Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Individuals frequently make decisions for others in management consulting firms, investment agency companies, and daily lives. Therefore, investigating how people make decisions for others has become one of the most important issues of research concern. However, existing research has investigated the psychological mechanisms of people who make decision for others from an intrapersonal perspective with the lack of an interpersonal perspective. Besides, prior research has mainly focused on decision outcomes, but neglected decision feelings. The present research explores (1) the intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms of people who make decisions for others; (2) the decision feelings of people who make decisions for others, and the effect of their psychological mechanisms on decision feelings; and (3) the role of individual difference on psychological mechanisms and decision feelings. We aim to establish a model of multi-dimensional psychological mechanisms and psychological feelings for people who make decisions for others.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Conflicts are antagonistic states where the actions taken by one party may cause direct and obvious harm to the other party. Therefore, conflicts may lead to interpersonal tensions. Rejections, raising different views, and competitions are instances that may induce conflicts. Effective conflict management can help to reduce negative impacts of conflicts and bring out potential positive impacts. However, the prevalence of misprediction hinders conflict management. Therefore, it is imperative to explore mispredictions in conflicts to facilitate effective conflict management. Extant researches have mainly shed light on mispredictions in non-conflicts from an information-driven perspective. In this line of researches, mispredictions are regarded as biases or even mistakes caused by cognitive constraints and the negative consequences of misprediction are mainly discussed. Although research on misprediction in non-conflicts is fruitful, misprediction in conflicts was largely ignored. In conflicts, people are more motivated to protect themselves and avoid interpersonal harm. To satisfy these motivations, people may strategically make mispredictions. Thus, mispredictions in conflicts may have motivational accounts. From this perspective, these mispredictions are not totally biases but sometimes adaptive because they help satisfy people’s needs. In this project, we will investigate mispredictions in conflicts and their mechanisms and consequences. Specifically, the aim of this project is fourfold. First, we will contrast mispredictions in conflicts and non-conflicts to explore the uniqueness of mispredictions in conflicts. We propose the bias-amplification effect of conflicts: mispredictions will be larger in conflicts than in non-conflicts. For instance, the opinion responders who have raised a different view to opinion proposers will mispredict the reactions of opinion proposers more than the opinion responders who have raised a similar view. Second, on the basis of motivated reasoning theory, we will investigate the negativity-driving mechanism of the bias-amplification effect. Since people worry about negative consequences of conflicts, they will process the potential outcomes of conflicts during the cognitive process (including attention, perception, and thinking) toward the negative direction to prepare for the worst results. Third, we will examine the consequences of mispredictions in conflicts such as interpersonal withdrawals or inactions. Last, we will develop effective and feasible de-biasing interventions to eliminate these mispredictions in conflicts. The mispredictions should be attenuated if people are less motivated to protect themselves and avoid harm others. This project will establish a new theoretical model of mispredictions in conflicts. This model, based on motivated-reasoning theory, reveals the bias-amplification effect of conflicts and extends the negative bias theory to interpersonal interactions. It also shifts from the cognitive constraint perspective to the motivational perspective and shows the impact of motivated reasoning on interpersonal interactions. In addition, this model contributes to the idea of ecological rationality and analyzes the adaptive functions of mispredictions. In sum, our work combines theories of mispredictions, negative bias, and motivated reasoning to establish a comprehensive theoretical framework. This project helps to extend theories on behavioral decision making as well as guide the public and social governors to make accurate predictions about others, to improve conflict management, and to reach high-quality decisions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： In many social comparisons, people know exactly how they and others do. These comparisons induce a self-other gap. A variety of important decisions are made on the basis of judgments of the gap between ourselves and other people. Existing research indicates biased judgments of self-other gaps, with unknown absolute performance of others. However, the question we are interested in is whether judgments of a self-other gap will be accurate when both absolute performance of oneself and others are specified. This research investigated how the self-other gap was shaped by absolute and relative performances. We proposed the generalization effect, in which individuals generalized their absolute performance to rate their relative position to others though the actual self-other gap was specified. We conducted seven studies (N = 2766) to test our proposed generalization effect on perceived self-other gap. Study 1 adopted a 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. The participants, who were informed their performance as well as their classmate's performance in a test, rated the gap between themselves and the classmate. The result indicated that absolute gain caused a larger perceived self-other gap for relative gain (“I am far ahead of her”) than for relative loss (“I am not far behind her”). Conversely, absolute loss caused a larger perceived self-other gap for relative loss (“I am far behind her”) than for relative gain (“I am not far behind her”). Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with investment and social media scenarios. Besides, Study 2a excluded the influence of information order and Study 2b excluded the effect of emotion. Studies 3a and 3b ruled out the alternative explanations of numeric size. Study 4 tested the association mechanism by cutting off the associations between multiple dimensions. We adopted a 2 (association: cutting-off or control) × 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. In the cutting-off condition, we designed a debiasing intervention where general associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. As a result, the effect found in Studies 1 to 3 persisted in the control condition but disappeared in the cutting-off condition where associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. The result indicated that generalization among dimensions accounted for the effect we found. The result also ruled out the explanations of egocentrism and focalism.Study 5 manipulated the reference point in social comparison and found a null effect for reference point on the generalization effect, which ruled out the explanation of reference point.We reveal that assessments of relative performance are biased even when people have sufficient information about their own and others' absolute performances because people generalize their absolute performance to relative performance. The generalization effect reflects the overgeneralization bias in social comparison. People fail to realize that absolute performances are not necessarily related to relative performances. Moreover, the current research offers a feasible approach to reduce such a bias.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： In many cases, people intend to offer help but unfortunately cause more troubles to help recipients. After doing so, helpers often expect negative evaluations from help recipients. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: helpers will overestimate the negative impacts (underestimate the positive impacts) of their behaviors on help recipients when they try to help but cause more troubles. The reason for this misprediction is that in contrast to helpers’ predictions about help recipients, help recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence. We conducted six studies (N = 1, 763) to test the proposed misprediction and test its underlying mechanism. Study 1 adopted a 2 (outcome: success or failure) × 2 (role: helper or help recipient) between-subjects design. Helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions (gratefulness, satisfaction, the likelihood to seek help again, the likelihood to recommend helpers to others), whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed a misprediction such that helpers exaggerated the negative reactions of help recipients. In addition, the misprediction was specific to failure. In the success condition, helpers made accurate predictions about help recipients’ reactions. These results also ruled out alternative explanations of the spotlight effect and social desirability bias. Studies 2a and 2b adopted an identical design to that in Study 1 and replicated the results in Study 1 in a different scenario by bounded and unbounded scales. In addition, we found the existence of the misprediction made by helpers in both proactive and reactive helping. Study 3 replicated the results by using indicators involving money. In Study 4, with an identical design to that in Study 1, helpers made predictions about how help recipients rated their warmth and competence, whereas help recipients rated helpers’ warmth and competence. Afterwards, helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions, whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed that helpers underestimated help recipients’ ratings of warmth and competence in the failure condition and that this underestimation accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions. In Study 5, we recorded participants’ real-time thoughts during their prediction or rating process. We found that helpers considered their competence (warmth) earlier and more (later and less) than help recipients, indicating that helpers focused more on their competence and less on their warmth when making predictions about help recipients than help recipients did. The query order and content accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions in the failure condition. We show that people who try to help others but eventually cause more troubles mispredict the reactions of help recipients. Helpers overestimate the negative consequences (underestimate the positive consequences) of their behaviors to help recipients. We also reveal the underlying mechanism of this misprediction that helps recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence compared to helpers’ predictions about help recipients. Understanding this misprediction helps alleviate the concerns of helpers when they are intended to offer help but actually do harm to others and helps promote subsequent helping behaviors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Job candidates and competitors aim to earn admission or high ratings. People tend to avoid displaying their skills in front of an expert due to the prediction that they will be rated unfavorably because the expert can accurately evaluate their level of skill. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: candidates will undervalue the advantages of showing skills in front of an expert. This is because evaluators partially base their evaluations on the pride elicited by alluding to their expertise, whereas candidates base their predictions on whether their competence will be accurately evaluated but neglect evaluators' pride.Eight studies (N = 1, 888) demonstrated the proposed misprediction and tested its underlying mechanism. In Study 1, we assigned the participants to the candidate or the evaluator condition. The candidates made an incentive-compatible prediction on how they would be more likely to be admitted by displaying their skills in front of an expert or a non-expert. The evaluators admitted one between a candidate displaying skills in the evaluators' area of expertise and a candidate displaying skills outside the evaluators' area of expertise. The results showed that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators' area of expertise. However, the candidates avoided doing so, which reduced their chances of admission.Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with different competition forms (promotion or elimination) and in the case where candidates were assigned to display skills in or outside the evaluators' area of expertise. These studies ruled out two alternative explanations that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators' area of expertise solely because they were similar to the candidate or could easily evaluate the candidate.Studies 4 and 5 manipulated the candidates' motivation to win the competition and their level of competence, respectively, to test whether they avoided displaying skills in front of experts due to the concern that their competence could be evaluated accurately by experts. The results indicated that the candidates showed a stronger misprediction and were less likely to showcase skills in front of experts when they highly (vs. less) desired to win the competition or had a lower (vs. moderate and higher) competence.Study 6 prompted the candidates to empathize with evaluators. We asked the candidates to think about their feelings when others made references to their expertise. As a result, the candidates were aware of their pride and made a more accurate prediction. Study 7 manipulated the evaluators' pride to test whether they preferred the candidate who displayed skills in the evaluators' area of expertise because that they felt pride when their expertise was referred to. The results revealed that the evaluators with lower (vs. higher) pride were less likely to admit the candidates who displayed skills in the evaluators' area of expertise.In Study 8, we recorded the participants' real-time thoughts during their decision making. The results again showed that the candidates focused on their competence during their decision-making process, whereas the evaluators' preferences were affected by their pride. In addition, the real-time thoughts led to the underestimation about the benefits of displaying skills in front of an expert.We reveal that people fail to accurately predict the effect of a self-presentation strategy. Candidates undervalue the strategy of displaying skills in front of experts due to the empathy gap that they neglect the pride experienced by experts. Consequently, candidates mistakenly avoid displaying skills in front of experts and thus miss the chance to earn admission. Besides, we offer a feasible approach to reduce such a bias. Our findings encourage candidates to empathize with evaluators and strategically perform to experts.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-12-09
Abstract：
Job candidates and competitors aim to earn admission or high ratings. People tend to avoid displaying their skills in front of an expert due to the prediction that they will be rated unfavorably because the expert can accurately evaluate their level of skill. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: candidates will undervalue the advantages of showing skills in front of an expert. This is because evaluators partially base their evaluations on the pride elicited by alluding to their expertise, whereas candidates base their predictions on whether their competence will be accurately evaluated but neglect evaluators’ pride. Eight studies (N = 1,888) demonstrated the proposed misprediction and tested its underlying mechanism. In Study 1, we assigned the participants to the candidate or the evaluator condition. The candidates made an incentive-compatible prediction on how they would be more likely to be admitted by displaying their skills in front of an expert or a non-expert. The evaluators admitted one between a candidate displaying skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise and a candidate displaying skills outside the evaluators’ area of expertise. The results showed that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise. However, the candidates avoided doing so, which reduced their chances of admission. Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with different competition forms (promotion or elimination) and domain assignments (active choice or passive assignment). These studies ruled out two alternative explanations that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise solely because they were similar to the candidate or could easily evaluate the candidate. Studies 4 and 5 manipulated the candidates’ motivation to win the competition and their level of competence, respectively, to test whether they avoided displaying skills in front of experts due to the concern that their competence could be evaluated accurately by experts. The results indicated that the candidates showed a stronger misprediction and were less likely to showcase skills in front of experts when they highly (vs. less) desired to win the competition or had a lower (vs. higher) competence. Study 6 prompted the candidates to empathize with evaluators. We asked the candidates to think about their feelings when others made references to their expertise. As a result, the candidates were aware of their pride and made a more accurate prediction. Study 7 manipulated the evaluators’ pride to test whether they preferred the candidate who displayed skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise because that they felt pride when their expertise was referred to. The results revealed that the evaluators with lower (vs. higher) pride were less likely to admit the candidates who displayed skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise. In Study 8, we recorded the participants’ real-time thoughts during their decision making. The results again showed that the candidates focused on their competence during their decision-making process, whereas the evaluators’ preferences were affected by their pride. In addition, the real-time thoughts led to the underestimation about the benefits of displaying skills in front of an expert. We reveal that people fail to accurately predict the effect of a self-presentation strategy. Candidates undervalue the strategy of displaying skills in front of experts due to the empathy gap that they neglect the pride experienced by experts. Consequently, candidates mistakenly avoid displaying skills in front of experts and thus miss the chance to earn admission. Besides, we offer a feasible approach to reduce such a bias. Our findings encourage candidates to empathize with evaluators and strategically perform to experts.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-12-25
Abstract： The prevalence of misprediction hinders conflict management. Therefore, it is imperative to explore mispredictions in conflicts to facilitate effective conflict management. However, research has mainly shed light on mispredictions in non-conflicts and neglected the uniqueness of conflicts. This project investigates mispredictions in conflicts and their mechanisms and consequences. Specifically, the aim of this project is fourfold. First, it explores mispredictions in conflicts and proposes the bias-amplification effect of conflicts. Second, it investigates the negativity driving mechanism of the bias-amplification effect. Third, it examines consequences of the mispredictions in conflicts. Last, it develops effective and feasible interventions to eliminate these mispredictions in conflicts. This project is intended to establish a theoretical model of mispredictions in conflicts. The results help to extend theories on behavioral decision making as well as guide the public and social governance to make accurate predictions about others, to improve conflict management, and to reach high-quality decisions."
