal goals and well-being, and individual's different cognitive appraisal (i.e., threat-based vs. challenge-based) of mortality-cues-based stressors will produce differential state death awareness (i.e., state death anxiety vs. state death reflection) and work behaviors. When it comes to appraisals of mortality-cues-based stressors, the threat-based appraisal of mortality-cues-based stressors will hinder their task performance and organizational citizenship and cause counterproductive behavior via state death anxiety, and the challenge-based appraisal of mortality-cues-based stressors will facilitate employee’s task performance and organizational citizenship behavior via state death reflection. In addition, this double-edged effect is also moderated by personal resources such as trait death reflection, psychological power, trait mindfulness, and promotion focus, as well as organizational contextual factors such as servant leadership and internal corporate social responsibility. Both personal and organizational contextual resources will strengthen the positive relationship between mortality-cues-based stressors and the challenge-based appraisal of mortality-cues-based stressors, and weaken the positive relationship between mortality-cues-based stressors and the threat-based appraisal of mortality-cues-based stressors. Explaining the double-edged effect of mortality cues from the perspective of transactional stress theory has both theoretical and practical implications. In particular, the perspective of transactional stress theory not only captures the interaction between objective mortality cues and individuals’ subjective cognitive appraisals, but also provides an overarching explanation for the generation of different state death awareness and its subsequent double-edged effects on employee performance. The divergence between death anxiety and employee performance may also be clarified by the theoretical insight that cognitive appraisals of mortality-cues-based stressors are a dynamic process. Practitioners can also conduct some intervention programs based on the above theoretical framework to help employees cope with mortality cues more adaptively. Future research can further explore antecedents and causality in the mechanism of the double-edged effect of mortality cues, testing the theoretical validity of mortality cues as a new type of stressor and clarifying whether the generation of state death awareness depends on cognitive appraisals of mortality-cues-based stressors or not. In addition, future research can also examine whether there are boundary conditions related to cross-domain contextual resources such as family intimacy, and develop more organizational intervention programs ranging long-term mindfulness intervention to short-term nudge strategies.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： On the one hand, a large amount of information is helpful to the construction of the future and it can help individuals make far-sighted decisions. On the other hand, as the amount of information increases, the ambiguity and uncertainty of the future also increases, which may make individuals prefer smaller but sooner reward. So, how does a huge amount of information affect intertemporal decision making? It is an important scientific question that has not been well addressed.Although there may be multiple cognitive abilities that play different roles in the process of massive information influencing intertemporal decisions, we believe that attention is the most important one. Mainly based on the following considerations: (1) The cost of processing information is attentional resources. (2) Selectivity of Attention determines what information is used for decision making. (3) The weight of attention given to different information may determine the decision outcome. Studies have shown that individuals' differences in intertemporal decision-making are mainly due to variance in attention. (4) There is important practical value in understanding how variance of attention affect intertemporal decision-making. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the question that how massive information influence intertemporal decision-making through attentional resources.Firstly, we will explore how massive information can reduce prospection about the future. Because too much information makes information that are negative, concrete, and salient are more likely to capture a person's attention. This results in too little attentional resources left for future relevant events. Secondly, we will explore how the reduction of prospection lead to a preference for the short-term option in intertemporal decision-making. Specifically, when individuals' attention is drawn to immediate information, they simulate future events unclearly, and predict a lower likelihood of receiving long-term rewards. Therefore, people's intention to achieve long-term goals will be reduced and they are reluctant to plan for long-term goals. Changes in the four prospection patterns will lead to a reduced weighting of future options and therefore a preference for near-term options in intertemporal choice. Thirdly, long-term orientation moderates the effect of massive information on intertemporal decision-making. Individuals with long-term orientation pay more attention to the value related to long-term goals and reduce the attention bias to short-term related information. Thus, long-term orientation buffers the adverse effect of massive information on intertemporal decision-making. And last but not least, we attempt to facilitate individuals' far-sighted intertemporal decision-making in a massive information environment by setting salience and defaults that could directing subjects' attention to focus on long-term values.Based on the theoretical perspective of attentional resources, this study proposes a theoretical framework that massive information affects intertemporal decision making by reducing prospection about the future. This is the first time to establish the relationship between massive information and intertemporal decision making directly. It reveals the cognitive process that massive information affects intertemporal decision making and helps us to deeply understand how people make intertemporal choice in the massive information environment. Consequently, our conclusions have important practical significance for both organizations and individuals to nudge farsighted decision by setting the environment to guide attention.