Yoella Bereby-Meyer

Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications)

Recent research suggests that refraining from cheating in tempting situations requires self-control, which indicates that serving self-interest is an automatic tendency. However, evidence also suggests that people cheat to the extent that they can justify their unethical behavior to themselves. To merge these different lines of research, we adopted a dual-system approach that distinguished between the intuitive and deliberative cognitive systems. We suggest that for people to restrict their dishonest behavior, they need to have enough time and no justifications for self-serving unethical behavior. We employed an anonymous die-under-cup task in which participants privately rolled a die and reported the outcome to determine their pay. We manipulated the time available for participants to report their outcome (short vs. ample). The results of two experiments support our prediction, revealing that the dark side of people’s automatic self-serving tendency may be overcome when time to decide is ample and private justifications for dishonesty are not available.

THE EFFECT OF ADDING A CONSTANT TO ALL PAYOFFS : EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR REINFORCEMENT LEARNING MODELS

This paper examines the effect on learning in simple decision tasks of the addition of a constant to all payoffs. Experiment 1 reveals that this effect, initially observed in a probability learning task, is not limited to single person decision making under uncertainty. Experiment 2 shows that the effect is not linear. Two additional experiments show that the non-linearity cannot be explained by whether zero is in the payoff range. The implications of these results for reinforcement learning models are evaluated and two models that capture the main results are proposed. ©1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Between self-interest and reciprocity: the social bright side of self-control failure.

Despite the importance of reciprocity in many areas of social life, little is known about possible factors affecting it and its interplay with the self-interest motive to maximize ones own gains. In this study, we examined the role of cognitive control in reciprocal behavior to determine whether it is a deliberate and controlled act or whether the behavior is evoked automatically. In Experiment 1, depletion of cognitive control resources increased the rate of rejected unfair offers in the ultimatum game despite associated financial loss. In Experiments 2A and 2B, using 2 depletion manipulations, we extended these results and showed that depleted participants returned more money in response to highly trusting investments during the trust game. These results suggest that reciprocity considerations are actively suppressed when attempting to maximize ones own gains. When cognitive control is limited, this suppression becomes difficult, and consequently reciprocity considerations prevail.

Is it all about the self? The effect of self-control depletion on ultimatum game proposers.

In the ultimatum-game, as in many real-life social exchange situations, the selfish motive to maximize own gains conflicts with fairness preferences. In the present study we manipulated the availability of cognitive-control resources for ultimatum-game proposers to test whether preference for fairness is a deliberative cognitive-controlled act or an automatic act. In two experiments we found that a shortage of cognitive control (ego depletion) led proposers in the ultimatum game (UG) to propose significantly more equal split offers than non-depleted proposers. These results can be interpreted as resulting from an automatic concern for fairness, or from a greater fear of rejection, which would be in line with a purely self-interested response. To separate these competing explanations, in Experiment 2 we conducted a dictator-game in which the responder cannot reject the offer. In contrast to the increased fairness behavior demonstrated by depleted ultimatum-game proposers, we found that depleted dictator-game allocators chose the equal split significantly less often than non-depleted allocators. These results indicate that fairness preferences are automatically driven among UG proposers. The automatic fair behavior, however, at least partially reflects concern about self-interest gain. We discuss different explanations for these results.

Decision making under internal uncertainty: the case of multiple-choice tests with different scoring rules

This paper assesses framing effects on decision making with internal uncertainty, i.e., partial knowledge, by focusing on examinees behavior in multiple-choice (MC) tests with different scoring rules. In two experiments participants answered a general-knowledge MC test that consisted of 34 solvable and 6 unsolvable items. Experiment 1 studied two scoring rules involving Positive (only gains) and Negative (only losses) scores. Although answering all items was the dominating strategy for both rules, the results revealed a greater tendency to answer under the Negative scoring rule. These results are in line with the predictions derived from Prospect Theory (PT) [Econometrica 47 (1979) 263]. The second experiment studied two scoring rules, which allowed respondents to exhibit partial knowledge. Under the Inclusion-scoring rule the respondents mark all answers that could be correct, and under the Exclusion-scoring rule they exclude all answers that might be incorrect. As predicted by PT, respondents took more risks under the Inclusion rule than under the Exclusion rule. The results illustrate that the basic process that underlies choice behavior under internal uncertainty and especially the effect of framing is similar to the process of choice under external uncertainty and can be described quite accurately by PT.

Exploring relations between task conflict and informational conflict in the Stroop task.

In this study, we tested the proposal that the Stroop task involves two conflicts—task conflict and informational conflict. Task conflict was defined as the latency difference between color words and non-letter neutrals, and manipulated by varying the proportion of color words versus non-letter neutrals. Informational conflict was defined as the latency difference between incongruent and congruent trials and manipulated by varying the congruent-to-incongruent trial ratio. We replicated previous findings showing that increasing the ratio of incongruent-to-congruent trials reduces the latency difference between the incongruent and congruent condition (i.e., informational conflict), as does increasing the proportion of color words (i.e., task conflict). A significant under-additive interaction between the two proportion manipulations (congruent vs. incongruent and color words vs. neutrals) indicated that the effects of task conflict and informational conflict were not additive. By assessing task conflict as the contrast between color words and neutrals, we found that task conflict existed in all of our experimental conditions. Under specific conditions, when task conflict dominated behavior by explaining most of the variability between congruency conditions, we also found negative facilitation, thus demonstrating that this effect is a special case of task conflict.

