In response to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citizen-led communication campaigns leveraged modern information technology to transmit millions of messages providing uncensored information to Russians via emails, texts, social media apps, and website commentary. Yet it remains unclear to what extent such initiatives can penetrate authoritarian censorship and propaganda, and which types of messaging are most likely to succeed. To investigate, we partnered with Mail2Ru, a prominent citizen-led grassroots initiative, to conduct two pre-registered field experiments on the effectiveness of citizen-to-citizen email communication. For Study 1, a large-scale “mega-study,” we invited behavioral science experts to design theoretically informed persuasive messages encouraging Russians to watch an uncensored video about the invasion. Approximately 260,000 email recipients were randomly assigned one of eleven treatments or two control conditions. Study 1 showed that information technology’s scalability enables even poorly designed messages to engage large audiences, but also that most expert-designed messages failed to outperform controls. Our top-performing intervention, however, nearly doubled engagement with the video. Study 2 successfully replicated the benefits of our top-performing intervention six months later, confirming its robustness. Study 3 probed mechanisms underlying our field experiment results, producing initial evidence that in the challenging context of censorship and repression, strategies emphasizing receptiveness and respectful engagement with opposing perspectives might be most effective. Together, these findings offer evidence-based guidance for citizen-led efforts to counter authoritarian propaganda.

Following through on commitments builds trust. However, blind adherence to a prior course of action can undermine key organizational objectives. How can this challenge be resolved? Four primary experiments and five supplemental experiments (collective N = 7,759, all preregistered) reveal an effective communication strategy: precommitment (i.e., a public pledge to change course conditional on a concrete future state of the world). In the presence (vs. absence) of precommitment, observers deemed decision makers who de-escalated commitment as more trustworthy. This effect held across the roles of the decision makers (entrepreneurs vs. established leaders), the relationship with the decision makers (follower vs. third-party observer), contexts (consumer products vs. infrastructure projects), and measures (perceived integrity vs. incentivized behavior). These benefits for integrity were attenuated when the precommitment was to a vague future action or was not conditional on a concrete future state of the world. Finally, results revealed that precommitment can yield a negative externality: undermining perceived confidence and motivation among followers at a project's inception. Altogether, our work provides a nuanced perspective on a communication strategy decision makers can use to align short-term personal incentives (i.e., reputation management) and long-term organizational incentives (i.e., value maximization). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Trust in nonpartisan news is essential to civil society-but is declining in the United States. However, language that demonstrates active engagement with opposing views may build trust. One way to demonstrate such active engagement is conversational receptiveness: the use of linguistic features such as agreement, acknowledgment, subjectivity, and positive emotion, among others. A review of prior work on conversational receptiveness suggests its usefulness in interpersonal conflict. This toolkit might effectively apply also to the challenge of restoring trust in nonpartisan media. A demonstration study illustrates proof of concept: In 600 opinion articles from prominent news sources, more receptive language was associated with reader trust. Pending programmatic research will address limitations, feasibility constraints, open questions, and future empirical directions-including causal tests in applied settings. At a minimum, extrapolating conversational receptivity from its role in interpersonal conflict suggests a role in building trust in nonpartisan media. Conversational receptiveness might present a cost-effective, scalable approach for media producers to bridge political divides and rebuild trust-without alienating existing audiences.

Meta-analyses have concluded that positive emotions do not reduce appetitive risk behaviors (risky behaviors that fulfill appetitive or craving states, such as smoking and excessive alcohol use). We propose that this conclusion is premature. Drawing on the Appraisal Tendency Framework and related theories of emotion and decision-making, we hypothesized that gratitude (a positive emotion) can decrease cigarette smoking, a leading cause of premature death globally. A series of multimethod studies provided evidence supporting our hypothesis (collective N = 34,222). Using nationally representative US samples and an international sample drawn from 87 countries, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that gratitude was inversely associated with likelihood of smoking, even after accounting for numerous covariates. Other positive emotions (e.g., compassion) lacked such consistent associations, as expected. Study 3, and its replication, provided further support for emotion specificity: Experimental induction of gratitude, unlike compassion or sadness, reduced cigarette craving compared to a neutral state. Study 4, and its replication, showed that inducing gratitude causally increased smoking cessation behavior, as evidenced by enrollment in a web-based cessation intervention. Self-reported gratitude mediated the effects in both experimental studies. Finally, Study 5 found that current antismoking messaging campaigns by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention primarily evoked sadness and compassion, but seldom gratitude. Together, our studies advance understanding of positive emotion effects on appetitive risk behaviors; they also offer practical implications for the design of public health campaigns.

Scholars warn that partisan divisions in the mass public threaten the health of American democracy. We conducted a megastudy ( n = 32,059 participants) testing 25 treatments designed by academics and practitioners to reduce Americans’ partisan animosity and antidemocratic attitudes. We find that many treatments reduced partisan animosity, most strongly by highlighting relatable sympathetic individuals with different political beliefs or by emphasizing common identities shared by rival partisans. We also identify several treatments that reduced support for undemocratic practices—most strongly by correcting misperceptions of rival partisans’ views or highlighting the threat of democratic collapse—which shows that antidemocratic attitudes are not intractable. Taken together, the study’s findings identify promising general strategies for reducing partisan division and improving democratic attitudes, shedding theoretical light on challenges facing American democracy.

