Kimberlee Weaver

Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: a repetitive voice can sound like a chorus.

Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is peoples tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that the effect is due to opinion accessibility rather than a conscious inference about the meaning of opinion repetition in a group. Implications for social consensus estimation and social influence are discussed.

The Status Signals Paradox

Making friends is critical to well-being. We also live in a society where the display of status is ubiquitous and billions of dollars are spent on high-status consumer goods. In the present analysis, we introduce the Status Signals Paradox: When making new friends, people tend to think that displaying high-status markers of themselves (e.g., a BMW, a Tag Heuer watch) will make them more attractive to others than neutral markers (e.g., a Honda, a generic brand watch); however, from the perspective of would-be friends, individuals who display high-status markers are found to be less attractive as new friends than those with neutral status markers. Six studies provide converging evidence of the status signals paradox.

The adding-and-averaging effect in bundles of information: Preference reversals across joint and separate evaluation.

When does adding mildly favorable information (e.g., job experience at the Railway Credit Union) alongside highly favorable (e.g., job experience at Goldman Sachs) increase versus decrease evaluations of a bundle of information like a resume or product bundle? We posit that whether that package of information is evaluated by itself—in separate evaluation (SE)—or side by side with another package—in joint evaluation (JE)—matters. Across a variety of contexts, four studies show that people “average” in SE and “add” in JE. Consequently, mildly favorable information hurts evaluations in SE but helps in JE. Study 1 demonstrated this “adding-and-averaging effect” among persons with expertise: law professors judging law faculty candidates. Adding middle tier academic publications to a higher tier publication on a CV decreased evaluations of a candidate judged in SE but increased evaluations of the same candidate in JE. Study 3 examined a linear pattern prediction, showing that each piece of mildly favorable information linearly added to the overall impression of a package of information in JE but linearly detracted from evaluations of the identical target in SE. Finally, Study 4 traced these differences in evaluative judgments to a shift in reference points brought about by evaluation mode. Implications for the organization specifically and our understanding of judgment and decision making processes more generally are considered.