This paper examines how what people disclose about their successes or failures depends on what others have disclosed. We propose that these decisions are guided less by self-focused motives and more by a concern for how one’s words will affect the other person’s emotions. Across nine studies (N = 8,229, including preregistered experiments, 2,216 self-written responses, and 473 real conversation dyads), we find that responders are consistently more likely to disclose matching outcomes (e.g., failures in response to failures) than non-matching ones (e.g., failures in response to successes), but with two asymmetries not predicted by prior theories. First, responders are more likely to disclose matching failures (failures in response to failures) than matching successes (successes in response to successes). Second, when experiencing non-matching outcomes, responders are more likely to disclose failures in response to successes than they are to disclose successes in response to failures. These patterns reflect other-focused attempts to comfort those who have failed and avoid exacerbating their distress. Beyond whether they disclosed, responders also adjusted how they disclosed, for instance, softening success disclosures in response to failures with consolation or apologies. These effects generalized across domains (e.g., health, career, financial), across relationships varying in closeness and status, and emerged in choices between pre-written responses, self-generated responses, and live conversations involving actual interpersonal disclosures. Disclosure decisions were moderated by factors such as liking and domain relevance. By demonstrating that responders’ outcome disclosures are systematically shaped by concern for the well-being of others, this work reframes disclosure as an intended conversational tool for protecting others’ emotions rather than managing self-presentation.

The disposition effect is the reluctance to sell assets at a loss relative to a salient point of reference. Typically, that referent has been assumed to be the purchase price, but other values can also assume prominence as reference points. Drawing on a model of multiple reference points, we test the idea that the peak price achieved by an asset constitutes an additional salient reference point for asset owners that overlaps, and interacts, with the purchase price reference point. We demonstrate this using administrative data documenting price changes and selling decisions for both housing and stocks.

Belief homophily-the tendency to associate with others who hold similar beliefs and the distaste for different beliefs-is often seen as a major cause for belief-based social segregation and polarization. We question, however, whether social scientists have been correct in identifying belief-homophily as the primary force driving these pernicious social effects. We argue that when people face others who hold beliefs different from their own, they find these encounters disturbing, primarily when they are convinced that others' beliefs are false. In four pre-registered online studies (N = 2027 U.S. adults) featuring self-recalled experiences and vignette scenarios, we find that participants express stronger negative feelings when others hold false beliefs, compared to when others' beliefs are merely different from their own. We also document that higher confidence that others hold false beliefs evokes more negative emotions, triggers stronger avoidance behaviors, and reduces people's desire to form any kind of relationship with others. These findings highlight the possibility that many of the effects that have been previously attributed to belief homophily may be better explained by the desire to avoid others holding false beliefs.

The high level of inequality of income and wealth across individuals, groups, and nations is widely regarded as among the most fundamental problems facing humanity. Yet democracies often elect and reelect politicians who deliver policies that exacerbate rather than reduce inequality. We argue that this disconnect arises from three basic features of human social cognition that evolved for interpersonal interactions in small groups rather than for navigating the vast political, economic, and technological systems that shape contemporary life: a focus on local notions of equality and equity between socially connected individuals rather than across society at large; group identification, which directs attention to inequality between groups rather than "pure" inequality across the broader population; and what we call the "i-frame bias"-a tendency to explain social outcomes, including inequality, as the product of individual behaviors, taking the system within which those individuals operate as a given. We extend our analysis to examine how economic elites exploit these features of social cognition to shape the political and policy landscape and examine the role psychology can play in reducing inequality.

We analyze the offering, asking, and granting of help or other benefits as a three-stage game with bilateral private information between a person in need of help and a potential helper. Asking entails the risk of rejection, which can be painful: since unawareness of the need can no longer be an excuse, a refusal reveals that the person in need, or the relationship, is not valued very much. We show that people may fail to ask even when most helpers would help if told about the need, and that even though a greater need makes help both more valuable and more likely to be granted, it can reduce the propensity to ask. When potential helpers concerned about the recipient's ask-shyness can make spontaneous offers, this can be a doubleedged sword: offering reveals a more caring type and helps solve the failure-to-ask problem, but not offering reveals a not-so-caring one, and this itself deters asking. This discouragement effect can also generate a trap where those in need hope for an offer while willing helpers hope for an ask, resulting in significant inefficiencies.