People's concern with maintaining their individual reputation powerfully drives judgment and decision making. But humans also identify strongly with groups. Concerns about group-based reputation may similarly shape people's psychology, perhaps especially in contexts where shifts in group reputation can have strategic consequences. Do individuals allow their concern with their group's reputation to shape their reactions to even large-scale societal suffering versus benefits? Examining both affective responses and financially incentivized behavior of partisans in the United States, five preregistered experiments (N = 7,534) demonstrate that group-based reputational incentives can weaken-and sometimes nearly eliminate-affective differentiation between present-term societal harms and benefits. This can occur even when these societal harms and benefits are substantial-including economic devastation and national security threats-and when the consequences impact ingroup members. Individuals' sensitivity to group-based reputation can even cause them to divert resources from more effective to less effective charities. We provide evidence that partisans care about group-based reputation in part because it holds strategic value, positioning their group to improve its standing vis-a-vis the outgroup. By allowing group-based reputational incentives to reduce their sensitivity to societal outcomes, partisans may play into the other side's cynical narratives about their disregard for human suffering, damaging bridges to cooperation. Public Significance Statement When groups get locked into competition, they can become highly focused on outcompeting the other side, with costly societal ramifications. In the context of Democrats and Republicans in the United States, we find that partisans are sometimes so attentive to how events make their group look vis-a-vis the outgroup (i.e., their group-based reputation) that they become less sensitive to how events impinge on present-term societal harms and benefits. This can include economic devastation, national security threats, and health care emergencies that harm the ingroup. This occurs at least partly because group-based reputational incentives hold strategic value for gaining power. Concerns with group-based reputation can even cause individuals to act in ways that bring about suboptimal societal impact if doing so avoids burnishing the outgroup's reputation. When two sides are focused on looking good rather than seeking good, prospects for cooperation diminish.

Individuals often preferentially avoid information that contradicts and seek information that aligns with their prior beliefs-a tendency referred to as "selective exposure." Traditionally, prior research has focused on intrapersonal drivers of selective exposure, including avoidance of cognitive dissonance. We take a complementary approach by investigating the conditions under which interpersonal concerns drive selective exposure. Drawing on a large literature on impression management, we test a social signaling model of selective exposure, which predicts that (a) individuals shift their information selection decisions to signal to observers and (b) observers reward such shifts. We test this model in the domain of partisan politics in the United States across five financially incentivized, preregistered experiments (N = 3,598). Our results extend prior theory by identifying three key contingencies: the type of task on which observers expect to collaborate with actors, alignment of group membership between observers and actors, and the magnitude of demonstrated selective exposure. Overall, we find that tailoring one's information selection decisions can indeed have strategic value-but only under certain theoretically predictable conditions. Our work also identifies an actor-observer misalignment: While observers are sensitive to the type of future interaction with an actor, the actors themselves do not intuit this sensitivity. In the era of social media, when information selection decisions are more public than ever and the spread of misinformation is pervasive, understanding the ways in which reputational considerations shape decision making not only illuminates why selective exposure persists, but also suggests novel mitigation strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

In the polarized context of American politics, we study a phenomenon we term winning at all costs: prioritizing ingroup political gain at the expense of immediate societal harm. Do individuals believe the outgroup is willing to win at all costs, and does this impact hostility? Do individuals also think their ingroup is willing to defeat the outgroup at all costs? How well-calibrated are these beliefs, and how do (mis-)perceived reputational pressures shape individuals’ own behavior? Five pre-registered studies (N=6,408) address these questions. Individuals overestimated both outgroup and ingroup willingness to accept societal harm for political gain. (Over)Perceiving outgroup willingness to win at all costs uniquely predicted outgroup animus. And individuals’ mistaken assumptions about reputational rewards from their ingroup increased their endorsement of winning at all costs when their decisions were observable. Our work reveals how an underappreciation for the limits of both ingroup and outgroup partisan psychology reinforces intergroup conflict.

Traditionally, research on human judgment and decision making draws on cognitive psychology to identify deviations from normative standards of how decisions ought to be made. These deviations are commonly considered irrational errors and biases. However, even though most decisions are embedded within complex social networks of observers, this approach typically ignores how decisions are perceived by valued audiences. To address this limitation, this article proposes reputational rationality theory: a model of how observers evaluate targets who do (vs. do not) strictly adhere to normative standards of judgment and choice. The theory generates testable predictions regarding when and why observers positively evaluate error-prone decision makers, termed the benefit of bias hypothesis. To do so, the theory integrates decision, target, and observer characteristics as key conditions under which errors and biases boost reputation (i.e., the set of beliefs or opinions held by others about a decision maker). In addition, it also specifies contextual factors shaping when and why reputational outcomes are most likely to reinforce decision biases through feedback loops, contributing to their persistence. Given that individuals hold deep impression management goals, reputational rationality theory challenges the unqualified classification of response tendencies that deviate from normative standards as invariably irrational. That is, apparent errors and biases can, under certain theoretical conditions, be reputationally rational. By increasing understanding of the reputational causes and consequences of decision biases, reputational rationality theory can address long-standing puzzles in judgment and decision making as well as generate fruitful avenues for future research.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.

