Psychologists have identified confirmation bias as a contributor to conflict and ideological extremism. However, the efficacy of social science’s existing arsenal of debiasing techniques remains largely unknown, and the extant positive findings have often been inconsistent and are in need of independent replication. In this registered report, we empirically tested the efficacy of three cognitive debiasing techniques in mitigating confirmation bias: consider-the-opposite, psychoeducation about bias, and social norms manipulation. In the control group, participants exhibited two manifestations of confirmation bias: selective exposure and biased assimilation. When it came to reducing these biases, we found evidence that the social norms technique reduced selective exposure relative to the control group, but little evidence that this was the case for the consider-the-opposite or psychoeducation techniques was found. None of the debiasing strategies significantly reduced biased assimilation relative to the control group. Comparing these strategies provides theoretical advancement in the processes that give rise to confirmation bias, and moreover, these results help to identify a promising technique to serve as the foundation for debiasing interventions, namely social norms interventions.
Most people are members of different groups. While the norms of these groups can align, they can also be contradicting, leading to dissonance within the social self. This is different from dissonance at the individual level because it is based solely on individuals’ membership in ingroups with conflicting norms. Building on the Social Identity Approach and Cognitive Dissonance Theory, we assume that norm conflict between ingroups increases psychological discomfort, particularly for people who are highly identified with both ingroups. Norm conflict was manipulated by showing participants the results of bogus surveys, indicating that their ingroups agree or disagree (in Experiment 1 on the topic of self-driving cars; in Experiment 2 on how to act in a moral dilemma). We tested several strategies to cope with norm conflict between ingroups, namely, lowering the credibility of the norm conflict information and/or norm prototypicality (Exp. 1 & 2), disidentification (Exp. 1), as well as compartmentalization and the restorative function of agentic groups (Exp. 2). In line with our assumptions, results indicated that norm conflict between ingroups led to increased psychological discomfort in Experiment 1 (N = 870) and Experiment 2 (N = 812). This was not moderated by the two ingroup identification levels. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that lowering perceived prototypicality of the norms was a coping strategy for high identifiers. No effects emerged for other coping strategies. Both experiments show evidence of dissonance within the social self and highlight the necessity for further examinations of its consequences and boundary conditions.
ABSTRACTABSTRACTVictims often have to decide whether or not they want to forgive the offender after a transgression. Forgiveness has in general been shown to have positive consequences (e.g. for the victim–transgressor relationship), but recent theorizing suggests that these may be conditional on the extent to which a forgiveness response is attributed to benevolent (vs. malevolent) motives. Here, we investigate how the presence of an attentive audience influences offenders' motive attributions and post-transgression behavior. Specifically, we hypothesize that offenders attribute a forgiveness reaction to malevolent rather than benevolent motives if it occurs in front of an audience vs. in private, and that this leads to withdrawal from the victim rather than reconciliation. While two preliminary vignette studies (N = 396) provided initial support for these assumptions, a preregistered virtual reality experiment (N = 156) yielded more mixed results. Specifically, in line with our predictions, receiving a forgiveness response from the victim in front of an attentive audience made participants keep a greater distance to the victim than receiving a forgiveness response in private. This effect was, however, found in only one out of three approach–avoidance tasks. We discuss possible explanations for these results and future research avenues.KEYWORDS: Forgivenessattributionaudiencevirtual reality Disclosure statementThere is no actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal, or other relationships with other people or organizations whatsoever.Additional informationFundingThis research project is supported by LMUexcellent, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Free State of Bavaria under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder.
This paper aims to replicate the effect of a nudge on behavior (efficiency) and acceptability in a natural field experiment. The nudge in our study consists in setting zero sugars as the default level of sugar in hot drinks–vending machines in a French university. We compared Campus A (default option set to 0 sugars) to Campus B (default option set to 3 sugars). We measured the efficiency of this default option by observing the level of sugar actually chosen by the participants, and we measured acceptability through a questionnaire. We hypothesized a high level of efficiency for the nudge and a higher acceptability in Campus A (default option set to 0 sugars) compared to Campus B (default option set to 3 sugars). Our results show that participants with the default option set to zero sugars (Campus A) consumed less sugar than those with the default option set to 3 sugars (Campus B). We also found a high level of acceptability on both campuses, though with no difference between Campus A (where the nudge was implemented) and Campus B (where a future nudge would be implemented). The discussion addresses the applied perspectives and ethical implications of these results.