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Many decisions that lead to neither pure gains nor losses require a trade-off between gains and losses over time. This kind of intertemporal choice featuring mixed gains and losses is increasingly common. Notably, such choices have important theoretical and practical value and have attracted increasing attention from researchers. Prior studies have usually employed a theoretical framework focused on intertemporal choice in the context of pure gains or losses, thereby failing to make use of any theoretical construction and exploration concerning the decision-making process that is suitable for mixed intertemporal choices.To answer the key question of "how does motivational conflict affect mixed intertemporal choice", this paper intends to explore the following specific research questions. (1) What kind of motivational conflict occurs in the context of mixed intertemporal choice? (2) How does motivational conflict affect individual decision preferences in the context of mixed intertemporal choice? (3) What is the mechanism underlying motivational conflict that affects individual decision-making preferences in the context of mixed intertemporal choice?For this purpose, we plan to explore the mechanism of motivation conflict underlying the decision-making process systematically by using both behavioural experiments and mouse-tracking techniques, and we expect to carry out three studies including six experiments in total. Specific details are as follows. (1) In Study 1, the relationship between the degree of motivation conflict and behavioural preferences in the context of such intertemporal choice is investigated. First, we initially propose using a within-subject experimental design to examine the relationship between decision-preference conflict and choice preference with respect to a mixed intertemporal choice step-preference paradigm. Simultaneously, a repeated measurement within-subject experimental design will be used to expand our research results pertaining to individual self-rated motivation conflict and to test the relationship between motivation conflict and mixed intertemporal choice in further detail. Study 1 will lay a paradigmatic foundation for decision-making research in subsequent Studies 2 and 3. (2) In Study 2, the degree of decision-making conflict will be manipulated by altering the relative differences in gains and losses with respect to endogenous factors as well as the resource limitations of exogenous factors. This approach is intended to verify the causal chain linking the degree of decision-making conflict to behavioural preference in further detail. (3) In Study 3, the decision-making process index and mouse tracking technology will be used to explore the process mechanism underlying the influence of mixed intertemporal choice conflict on behavioural preference. The degree of decision conflict will be measured by reference to the mouse trajectory index to reveal the process characteristics of decision conflict and the way in which this factor affects behavioural preference.In conclusion, this study will explore the dynamic decision-making process mechanism associated with a mixed intertemporal choice context of decision conflict from the perspective of motivation conflict and thereby contribute to research and theory construction concerning mixed intertemporal choice. On the one hand, a theoretical interpretation of the decision-making process mechanism that advances mixed intertemporal choice will be produced by exploring the impact of decision-making motivational conflicts on mixed intertemporal choice. On the other hand, we try to reveal the motivation underlying the choice preference rule in the context of mixed intertemporal choice based on the theoretical perspective of motivation conflict, including avoidance, which serves as a response to calls by previous researchers for the improvement of our understanding of mixed intertemporal choice. Moreover, this study will not only attempt to highlight the relationship between intermotivational conflict and choice preference in the context of mixed intertemporal choice but also to distinguish the factors that influence motivational conflict in the context of mixed intertemporal choice further by identifying them as either exogenous or endogenous factors. Specifically, this study will systematically manipulate exogenous factors and endogenous factors to enhance approach or avoidance motivation and subsequently change the degree of motivation conflict in an attempt to depict the causal chain associated with motivation conflict and mixed cross-period decision-making choice preference in full depth. By reference to the findings concerning the degree of decision conflict, the preference rule and the decision-making process in the context of mixed intertemporal choice, suggestions for the design of organizational management measures and the improvement of both individual and organizational welfare will be provided.