Many economic decisions, such as whether to invest in developing new skills, change professions, or purchase a new technology, benefit from accurate estimation of skill acquisition. We examine the accuracy of such predictions by having experimental participants predict the speed at which they will master an unfamiliar task. The first experiment finds systematic underestimation of learning, even after multiple rounds of performance feedback. Replicating earlier findings by psychologists, we observe an abrupt drop in confidence, from overconfidence to underconfidence, following initial task experience. The second experiment shows that underpredicting learning leads decision makers to make choices that lower average payoffs.

We study attention utility, the hedonic pleasure or pain derived purely from paying attention to information, which differs from the news utility that arises from gaining new information. The main, field, study examines brokerage account login data to show that investors pay disproportionate attention to already-known positive information on their stocks. Through its effect on logins, this selective attention affects their trading activity. Three experimental studies then show that (1) investors are more likely to engage in a paid task that will involve attention to a prior investment if that investment has gained value; (2) paying attention to a winning stock is more motivating than a doubling of monetary incentives; and that (3) attention has value independent of information acquisition.

This article introduces the concept of willful inattention and argues that it accounts for many behaviors that have previously been attributed to willful ignorance. Willful inattention arises when an individual avoids paying attention to an external stimulus or internal thought because they expect that focusing on it will evoke negative emotions or diminish positive ones. Willful ignorance, in contrast, is motivated by a desire to remain uninformed so as to avoid an unwanted change in beliefs. We show that willful inattention plays a key role in several important policy problems, and we discuss strategies for mitigating its negative effects.

When someone sends us a thoughtful message, we naturally form judgments about their character. But what happens when that message carries a label indicating it was written with the help of AI? This paper investigates how the appearance of AI assistance affects our perceptions of message senders. Adding nuance to previous research, through two studies (N=399) featuring vignette scenarios, we find that AI-assistance labels don't necessarily make people view senders negatively. Rather, they dampen the strength of character signals in communication. We show that when someone sends a warmth-signalling message (like thanking or apologizing) without AI help, people more strongly categorize the sender as warm. At the same time, when someone sends a coldness-signalling message (like bragging or blaming) without assistance, people more confidently categorize them as cold. Interestingly, AI labels weaken both these associations: An AI-assisted apology makes the sender appear less warm than if they had written it themselves, and an AI-assisted blame makes the sender appear less cold than if they had composed it independently. This supports our signal diagnosticity explanation: messages labeled as AI-assisted are viewed as less diagnostic than messages which seem unassisted. We discuss how our findings shed light on the causal origins of previously reported observations in AI-Mediated Communication.

A common assumption of models of decision making under risk is that people choose the level of risk they deem optimal for themselves. We, however, provide novel evidence that people systematically choose risk levels that they report as unsatisfactory. Data from three surveys show that around 50 percent of participants report dissatisfaction with the level of risk they take in life overall, and that a large majority of participants are dissatisfied with their risk taking in at least some subdomain of life. Significantly, for most (although not all) domains, far more of those who express dissatisfaction with their risk taking believe they take insufficient as opposed to excessive risks. Probing mechanisms, we find that internal factors (e.g., emotions) are more important determinants of unsatisfactory risk taking than external factors (e.g., constraints). Our findings suggest that choices under risk, like choices across time, may be explained by dual process theories that incorporate both deliberation and emotions. We also find a strong negative correlation between dissatisfaction with risk taking and life satisfaction. While our data do not enable us to establish causality, this finding provides suggestive evidence that dissatisfaction with risk taking may be consequential for subjective well-being.

Phishing emails cost companies millions. In the absence of technology to perfectly block phishing emails, the responsibility falls on employees to identify and appropriately respond to phishing attempts and on employers to train them to do so. We report results from an experiment with around 11,000 employees of a large U.S. corporation, testing the efficacy of just-in-time feedback delivered at a teachable moment - immediately after succumbing to a phishing email - to reduce susceptibility to phishing emails. Employees in the study were sent an initial pseudo-phishing email, and those who either ignored or fell victim to the phishing email were randomized to receive or not receive feedback about their response. Just-in-time feedback for employees who fell victim to or ignored the initial pseudo-phishing email reduced susceptibility to a second pseudo-phishing email sent by the research team. Additionally, for employees who ignored the initial email, feedback also increased reporting rates.