A large interdisciplinary body of research on human judgment and decision making documents systematic deviations between prescriptive decision models (i.e., how individuals should behave) and descriptive decision models (i.e., how individuals actually behave). One canonical example is the loss-gain framing effect on risk preferences: the robust tendency for risk preferences to shift depending on whether outcomes are described as losses or gains. Traditionally, researchers argue that decision makers should always be immune to loss-gain framing effects. We present three preregistered experiments (N = 1,954) that qualify this prescription. We predict and find that while third-party observers penalize decision makers who make risk-averse (vs. risk-seeking) choices when choice outcomes are framed as losses, this result reverses when outcomes are framed as gains. This reversal holds across five social perceptions, three decision contexts, two sample populations of United States adults, and with financial stakes. This pattern is driven by the fact that observers themselves fall victim to framing effects and socially derogate (and financially punish) decision makers who disagree. Given that individuals often care deeply about their reputation, our results challenge the long-standing prescription that they should always be immune to framing effects. The results extend understanding not only for decision making under risk, but also for a range of behavioral tendencies long considered irrational biases. Such understanding may ultimately reveal not only why such biases are so persistent but also novel interventions: our results suggest a necessary focus on social and organizational norms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

To form truthful beliefs, individuals must expose themselves to varied viewpoints. And yet, people routinely avoid information that contradicts their prior beliefs-a tendency termed "selective exposure." Why? Prior research theorizes that exposure to opposing views triggers negative emotions; in turn, people avoid doing so. Here, we argue that understanding why individuals find simple exposure to opposing perspectives aversive is an important and largely unanswered psychological question. We review three streams of research that offer relevant theories: self-threat borne of cognitive dissonance; naïve realism (i.e., the illusion of personal objectivity); and reluctance to expend cognitive effort. While extant empirical research offers the strongest evidence for predictions from naïve realism, more systematic research is needed to reconcile these perspectives.

We review research on "attitude conflict" -- competitive disagreement with regard to beliefs, values, and preferences, characterized by parties' intolerance of each other's positions. We propose a simple causal model of attitude conflict, including three antecedents that drive it and two consequences that frequently emerge. Whereas prior research has focused on the consequences - negative inferences about holders of opposing views and negative affect at the prospect of interacting with them - we focus on the antecedents. Specifically, we propose that disagreements that lead to attitude conflict are often characterized by perceptions of high (1) outcome importance, (2) actor interdependence, and (3) evidentiary skew. Our analysis offers multiple paths for future research to more accurately predict and more effectively intervene in such situations.

To assess whether behaviors like framing effects are rational, researchers need to consider decision makers' goals. I argue that researchers should broaden the scope of analysis to include impression management goals. Under predictable conditions, behaviors traditionally considered irrational (e.g., loss-gain framing effects on risk preferences) can be reputationally rewarding, casting doubt on strict claims of irrationality.

Attitude conflict-interpersonal disagreement on deeply-held, identity relevant issues-is common in personal, professional, and policy settings. Understanding one's counterpart is critical to success in such contexts. Although prior literature focuses on misperceptions of counterpart cognitions, people often rely on affect to explain others' behavior. Here, we examine the accuracy of individuals' assessments of others' affective states during attitude conflict. Specifically, we examine one affective state that has been theorized to play a central role in such situations: self-threat (i.e., threat to the integrity of an individual's self-concept). In four pre-registered studies (N =1,707), individuals systematically over-estimated the levels of threat reported by conflict counterparts, which in turn increased confidence in persuasion. The effect was mediated by "naive realism, " an excessive faith in the objectivity of one's views. The present studies document a novel barrier to effective communication and extend our understanding of how affect drives behavior during attitude conflict.

The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g., “If you do not practice these steps, you can endanger yourself and others”) or potential gains (e.g., “If you practice these steps, you can protect yourself and others”)? Collecting data in 48 languages from 15,929 participants in 84 countries, we experimentally tested the effects of message framing on COVID-19-related judgments, intentions, and feelings. Loss- (vs. gain-) framed messages increased self-reported anxiety among participants cross-nationally with little-to-no impact on policy attitudes, behavioral intentions, or information seeking relevant to pandemic risks. These results were consistent across 84 countries, three variations of the message framing wording, and 560 data processing and analytic choices. Thus, results provide an empirical answer to a global communication question and highlight the emotional toll of loss-framed messages. Critically, this work demonstrates the importance of considering unintended affective consequences when evaluating nudge-style interventions.