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Environmental issues are currently of particular concern in the world. Thus, it is important to understand the processes that contribute to prudent long-term choices regarding the environment. To this end, it is important to study environmental intertemporal choice, especially the improvement of foresight in environmental time discounting. The present research combined questionnaire-based, lab-based and field studies to investigate whether “Foresight for the Future of Our Children” decreased time discounting in environmental intertemporal choice. Study 1 probed the link between pregnancy and environmental intertemporal choice. Study 2 aimed to replicate the results from Study 1 by controlling for the confounding variables of the physiological state of pregnancy in a lab experiment. In Study 3, a priming paradigm was developed to test this hypothesis. Participants were instructed to indicate their degree of support for specific environmental policies after the benefits of the policy were described. The test materials were the same in the experimental and control groups with the exception that an additional phrase was included in the experimental condition: “To leave our children with blue sky, green earth, clear water, and a beautiful home”. Building on Study 3, Study 4 employed a similar nudge-like intervention to investigate the effects of “Foresight for the Future of Our Children” on the extent to which participants support a federal environmental policy and donation incentive for charitable organizations. Study 1 indicated that pregnancy increased long-term thought in environmental intertemporal choice and decreased the temporal discounting rate through comparisons between pregnant and non-pregnant participants. Moreover, long-term thinking mediated the effect of pregnancy on the discounting rate in environmental intertemporal choice. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 regarding the links between the psychological priming of pregnancy and the discount rate in environmental intertemporal choice. The first two studies investigated whether natural pregnancy influenced the time discounting rate in environmental intertemporal choice. Based on these results, Study 3 tested the intervention hypothesis, which suggests that the subtle priming associated with the characteristics of pregnancy would influence the degree of support for long-term environmental policies. The results demonstrated that a simple prime that referred to “Foresight for the Future of Our Children” increased long-term thinking in intertemporal choice. Importantly, we produced similar nudging effects in Study 4 and showed that “Foresight for the Future of Our Children” increased the donation incentive towards a charity that aimed to improve the environment of China. The results from our four studies provide consistent evidence that “Foresight for the Future of Our Children” decreased myopic behaviour in environmental intertemporal choice. These results are crucial for the design of nudge interventions that improve the long-term interests of both individuals and collectives while persevering the freedom of individual choice. Furthermore, this research also sheds light on the theoretical attributions to underlying intertemporal models and the effects of the physiological state of pregnancy on choice.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Risky choice (RC) and intertemporal choice (IC) are two types of common decisions that are vital to human’s everyday life. RC and IC share similarities regarding theoretical development, behavioral effects, and neural basis. One critical challenge is that, although previous studies have revealed that RC and IC involve similar cognitive processes, results are mixed regarding what the exact mechanism might be. The mainstream discounting model hypothesizes that both RC and IC follow a compensatory and alternative-based rule. However, other models suggest that RC and IC commonly involve non-compensatory and attribute-based processing. Moreover, prior studies primarily based their findings on outcome data and few have attempted to determine whether RC and IC shared a common decision process at the cognitive computational level. To fill this gap, the present study adopts a systematic approach to disentangle the exact mechanism of RC and IC. We considered two well-studied behavioral effects, namely, certainty effect of RC and immediacy effect of IC, respectively, and compared their underlying local and holistic process characteristics by using eye-tracking technique. Besides, we employed hierarchical Bayesian modeling to assess whether alternative- or attribute-based models better fit both RC and IC. We designed a 2×2 within-subject paradigm, with the choice task (RC vs. IC) and the construct of decision options (with vs. without certain/immediate option) as factors. Thirty-three postgraduate students participated in our study. As we were particularly interested in two pairs of decision rules, i.e., compensatory/non-compensatory rules and alternative-based/attribute-based rules, we included a series of decision attributes that reflected them, based on the local and holistic process characteristics derived from eye-movement data to test our hypotheses. Our entire set of analyses aimed to (1) determine whether the decision processes of RC and IC are similar and (2) identify the best computational model