The current registered report investigated the effects of source credibility in relation to one’s own worldviews (i.e. supernatural beliefs and belief in science) in a spiritual and scientific context. We asked people to rate the truthfulness of ambiguous auditory statements about the cosmos attributed to a scientist or a spiritual guru and analyzed this using hierarchical Bayesian modeling. In line with our hypotheses, we found that the scientist was seen as more credible than the spiritual guru. The overall credibility of the statements was positively related to supernatural beliefs. These beliefs also interacted with the source of the statement, which was reflected in a tendency for supernatural believers to rate statements from both the scientist and the guru as credible. In contrast, with increasing belief in science, the credibility of the sources diverged with higher ratings for the scientist compared to the guru. The study involved a conceptual replication of previous research and increased the confidence in the robustness of source credibility effects and their interaction with people’s worldviews.
Video evidence depicting physical altercations has polarized public opinions and courtroom decisions about social issues including race relations and police use-of-force, we believe, in part because of the way people process dynamic visual stimuli across repeated viewing opportunities. We reanalyzed two studies that covertly collected eye-tracking data to quantify and model visual confirmation bias (VCB) – the degree to which eye movements replicate previous patterns of looking across multiple viewing opportunities. We tracked the location of eye gaze when participants (N1 = 320; N2 = 212) watched the same video twice depicting an altercation between an officer and a civilian (Study 1) or a Black and a White actor (Study 2). In pilot tests, we provided evidence regarding the construct validity of statistical measures of concordance tracking similarities in where perceivers directed eye gaze across viewings as an index of VCB. In our pre-registered analytic plan, we used these metrics to probe for relationships with punishment decisions made about targets after the first and second viewings. Contrary to predictions, our pre-registered analyses found no associations between VCB, consistency, and polarization in punishment. We present exploratory analyses probing potential moderators of the association between VCB and these outcome measures. We offer practical suggestions for researchers measuring and modeling eye gaze during the presentation of dynamic stimuli across multiple viewings, particularly in the context of intergroup decision research.
(2022). Retribution versus rehabilitation as motives for support of offender's punishment: the moderating role of mindsets about malleability. Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology. Ahead of Print.
Gossip plays an essential role in our societies, and individuals gossip about others' behavior for various reasons. While previous studies have consistently demonstrated that individuals are more willing to gossip about norm deviations, existing research has understudied the potential role of the group membership of gossip target (i.e. a person who is gossiped about) and gossip recipient (a person who is gossiped to) on the tendency to instigate gossip about norm deviation. We conducted a study (N = 1038) in which we orthogonally manipulated the group membership of a gossip target and a gossip recipient as well as types of target behavior (normative, negative norm deviation, and positive norm deviation), and tested several preregistered hypotheses regarding the willingness to gossip and gossip motivations. We found that individuals were more willing to gossip about negative and positive norm deviations compared to normative behavior regardless of the group membership of a gossip target and recipient, except when they consider gossiping about in-group negative norm deviation toward an out-group member. Gossip motivations substantially varied depending on the valence of norm deviation and the group membership.
Drawing on moral philosophy, research in moral psychology has used hypothetical sacrificial dilemmas to understand how moral judgments are made by laypeople. Although heavily influential, a frequent question raised is whether responses to hypothetical scenarios are informative about instances of morally relevant behavior. Using the CNI model to quantify sensitivity to consequences, sensitivity to moral norms, and general preference for inaction versus action in responses to sacrificial dilemmas, two preregistered studies examined whether specific factors underlying sacrificial dilemma judgments predict dishonest behavior for personal monetary gain (Study 1) and the greater good (Study 2). Testing the hypothesis that specific factors underlying sacrificial dilemma judgments are linked to other morally relevant behaviors via broader underlying moral dispositions, confirmatory tests provide strong support the predicted associations between sensitivity to moral norms and dishonest behavior. No support was found for a predicted association between sensitivity to consequences and dishonest behavior for the greater good. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about the value of individual differences in sacrificial dilemma judgments for predicting instances of morally relevant behavior.