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-11-14
Abstract： In many cases, people intend to offer help but unfortunately cause more troubles to help recipients. After doing so, helpers often expect negative evaluations from help recipients. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: helpers will overestimate the negative impacts (underestimate the positive impacts) of their behaviors on help recipients when they try to help but cause more troubles. The reason for this misprediction is that in contrast to helpers’ predictions about help recipients, help recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence. We conducted six studies (N = 1,763) to test the proposed misprediction and test its underlying mechanism. Study 1 adopted a 2 (outcome: success or failure) × 2 (role: helper or help recipient) between-subjects design. Helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions (gratefulness, satisfaction, the likelihood to seek help again, the likelihood to recommend helpers to others), whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed a misprediction such that helpers exaggerated the negative reactions of help recipients. In addition, the misprediction was specific to failure. In the success condition, helpers made accurate predictions about help recipients’ reactions. These results also ruled out alternative explanations of the spotlight effect and social desirability bias. Studies 2a and 2b adopted an identical design to that in Study 1 and replicated the results in Study 1 in a different scenario by bounded and unbounded scales. In addition, we found the existence of the misprediction made by helpers in both proactive and reactive helping. Study 3 replicated the results by using indicators involving money. In Study 4, with an identical design to that in Study 1, helpers made predictions about how help recipients rated their warmth and competence, whereas help recipients rated helpers’ warmth and competence. Afterwards, helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions, whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed that helpers underestimated help recipients’ ratings of warmth and competence in the failure condition and that this underestimation accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions. In Study 5, we recorded participants’ real-time thoughts during their prediction or rating process. We found that helpers considered their competence (warmth) earlier and more (later and less) than help recipients, indicating that helpers focused more on their competence and less on their warmth when making predictions about help recipients than help recipients did. The query order and content accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions in the failure condition. We show that people who try to help others but eventually cause more troubles mispredict the reactions of help recipients. Helpers overestimate the negative consequences (underestimate the positive consequences) of their behaviors to help recipients. We also reveal the underlying mechanism of this misprediction that helps recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence compared to helpers’ predictions about help recipients. Understanding this misprediction helps alleviate the concerns of helpers when they are intended to offer help but actually do harm to others and helps promote subsequent helping behaviors.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-08-14
Abstract： In many social comparisons, people know exactly how they and others do. These comparisons induce a self–other gap. A variety of important decisions are made on the basis of judgments of the gap between ourselves and other people. Existing research indicates biased judgments of self–other gaps, with unknown absolute performance of others. However, the question we are interested in is whether judgments of a self–other gap will be accurate when both absolute performance of oneself and others are specified. This research investigated how the self–other gap was shaped by absolute and relative performances. We proposed the generalization effect, in which individuals generalized their absolute performance to rate their relative position to others though the actual self–other gap was specified. We conducted seven studies (N = 2766) to test our proposed generalization effect on perceived self–other gap. Study 1 adopted a 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. The participants, who were informed their performance as well as their classmate’s performance in a test, rated the gap between themselves and the classmate. The result indicated that absolute gain caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative gain (“I am far ahead of her”) than for relative loss (“I am not far behind her”). Conversely, absolute loss caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative loss (“I am far behind her”) than for relative gain (“I am not far behind her”). Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with investment and social media scenarios. Besides, Study 2a excluded the influence of information order and Study 2b excluded the effect of emotion. Studies 3a and 3b ruled out the alternative explanations of numeric size. Study 4 tested the association mechanism by cutting off the associations between multiple dimensions. We adopted a 2 (association: cutting-off or control) × 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. In the cutting-off condition, we designed a debiasing intervention where general associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. As a result, the effect found in Studies 1 to 3 persisted in the control condition but disappeared in the cutting-off condition where associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. The result indicated that generalization among dimensions accounted for the effect we found. The result also ruled out the explanations of egocentrism and focalism. Study 5 manipulated the reference point in social comparison and found a null effect for reference point on the generalization effect, which ruled out the explanation of reference point. We reveal that assessments of relative performance are biased even when people have sufficient information about their own and others’ absolute performances because people generalize their absolute performance to relative performance. The generalization effect reflects the overgeneralization bias in social comparison. People fail to realize that absolute performances are not necessarily related to relative performances. Moreover, the current research offers a feasible approach to reduce such a bias. " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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