that is more suitable for both decisions. For the first aim, results show that RC and IC indeed share comparable decision processes, albeit having a few differences in other aspects. Specifically, RC and IC differ in process characteristics, such as complexity and holistic eye-movement dynamics, and IC is processed in a relatively more deliberate, deeper fashion than RC. However, they are similar in other characteristics, such as search direction, which is more relevant to making decisions. For the second aim, computational modeling of process characteristics suggests that both types of decisions are consistent with non-discounting models. In particular, results of search direction, in light of Bayesian model comparison, reveals that participants are more likely to follow the non-compensatory, attribute-based rule rather than the alternative-based/attribute-based rule when deciding for both RC and IC. Furthermore, different task constructs of decision options, i.e., with or without certain/immediate option, show distinct process characteristics, such as direction, complexity, and depth in both RC and IC.To conclude, the present study shows that although differences exist between RC and IC, they indeed have shared cognitive mechanisms at the core of the decision processes. In both types of decisions, contrary to classic discounting models, individuals seem not to follow compensatory, attribute-based rules, which undergoes a “weighting and summing” or “delay discounting” process. Instead, they are more likely to use simple heuristic rules hypothesized by non-discounting models. Moreover, when including certain or immediate options, individuals tend to follow less compensatory and non-dominant (neither attribute-based nor alternative-based) rules. In sum, our findings not only provide a theoretical and empirical basis for the establishment of a common framework for RC and IC, but also provide a novel direction for thorough theoretical and methodological comparisons between variant decision tasks.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Vaccines are crucial for controlling deadly diseases, and how to persuade people to get vaccinated has become a hot topic in enhancing public health benefits. One way to increase the vaccination rate is to raise public awareness of the importance of vaccines through advertising. As an effective and cost-friendly approach, goal framing has been widely used in vaccine advertising. However, the literature has mixed findings about whether positive or negative goal framing is more effective in persuading people to get vaccinated. The present study aims to investigate how temporal distance (present vs. future) interacts with different types of goal framing (positive vs. negative) in persuading people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. We hypothesized that negative goal framing is more persuasive when the advertising focuses on present outcomes, while positive goal framing is more effective when combined with future-focused outcomes. We further hypothesized that the inner mechanism is the intertemporal asymmetry of approach and avoidance motivation. More specifically, the avoidance motivation induced by a negative frame is stronger in the present, while the approach motivation induced by a positive frame is stronger in the future. The perceived risk of COVID-19 moderated this effect. Four studies were conducted to examine our hypotheses. Study 1 was conducted to preliminarily investigate how goal framing and temporal distance jointly influence willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The aim of Study 2 was to verify the mediating effect of approach and avoidance motivation in a different advertising setting, as well as to rule out the potential mediators of the construal level and positive/negative emotions. In Study 3, we further tested the mediators by manipulating participants’ approach and avoidance motivation. Study 4 was a quasi-experiment in which we recruited participants from areas with different levels of COVID-19 risk to test how perceived risk moderated the interaction effect of goal framing and temporal distance. The results showed that a negative goal frame was more persuasive when combined with present-focused advertising, while a positive goal frame was more effective when combined with future-focused advertising (Study 1, N = 363). Avoidance motivation mediated the relationship between the goal frame and vaccine uptake in the present context, while approach motivation mediated the relationship between the goal frame and vaccine uptake in the future context (Study 2, N = 292). The results in Study 3 (N = 347) revealed that approach motivation priming increases the persuasiveness of the present-positive frame, while avoidance motivation priming increases the persuasiveness of the future-negative frame. COVID-19 risk also had an impact on the relationship between goal framing and temporal distance on vaccine uptake. When the COVID-19 risk was high, the difference in vaccine uptake between present-positive and present-negative conditions disappeared, while the future-positive frame was still more persuasive than the future-negative frame (Study 4, N = 423). In conclusion, the present study found an interactive effect of goal framing and temporal distance in persuading people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Avoidance/approach motivation mediates the relationship between goal framing and vaccine uptake in the present/future temporal context. The perceived COVID risk further moderated the interaction effect. The present study contributes to both the framing and approach- avoidance motivation literature and sheds light on future practices in persuading people to get the COVID vaccine and promoting the uptake of other vaccines.