The two most prevalent theories of why people punish others—retribution and deterrence—focus exclusively on outcomes: the objective material welfare and the subjective well-being of the offender and the punisher. However, many if not most acts of revenge seem to be oriented not so much...

In this chapter we summarize how economists conceptualize beliefs. Moving both backward and forward in time, we review the way that mainstream economics currently deals with beliefs, as well as, briefly, the history of economists’ thinking about beliefs. Most importantly, we introduce the...

We propose an alternative account to the conventional theory of belief homophily--that people have an intrinsic distaste for encountering differences in beliefs. We argue that when people face others who hold beliefs different from their own, they do not find these encounters disturbing because...

Individuals tend to underprepare for rare, catastrophic events because of biases in risk perception. A simple form of broad bracketing — presenting the cumulative probability of loss over a longer time horizon — has the potential to alleviate these barriers to risk perception and increase...

Default options may provide a low-cost way of influencing behaviour without modifying incentives and constraining choices between alternatives. We study whether defaults can be used to increase insurance coverage against low-probability/high-impact risks, like floods, and whether past flood...

Individuals tend to underprepare for rare, catastrophic events because of biases in risk perception. A simple form of broad bracketing—presenting the cumulative probability of loss over a longer time horizon—has the potential to alleviate these barriers to risk perception and increase...

Default options may provide a low-cost way of influencing behaviour without modifying incentives and constraining choices between alternatives. However, an improved understanding is needed on whether they are effective when individuals have experience with making the choice in practice and have...

Organizations strive to encourage curiosity, seeking employees who are open to asking questions and intrinsically motivated to find answers, i.e., who display curiosity traits. We argue that situational determinants are stronger predictors of information-seeking behaviors than traits....

Going to the gym is likely to be judged more positively if it is known that the gym-goer is vaccinated against COVID-19 than unvaccinated. We investigate how people make sense of vaccination-contingent behaviors --- behaviors, such as going to the gym or a bar, which are judged differently...