Proportion congruency effects: instructions may be enough

Learning takes time, namely, one needs to be exposed to contingency relations between stimulus dimensions in order to learn, whereas intentional control can be recruited through task demands. Therefore showing that control can be recruited as a function of experimental instructions alone, that is, adapting the processing according to the instructions before the exposure to the task, can be taken as evidence for existence of control recruitment in the absence of learning. This was done by manipulating the information given at the outset of the experiment. In the first experiment, we manipulated list-level congruency proportion. Half of the participants were informed that most of the stimuli would be congruent, whereas the other half were informed that most of the stimuli would be incongruent. This held true for the stimuli in the second part of each experiment. In the first part, however, the proportion of the two stimulus types was equal. A proportion congruent (PC) effect was found in both parts of the experiment, but it was larger in the second part. In our second experiment, we manipulated the proportion of the stimuli within participants by applying an item-specific design. This was done by presenting some color words most often in their congruent color, and other color words in incongruent colors. Participants were informed about the exact word-color pairings in advance. Similar to Experiment 1, this held true only for the second experimental part. In contrast to our first experiment, informing participants in advance did not result in an item-specific proportion effect, which was observed only in the second part. Thus our results support the hypothesis that instructions may be enough to trigger list-level control, yet learning does contribute to the PC effect under such conditions. The item-level proportion effect is apparently caused by learning or at least it is moderated by it.

Cross cultural regularities in the cognitive architecture of pride

Significance Cross-cultural tests from 16 nations were performed to evaluate the hypothesis that the emotion of pride evolved to guide behavior to elicit valuation and respect from others. Ancestrally, enhanced evaluations would have led to increased assistance and deference from others. To incline choice, the pride system must compute for a potential action an anticipated pride intensity that tracks the magnitude of the approval or respect that the action would generate in the local audience. All tests demonstrated that pride intensities measured in each location closely track the magnitudes of others’ positive evaluations. Moreover, different cultures echo each other both in what causes pride and in what elicits positive evaluations, suggesting that the underlying valuation systems are universal. Pride occurs in every known culture, appears early in development, is reliably triggered by achievements and formidability, and causes a characteristic display that is recognized everywhere. Here, we evaluate the theory that pride evolved to guide decisions relevant to pursuing actions that enhance valuation and respect for a person in the minds of others. By hypothesis, pride is a neurocomputational program tailored by selection to orchestrate cognition and behavior in the service of: (i) motivating the cost-effective pursuit of courses of action that would increase others’ valuations and respect of the individual, (ii) motivating the advertisement of acts or characteristics whose recognition by others would lead them to enhance their evaluations of the individual, and (iii) mobilizing the individual to take advantage of the resulting enhanced social landscape. To modulate how much to invest in actions that might lead to enhanced evaluations by others, the pride system must forecast the magnitude of the evaluations the action would evoke in the audience and calibrate its activation proportionally. We tested this prediction in 16 countries across 4 continents (n = 2,085), for 25 acts and traits. As predicted, the pride intensity for a given act or trait closely tracks the valuations of audiences, local (mean r = +0.82) and foreign (mean r = +0.75). This relationship is specific to pride and does not generalize to other positive emotions that coactivate with pride but lack its audience-recalibrating function.

Perception of artificial stereoscopic stimuli from an incorrect viewing point.

The present study investigates the distortions in the perception of artificial stereoscopic displays seen from an inappropriate distance and/or orientation. Stereoscopic displays represent 3-D information correctly, provided they are seen from the correct station point. The viewing point may differ from the correct station point in its distance or in its orientation to the screen. These differences lead to distortions that can be predicted mathematically. However, the perceptual function may be different from the predictions, since people may possibly compensate for the distortions. To test the degree of this compensation, participants saw anaglyphic stereoscopic stimuli that showed angles in the horizontal plane, and their perception of the configuration was tested for various orientations and distances. The estimates were compared with the values predicted from the mathematical functions, and participants’ virtual positions were reconstructed via nonlinear regressions. The analyses revealed a moderate compensation for viewing orientations and a systematically overestimation of the viewing distances. These results indicate that people compensate partially for distortions in stereopsis, given that the relevant information is available.

Careful Cheating: People Cheat Groups Rather than Individuals

Cheating for material gain is a destructive phenomenon in any society. We examine the extent to which people care about the victims of their unethical behavior—be they a group of people or an individual—and whether they are sensitive to the degree of harm or cost that they cause to these victims. The results of three studies suggest that when a group (rather than a single individual) is the victim of one’s behavior, the incidence of cheating increases only if the harm to the group is presented in global terms—such that the cheating might be justified by the relatively minor harm caused to each individual in the group (Studies #1 and #3). However, when the harm or cost to each individual in the group is made explicit, the tendency to cheat the group is no longer apparent and the tendency to cheat increases when the harm caused is minor—regardless of whether the victim is an individual or a group of people (Study #2). Individual differences in rational and intuitive thinking appear to play different roles in the decision to cheat different type of opponents: individual opponents seem to trigger the subject’s intuitive thinking which restrains the urge to cheat, whereas groups of opponents seem to trigger the subject’s rational mode of thinking which encourage cheating.