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Inevitably, consumers will be exposed to death-related information in their daily lives. For example, they are informed about deaths and injuries caused by accidents, terrorism and disasters on social media. They may also encounter the experiences of deceased friends and relatives or the news of unfortunate strangers. Especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are more frequently exposed to death cues. Researches have shown that consumers' decision-makings and purchasing behaviors shift when dealing with death threats. Compared to material consumption, experiential consumption delivers greater and persistent well-being and it is emerging as an extremely important consumption pattern. It is unclear, however, whether these mortality cues will exert positive or negative effects on consumers’ preference for experiential purchases. Based on the meaning maintenance model, 4 studies were conducted to examine how mortality salience influences consumers' preference for experiential purchases.In Study 1a and Study 1b, we experimentally manipulated mortality salience and examined its effect on consumers’ preference for experiential purchases. Study 1a (N = 140) was a single factor (mortality salience) between-subjects design, participants were randomly assigned to different groups to imagine about incurable infectious disease or dental surgery. Participants in Study 1b (N = 252) were instructed to write about death or dental pain. Study 2 (N =219) was designed to test the mediating role of meaning in life. Participants were required to read a news report concerning traffic accident or dental surgery, and then finish the Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Study 3 (N = 166) was a 2 (mortality salience vs. control condition) × 2 (social support: high level vs. low level) between-subjects design. Participants were provided a news report pertaining to the global fatalities under the COVID-19 pandemic in mortality salience condition, and pertaining to global tourism during the pandemic period in the control condition. Social support was manipulated by writing in detail a difficult situation “in which your family or friends accompanied you”, or “in which you had to face all by yourself”. Additionally, we used a single-paper meta-analysis (SPM) to document a robust effect across all studies. The main results of this study are as follows: (1) Exposed to mortality salience will lead to stronger preference for experiential purchases. (2) The effects seem to be driven by meaning in life, whereby exposure to mortality salience undermines consumers' meaning in life, and consumers will gravitate towards experiential consumption to enhance their impaired meaning. (3) Social support moderates the effect of mortality salience on meaning in life. Only when consumers received low level of social support, will mortality salience reduce their meaning in life. (4) Social support moderates the mediating effect of meaning in life on mortality salience and preference for experiential purchases. Specifically, meaning in life mediates the effect of mortality salience on preference for experiential purchases only when consumers received low social support. To enhance the overall validity, we performed a single-paper meta-analysis (SPM) on the four studies. The SPM showed that consumers had greater preference of experiential purchase when exposed to mortality salience (Estimate β = 0.30, SE = 0.07, z = 4.178, p < 0.001), which strengthened the robustness of our general conclusion. This research yields practical implications by demonstrating that mortality salience exerts positive effect on consumers' preference for experiential purchases, which enables us to identify the changes in consumption patterns and mindset under the pandemic, providing references for marketing and promotion strategies.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： In the digital economy era, leaders exert influence during work hours as well as beyond work hours, expecting employees to be available after work hours and responsive to work-related matters immediately via electronic communication devices, henceforth named “after-hours electronic communication expectations” (AECE). Previous studies have shed light on the promoting and inhibiting effects of AECE on employees’ job performance, but no research has adopted a unified perspective to explain this observation. Resultantly, we know little about the influence of leaders’ AECE affecting job performance and why it occurs. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we propose that leader AECE may affect employees’ job performance through three resource paths. Specifically, in the resource gain path, leader AECE improves employees’ job performance through organization-based self-esteem. In the resource loss path, leader AECE reduces job performance through stress perception. In the resource threat path, leader AECE reduces job performance through reputation maintenance concerns. Furthermore, we consider employee self-leadership an important boundary condition and suggest that it can enhance the resource gain effect and weaken the resource loss and threat effect. To verify the theoretical framework, we carried out an experimental study (study 1) and a multi-wave, multi-source field study (study 2). In study 1, we recruited 224 full-time employees to participate in the experiment; 4 participants were dropped because they failed the