Decisions that consumers make often rest on evaluations of attributes, such as how large, expensive, good, or fattening an option seems. Extant research has demonstrated that these evaluations in turn depend upon the recently experienced distribution of attribute values (e.g., positively or...

We demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive models for combining human estimates of probabilities in two experiments. The first experiment involves people's estimates of probabilities for general knowledge questions such as ``What percentage of the world's population speaks English as a first...

When people predict their future behavior, they tend to place too much weight on their current intentions, which produces an optimistic bias for behaviors associated with currently strong intentions. More realistic self-predictions require greater sensitivity to situational barriers, such as...

The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through communication. We show that...

Four laboratory studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that correct Bayesian reasoning can be predicted by two factors of task complexity --- the number of mental steps required to reach the normative solution, and the compatibility between the framing of data presented and the framing of...

It is important to understand the impact of individual differences in decision making from childhood to adulthood. This cohort-based study extends our knowledge by comparing decision making of children across the age range of 8 to 17 years and their parents. Based on prior research and theory...

Affective states can change how people react to measures aimed at influencing their decisions such as providing a default option. Previous research has shown that when defaults maintain the status quo positive mood increases reliance on the default and negative mood decreases it. Similarly, it...

Two studies examined the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection (CRT) and the tendency to accord genuinely moral (non-conventional) status to a range of counter-normative acts --- that is, to treat such acts as wrong regardless of existing social opinion or norms. We...

The current study tested the boundary conditions of ethical decision-making by increasing cognitive load. This manipulation is believed to hinder deliberation, and, as we argue, reduces the cognitive capacity needed for a self-serving bias to occur. As telling a lie is believed to be more...

Svenson (2011) showed that choices of one of two alternative productivity increases to save production resources (e.g., man-months) were biased. Judgments of resource savings following a speed increase from a low production speed line were underestimated and following an increase of a high...