Transparency is a key factor in determining the permissibility of behavior change interventions. Nudges are at times considered manipulative from failing this condition. Ethicists suggest that making nudges transparent by disclosing them to decision makers is a way to mitigate the manipulation objection, but questions remain as to what downstream consequences disclosing decision makers of a nudge may cause. In this registered report, we investigated two such consequences: (1) whether disclosure affects perceptions of the choice architect and (2) whether disclosure influences subsequent behavior. To these ends, we present data from three pilot studies and two main experiments (total N = 2177). In both experiments, we used defaults to nudge participants towards prosocial behaviors with real consequences. Experiment 1 employed a mixed design examining changes in perceptions of the choice architect for participants presented with a nudge disclosure before or after choosing. Experiment 2 extended by investigating the effects of disclosure on the default effect, perceptions of the choice architect, and on a subsequent prosocial choice task. Results showed that (1) when presented before choosing the nudge disclosure did not influence perceptions of the choice architect. However, when presented after, perceptions deteriorated. (2) The disclosure, regardless of when presented, had no effect on participants' behavior in a subsequent non-nudged choice. Additionally, the disclosure did not affect the nudge's influence on the initial choice. We conclude that lack of transparency can hurt choice architects' reputation and discuss under what circumstances this may materialize behaviorally. Materials, data, and code are available at osf.io/463af/.
Groups of people often find it challenging to coordinate on a single choice or option. Even when coordination is achieved, it may be inefficient because better outcomes were possible. Numerous researchers attempted to address this coordination problem with various manipulations ranging in complexity and generalizability, but results were mixed. Here, we use a more parsimonious and generalizable method – counterfactuals – to nudge (i.e. indirectly guide and allow for free choice) individuals towards choosing options that are more likely to result in efficient coordination. We used a modified version of an existing coordination game, the minimum effort game (MEG), where we added actual effort (i.e. solving an arithmetic problem) and counterfactuals (i.e. statements highlighting the hypothetical outcomes had they or other players chosen differently). Based on previous literature and promising results from a pilot experiment using bidirectional counterfactuals (i.e. both upward and downward), we designed and preregistered a follow-up experiment to directly assess the effectiveness of coun-terfactuals. We replicated the pilot study with a bidirectional coun-terfactual condition, then added an upward, downward, and control (no counterfactuals) condition. We found weak evidence for counterfactual nudging and clear evidence that players can effectively nudge the group towards higher efficiency.
With the present study, we tested whether generosity changes dependent on money or time being shared. During the experiment, participants N = 371 (MAge = 37.5 years, 38.8% female) completed questionnaires measuring social value orientation, moral identity centrality, and honesty-humility. The opportunity cost of time spent on a real effort task was measured with an incentivized method. Then, participants played two versions of a dictator game: either in a standard dictator game, where participants could share payoffs from the real effort task; or in a time dictator game, where participants decided how long they want to work for another participant’s payoff. We tested three hypotheses. (a) Time and money are not equivalent, and participants are more generous with time than with money. (b) Giving time results in higher positive affect than giving money. (c) Participants’ social value orientation, moral identity centrality, and honesty-humility explain the difference between the donations of time and money, and personality traits will have a stronger impact on time decisions than on monetary decisions. We found that approximately 50% of participants were more generous when giving time, this effect was not dependent on the opportunity cost of time. We think that our experiment is the first experiment to unambiguously show this effect. Furthermore, generosity was not related to positive affect and we found no moderating effect of personality traits.
How do people assess the likelihood of personal risk in online activity? In three pilot experiments and one preregistered experiment, we tested the motivational and cognitive mechanisms that shape ...
The decoy effect refers to the phenomenon whereby an inferior, unpreferable option reverses people's preferences and increases the choice share of a targeted option. In two pre-registered experiments with an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) sample (N after exclusion = 1,001), we attempted to replicate two experiments from the decoy effect literature. We failed to replicate the original results in Study 1. The observed effects were not in the predicted direction, and their sizes were trivial. We replicated the decoy effect in Study 2, yet with a much smaller effect size than in the original. In addition, we concluded inconclusive evidence for the central hypothesis of the original study that regret salience weakens the decoy effect. We found some indication for a weak reduction, yet our sample size did not provide adequate power to detect this difference. Extending the replication in Study 2, we tested whether making salient the low reversibility of decisions can have a similar impact as regret salience. We again found indication for an effect in the predicted direction, yet the effect was too weak to be detected given our sample size. We discuss potential reasons for the discrepancies between the original and the replication results, as well as the implications. All materials, data, and analysis codes are available at https://osf.io/vsbzk.