attention test. Participants were randomly assigned to either the manipulation group (i.e., high leader AECE group, n = 111) or the control group (i.e., low leader AECE group, n = 109). Leader AECE was manipulated by presenting different WeChat screenshots. Specifically, we asked participants to imagine that they received a message from their immediate leader at 9 PM, and presented experimental materials in the WeChat screenshots. In the screenshot presented to the control group, the leader sent two messages including “Take your time, contact me when you are free”. In the screenshot presented to the manipulation group, leader sent three messages including “Please respond ASAP” as well as four unconnected voice calls. After reading different screenshots, participants were asked to complete questionnaires containing manipulation tests, organization-based self-esteem measurements, stress perception, reputation maintenance concerns, and demographic information. In Study 2, our sample comprised 418 full-time employees from state-owned enterprise in Guangdong Province and their immediate leaders. We collected data in three waves, each with a one-month interval in between. In Wave 1, the employees reported leaders’ AECE, self-leadership and demographic information. In Wave 2, the employees reported organization-based self-esteem, stress perception and reputation maintenance concerns. In Wave 3, we invited leaders to report subordinates’ job performance. Consequently, our final usable sample included 346 employees. Study 1 revealed that compared to the control group, participants in the manipulation group reported higher levels of organization-based self-esteem, stress perception and reputation maintenance concerns. This finding confirmed the causal relationship between leader AECE and three mediators. Study 2 suggested that in the resource gain path, leaders’ AECE positively influenced subordinates’ organization-based self-esteem, which in turn enhanced job performance. Employees who received AECE from the leader were more likely to experience stress perception in the resource loss path. But stress perception did not have significant effects on job performance. In the resource threat path, reputation maintenance concerns played a mediating role between leaders’ AECE and job performance. Furthermore, self-leadership moderated the indirect effect of leaders’ AECE on employees’ job performance through organization-based self-esteem and reputation maintenance concerns, such that the effect was weaker when self-leadership was high compared to when self-leadership was low. Self-leadership did not moderate the relationship between leaders’ AECE and stress perception. This study makes several important contributions. First, drawing on conservation of resources theory, we integrate the promoting and inhibiting effects of leader AECE on employees’ job performance in a theoretical framework, which helps form a more comprehensive and dialectical understanding of the mixed effects. Second, we explore the mediating mechanisms underlying the relationship between leaders’ AECE and job performance, contributing to the AECE literature by revealing the “black box” of new leadership's influence on job performance. Third, we demonstrate the role of self-leadership in moderating resource threat effects, which provide guidance for mitigating the negative effects of leaders’ AECE.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2022-07-04
Abstract：
Based on an approach-avoidance motivation conflict perspective, this proposal systematically explores the decision-making mechanism associated with mixed gain-loss intertemporal choice by using behavioural experiments and mouse tracking technology. In Study 1, the relationship between the degree of motivation conflict and behavioural preferences in the context of such intertemporal choice is investigated. In Study 2, both endogenous factors (the relative difference between the amount of gain and the amount of loss) and exogenous factors (limited external resources) are manipulated to reveal the causal chain linking the degree of motivation conflict to mixed intertemporal choice. In Study 3, mouse tracking technology is used to explore the mechanism by which motivation conflict associated with mixed intertemporal choice influences behavioural preferences. The results of these studies reveal the mechanism by which motivational conflict affects the mixed intertemporal choice process and can also provide a theoretical foundation for the design of relevant schemes in organizational management.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-06-27
Abstract：
Inevitably, consumers will be exposed to death-related information in their daily lives. For example, they are informed about deaths and injuries caused by accidents, terrorism and disasters on social media. They may also encounter the experiences of deceased friends and relatives or the news of unfortunate strangers. Especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are more frequently exposed to death cues. Researches have shown that consumers' decision-makings and purchasing behaviors shift when dealing with death threats. Compared to material consumption, experiential consumption delivers greater and persistent well-being and it is emerging as an extremely important consumption pattern. It is unclear, however, whether these mortality cues will exert positive or negative effects on consumers’ preference for experiential purchases. Based on the meaning maintenance model, 4 studies were conducted to examine how mortality salience influences consumers' preference for experiential purchases.
