Laboratory studies of choice and decision making among real monetary rewards typically use smaller real rewards than those common in real life. When laboratory rewards are large, they are almost always hypothetical. In applying laboratory results meaningfully to real-life situations, it is...

Whereas much literature exists on ``choice overload'', less is known about effects of numbers of alternatives in donation decisions. We hypothesize that donations increase with the number of recipients, albeit at a decreasing rate, and reflect donors' knowledge of the recipients. Donations...

The tempting fate effect is that the probability of a fateful outcome is deemed higher following an action that ``tempts'' the outcome than in the absence of such an action. In this paper we evaluate the hypothesis that the effect is due to an illusion of control induced by a causal framing of...

Recent research has emphasized emotion's role in non-utilitarian judgments, but has not focused much on characteristics of subjects contributing to those judgments. The present article relates utilitarian judgment to individual disposition to experience various emotions. Study 1 first...

Slowing climate change will almost certainly require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but agreement on who should reduce emissions by how much is difficult, in part because of the self-serving bias---the tendency to believe that what is beneficial to oneself is also fair. Conducting...

We used a diffusion model to examine the effects of response-bias manipulations on response time (RT) and accuracy data collected in two experiments involving a two-choice decision making task. We asked 18 subjects to respond ``low'' or ``high'' to the number of asterisks in a 10x10 grid, based...

According to recent dual-process theories, interpersonal trust is influenced by both impulsive and deliberative processes. The present research explores the determinants of deliberative trust, investigating how trust decisions are affected by the availability of cognitive resources. We test the...

Excess choice has previously been shown to have detrimental effects on decisions about consumer products. As the number of options increases, people are more likely to put off making an active choice (i.e., defer) and show less satisfaction with any purchase actually made. We extend this line of...

Donation requests often convey numerical information about the people in need. In two studies we investigated the effects of numeracy and presentation format on the underlying affective and cognitive mechanisms of donation decisions. In Study 1, participants were presented with information about...

Would you redirect a trolley to save five people even if it means that the trolley will run over a person on the side track? Most people say they would. Would you push that same person into the path of the trolley in order to save the five? Most people say they would not. These sorts of...