Two distinct literatures have shown that people are averse to being rejected when requesting help, and to rejecting others’ requests for help; both parties prefer situations in which no ask was made to those in which an ask was made but rejected. We propose a game-theoretic framework that offers a parsimonious explanation for both phenomena and further extends them. In this framework, people who need help make inferences and care about what an offer of help, compliance with a help request, or rejection of a request signals about the potential help-giver’s concern for them or the relationship. Likewise, potential help-givers care about the inferences potential help-receivers make, as they want to appear caring. We propose that both the aversion to being rejected after an ask and the aversion to rejecting others after an ask can be explained by the fact that rejection provides a negative signal about how much the would-be helper cares about or values the person in need. The framework further predicts that the same mechanism leads to an aversion to asks even when help is provided. That is, holding constant whether help is provided, both parties incur a psychological cost whenever there is an ask. Two studies, one involving recollections of help-related experiences, provide empirical support for the framework. By bringing together disparate literatures in help-seeking and -giving, we uncover common psychological features underlying these economically and socially important behaviors, generate novel insights into how they can be encouraged, and draw connections to behaviors in related domains.

OBJECTIVE:Information that is beneficial for health decision-making is often ignored or actively avoided. Countering information avoidance can increase knowledge of disease risk factors and symptoms, aiding early diagnoses and reducing disease transmission. We examine whether curiosity can be a useful tool in increasing demand for, and engagement with, potentially aversive but useful health information. METHODS:Four pre-registered randomized online studies were conducted with 5795 participants recruited from online survey platforms. Curiosity for aversive health information was manipulated by providing a 'curiosity incentive' - identity-related information alongside aversive information - (Study 1), obscuring information (Studies 2 and 3), and eliciting guesses about the information (Studies 2 and 4). Willingness to view four types of aversive health information was elicited: alcohol consumption screening scores (Study 1), colon cancer risk scores (Study 2), cancer risk factors (Study 3), and the sugar content of drinks (Study 4). RESULTS:In Study 1, the curiosity manipulation increased the likelihood that participants viewed information about the riskiness of their drinking. Studies 2 and 3 show that curiosity prompts can counter people's reluctance to learn about and assess their cancer risk. And Study 4 shows that using curiosity prompts to encourage engagement with aversive information (sugar content of drinks) also improves health-related choices (opting for a sugar-free drink alternative). CONCLUSION:Curiosity prompts provide an effective and simple way to increase engagement with aversive health information.

People frequently face decisions that require making inferences about withheld information. The advent of large language models coupled with conversational technology, e.g., Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and the Google Assistant, is changing the mode in which people make these inferences. We demonstrate that conversational modes of information provision, relative to traditional digital media, result in more critical responses to withheld information, including: (1) a reduction in evaluations of a product or service for which information is withheld and (2) an increased likelihood of recalling that information was withheld. These effects are robust across multiple conversational modes: a recorded phone conversation, an unfolding chat conversation, and a conversation script. We provide further evidence that these effects hold for conversations with the Google Assistant, a prominent conversational technology. The experimental results point to participants’ intuitions about why the information was withheld as the driver of the effect.

Research on gender differences in (self-)disclosure has produced mixed results, and, where differences have emerged, they may be an artifact of the measures employed. The present paper explores whether gender - defined as self-identified membership in one's sociocultural group - can indeed account for differences in the desire and propensity to divulge information to others. We additionally identify a possible moderator for such differences. In three studies employing two distinct research approaches - a free recall task for the extreme desire to disclose (Study 1, N = 195) and scaled responses to scenarios that manipulate valence experimentally in an exploratory study (Study 2, N = 547) and a preregistered replication (Study 3, N = 405) - we provide evidence of a robust interaction between gender and information valence. Male participants appear similar to female participants in their desire and likelihood to disclose positive information but are less likely than women to want to share negative information with others, and less likely to ultimately act on that desire. Men are reportedly more motivated than women to disclose as a means of self-enhancement, and self-reports reveal that women perceive their sharing behavior to be relatively normative, while men believe themselves to be more withholding than what is optimal. Information disclosure is increasingly pervasive and permanent in the digital age, and is accompanied by an array of social and psychological consequences. Given their disparate disclosing behaviors, men and women may thus be differentially advantaged by, or susceptible to, the positive and negative consequences of information sharing.

While the significance of narrative thinking has become increasingly recognized by economists, very little empirical research has documented its consequences for economically significant outcomes. We address this gap in one important domain: valuations. In two online experiments, participants either told the story of an item they owned (mug in study 1, hat in 2) or listed its characteristics and were then offered the opportunity to sell it via an incentive-compatible procedure. The narrative treatment led to substantially higher selling prices (33% increase on average) and unwillingness to sell rates (78% increase). The impact of different narrative types was also explored.

We have previously argued that behavioral scientists have been testing and advocating individualistic (i-frame) solutions to policy problems that have systemic (s-frame) causes and require systemic solutions. Here, we consider the implications of adopting an s-frame approach for research. We argue that an s-frame approach will involve addressing different types of questions, which will, in turn, require a different toolbox of research methods.