In Study 1a and Study 1b, we experimentally manipulated mortality salience and examined its effect on consumers’ preference for experiential purchases. Study 1a (N = 140) was a single factor (mortality salience) between-subjects design, participants were randomly assigned to different groups to imagine about death or dental surgery. Participants in Study 1b (N = 252) were instructed to write about death or dental pain. Study 2 (N =219) was designed to test the mediating role of meaning in life. Participants were required to read a news report concerning traffic accident or dental surgery, and then finish the Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Study 3 (N = 166) was a 2 (mortality salience vs. control condition) ×2 (social support: high level vs. low level) between-subjects design. Participants were provided a news report pertaining to the global fatalities under the COVID-19 pandemic in mortality salience condition, and pertaining to global tourism during the pandemic period in the control condition. Social support was manipulated by writing in detail a difficult situation "in which your family or friends accompanied you", or "in which you had to face all by yourself". Additionally, we used a single-paper meta-analysis (SPM) to document a robust effect across all studies.
The main results of this study are as follows: (1) Exposed to mortality salience will lead to stronger preference for experiential purchases. (2) The effects seem to be driven by meaning in life, whereby exposure to mortality salience undermines consumers' meaning in life, and consumers will gravitate towards experiential consumption to enhance their impaired meaning. (3) Social support moderates the effect of mortality salience on meaning in life. Only when consumers received low level of social support, will mortality salience reduce their meaning in life. (4) Social support moderates the mediating effect of meaning in life on mortality salience and preference for experiential purchases. Specifically, meaning in life mediates the effect of mortality salience on preference for experiential purchases only when consumers received low social support. To enhance the overall validity, we performed a single-paper meta-analysis (SPM) on the four studies. The SPM showed that consumers had greater preference of experiential purchase when exposed to mortality salience (Estimate β = 0.30, SE = 0.07, z = 4.178, p < 0.001), which strengthened the robustness of our general conclusion.
This research yields practical implications by demonstrating that mortality salience exerts positive effect on consumers' preference for experiential purchases, which enables us to identify the changes in consumption patterns and mindset under the pandemic, providing references for marketing and promotion strategies.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2022-05-19
Abstract：
Vaccines are crucial for controlling deadly diseases, and how to persuade people to get vaccinated has become a hot topic in enhancing public health benefits. One way to increase the vaccination rate is to raise public awareness of the importance of vaccines through advertising. As an effective and cost-friendly approach, goal framing has been widely used in vaccine advertising. However, the literature has mixed findings about whether positive or negative goal framing is more effective in persuading people to get vaccinated. The present study aims to investigate how temporal distance (present vs. future) interacts with different types of goal framing (positive vs. negative) in persuading people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. We hypothesized that negative goal framing is more persuasive when the advertisingfocuses on present outcomes, while positive goal framing is more effective when combined with future-focused outcomes. We further hypothesized that the inner mechanism is the intertemporal asymmetry of approach and avoidance motivation. More specifically, the avoidance motivation induced by a negative frame is stronger in the present, while the approach motivation induced by a positive frame is stronger in the future. The perceived risk of COVID-19 moderated this effect.
Four studies were conducted to examine our hypotheses. Study 1 was conducted to preliminarily investigate how goal framing and temporal distance jointly influence willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The aim of Study 2 was to verify the mediating effect of approach and avoidance motivation in a different advertising setting, as well as to rule out the potential mediators of the construal level and positive/negative emotions. In Study 3, we further tested the mediators by manipulating participants’ approach and avoidance motivation. Study 4 was a quasi-experiment in which we recruited participants from areas with different levels of COVID-19 risk to test how perceived risk moderated the interaction effect of goal framing and temporal distance.
