Publications

Article

Seeing Race and Seeming Racist? Evaluating Strategic Colorblindness in Social Interaction

By: Evan P. Apfelbaum, Samuel R. Sommers and Michael I. Norton

26 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 26, 2008

Negative) Experiences: Risk-Seeking in the Domain of Gains? Authors:Jolie Mae Martin, Gregory M. Barron, and Michael I. Norton Abstract In contrast to research which has... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Article

Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance

By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Michael I. Norton and Jordi Quoidbach

In three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier... View Details

Keywords: Satisfaction; Groups and Teams; Performance; Compensation and Benefits; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Banking Industry; Sports Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Canada; Belgium; Australia

April 2013
Article

Making a Difference Matters: Impact Unlocks the Emotional Benefits of Prosocial Spending

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Ashley V. Whillans, Adam M. Grant and Michael I. Norton

When does giving lead to happiness? Here, we present two studies demonstrating that the emotional benefits of spending money on others (prosocial spending) are unleashed when givers are aware of their positive impact. In Study 1, an experiment using real... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Prosocial Impact; Subjective Well Being; Donations; Happiness; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

10 Jun 2014
First Look

First Look: June 10

Dealmaking By: Schroeder, Juliana, Jane Risen, Francesca Gino, and Michael I. Norton Abstract—Humans use subtle sources of information-like nonverbal behavior-to determine... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

19 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 19, 2008

Directorship 34, no. 2 (April - May 2008) Read article: http://www.directorship.com/the-leader-within Help Employees Give Away Some of That Bonus Authors:Michael I. Norton and Elizabeth W. Dunn... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

winter 2008
Article

People Are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates

By: Jeana H. Frost, Zoe Chance, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

Article

Work Group Rituals Enhance the Meaning of Work

By: Tami Kim, Ovul Sezer, Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton

The many benefits of finding meaning in work suggest the importance of identifying activities that increase job meaningfulness. The current paper identifies one such activity: engaging in rituals with workgroups. Five studies (N = 1,099) provide evidence that... View Details

Keywords: Groups; Meaningfulness; Task Meaning; Ritual; Teams; Organizational Citizenship; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Familiarity

13 Sep 2016
First Look

September 13, 2016

Samsung, however, has succeeded by its ability to strike a balance between the two. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51604 in press Journal for the Association of Consumer Research Family Rituals Improve... View Details

2008
Article

Learning (Not) to Talk About Race: When Older Children Underperform in Social Categorization

By: Evan P. Apfelbaum, Kristin Pauker, Nalini Ambady, Samuel R. Sommers and Michael I. Norton

The present research identifies an anomaly in sociocognitive development, whereby younger children (8 and 9 years) outperform their older counterparts (10 and 11 years) in a basic categorization task in which the acknowledgment of racial difference facilitates... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Age; Race; Society; Cognition and Thinking

Article

How Beliefs about Self-creation Inflate Value in the Human Brain

By: Raphael Koster, Tali Sharot, Rachel Yuan, Benedetto De Martino, Michael I. Norton and Raymond J. Dolan

Humans have a tendency to overvalue their own ideas and creations. Understanding how these errors in judgement emerge is important for explaining suboptimal decisions, as when individuals and groups choose self-created alternatives over superior or equal ones. We show... View Details

Keywords: fMRI; Amygdala; Hippocampus; Medial Temporal Lobe; Caudate Nucleus; Values and Beliefs

July 2021
Article

Invisible Inequality Leads to Punishing the Poor and Rewarding the Rich

By: Oliver P. Hauser, Gordon T. Kraft-Todd, David Rand, Martin A. Nowak and Michael I. Norton

Four experiments examine how the lack of awareness of inequality affects behaviour towards the rich and poor. In Experiment 1, participants who became aware that wealthy individuals donated a smaller percentage of their income switched from rewarding the wealthy to... View Details

Keywords: Income Transparency; Income; Wealth; Equality and Inequality; Knowledge; Behavior; Outcome or Result; Society; Policy

April 2014
Article

The Emergence of 'Us and Them' in 80 Lines of Code: Modeling Group Genesis in Homogeneous Populations

By: Kurt Gray, David G. Rand, Eyal Ert, Kevin Lewis, Steve Hershman and Michael I. Norton

Psychological explanations of group genesis often require population heterogeneity in identity or other characteristics, whether deep (e.g., religion) or superficial (e.g., eye color). We use game-theoretical agent-based models to explore group genesis in homogeneous... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams

20 Dec 2011
First Look

First Look: December 20

thinkers formed an impression unbiased by the stereotype, suggesting a bottom-up strategy, whereas conscious thinkers relied on the stereotype, suggesting a top-down strategy. That is, when thinking consciously, participants relied more... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

August 2020
Article

Does Spending Money on Others Promote Happiness? A Registered Replication Report

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Jason Proulx, Iris Lok and Michael I. Norton

Research indicates that spending money on others—prosocial spending—leads to greater happiness than spending money on oneself (e.g., Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008, 2014). These findings have received widespread attention because they offer insight into why people engage... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Generosity; Well-being; Replication; Happiness; Behavior; Spending

Article

Emodiversity and the Emotional Ecosystem

By: Jordi Quoidbach, June Gruber, Moira Mikolajczak, Alexsandr Kogan, Ilios Kotsou and Michael I. Norton

Bridging psychological research exploring emotional complexity and research in the natural sciences on the measurement of biodiversity, we introduce—and demonstrate the benefits of—emodiversity: the variety and relative abundance of the emotions that humans experience.... View Details

Keywords: Health; Diversity; Emotions