The results showed that a negative goal frame was more persuasive when combined with present-focused advertising, while a positive goal frame was more effective when combined with future-focused advertising (Study 1, N = 363). Avoidance motivation mediated the relationship between the goal frame and vaccine uptake in the present context, while approach motivation mediated the relationship between the goal frame and vaccine uptake in the future context (Study 2, N = 292). The results in Study 3 (N = 347) revealed that approach motivation priming increases the persuasiveness of the present-positive frame, while avoidance motivation priming increases the persuasiveness of the future-negative frame. COVID-19 risk also had an impact on the relationship between goal framing and temporal distance on vaccine uptake. When the COVID-19 risk was high, the difference in vaccine uptake between present-positive and present-negative conditions disappeared, while the future-positive frame was still more persuasive than the future-negative frame (Study 4, N = 423).
In conclusion, the present study found an interactive effect of goal framing and temporal distance in persuading people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Avoidance/approach motivation mediates the relationship between goal framing and vaccine uptake in the present/future temporal context. The perceived COVID risk further moderated the interaction effect. The present study contributes to both the framing and approach-avoidance motivation literature and sheds light on future practices in persuading people to get the COVIDvaccine and promoting the uptake of other vaccines.
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Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2022-02-24
Abstract：
The eye-tracking technique has been widely used in behavioural decision-making research owing to its advantages: 1) does not interfere with the decision-making process, 2) collects information objectively and 3) provides accurate and rich process data. To reveal the causality between eye movement and decision-making, gaze manipulation could be utilized to examine whether shifting visual attention can alter choice behaviour. Gaze manipulation is classified into two types: exogenous manipulation and gaze-contingent manipulation. This paper reviews studies on gaze manipulation in decision-making, introduces the basic methods and principles of gaze manipulation, and discusses the common manipulation indexes. Additionally, this paper compares the advantages and disadvantages of the two basic methods. Future research from different fields should benefit from fully considering individual preference and choice strategy differences in decision-making, and integrating gaze manipulation with computational modelling or other methods to enrich the manipulation indexes.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2021-09-26
Abstract： Consumers will inevitably receive some information about death in their daily life. For example, they see news reports on social media about traffic accidents, air crashes, terrorist attacks, wars, major disasters (earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, etc.), and sudden death, which contain death information. Another example is knowing or experiencing the unfortunate news that friends, relatives and strangers passed away due to disease or accident in their lives. This is especially true in the context of the current COVID-19 epidemic, where the number of COVID-19 deaths continues to rise globally and consumers are exposed to the threat of death, either passively or actively. According to previous studies, under the influence of death threat information, consumers may have stronger desire to consume and make consumption in response to death threat. So, when consumers think about the possibility of death or are exposed to mortality salience, will they be more willing to engage in experiential consumption or material consumption? Do mortality salience have an impact on consumers' preference for experiential products? What are the mechanisms and boundary conditions? In experiment 1, participants were asked two classic death questions to conduct death reminders, and then the effect of mortality salience on the number of experiential products consumers chose was tested. In experiment 2, the effect of mortality salience on consumers' preference for experiential product selection was repeatedly verified by reading traffic accident news reports. The mediating role of meaning in life between mortality salience and consumers' choice preference of experiential products was explored. Experiment 3 was based on the background of the current COVID-19 epidemic, and mortality salience was activated by asking the subjects to read reports about COVID-19 deaths. Moreover, the boundary conditions of the effect of mortality salience on consumers' choice preference of experiential purchases were further explored from the intervention level by manipulating the level of social support in experiment 3. The main results of the study are as follows: (1) Mortality salience will improve consumers' preference of experiential purchase and increase the number of experiential products to choose. (2) Meaning in life played a mediating role in the relationship between mortality salience and the preference of experiential purchase. (3) Social support moderated the effect of mortality salience on meaning in life. When social support was low, mortality salience was negatively correlated with meaning in life. When social support was high, there was no significant correlation between mortality salience and meaning in life. (4) Social support moderated the mediating effect of meaning in life on mortality salience and consumer preference of experiential purchase . When social support was low, the mediating effect was established. When social support was high, the mediating effect did not hold. The findings suggest that death mortality salience is an antecedent variable that influencing consumers' direct choice between experiential and material consumption, enriching and expanding relevant research in the field of consumer preferences, while providing reference implications for maintaining individual physical and mental health and restoring socioeconomic development in the post-epidemic period.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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