Publications

October 2021
Article

Communicating Resource Scarcity and Interpersonal Connection

By: Grant E. Donnelly, Anne V. Wilson, Ashley V. Whillans and Michael I. Norton

Consumers often cite insufficient time or money as an excuse for rejecting social invitations. We explore the effectiveness of these excuses in preserving interpersonal relationships. Six studies—including perceptions of couples planning their wedding—demonstrate that... View Details

Keywords: Time; Interpersonal Relationships; Communication; Money; Relationships; Interpersonal Communication

October 2021
Case

Unshrinking the Pie: Desirée Stolar's Negotiation Saga (A)

By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

When Desirée (“Des”) Stolar’s wool sweater shrank two sizes, the Harvard Business School student worked with classmates to develop a solution that both fixed her problem and launched Unshrinkit, a successful consumer goods company with a widely-available product for... View Details

Keywords: Bargaining; Startups; Negotiation; Contracts; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

October 2021
Supplement

Unshrinking the Pie: Desirée Stolar's Negotiation Saga (B)

By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green

When Desirée (“Des”) Stolar’s wool sweater shrank two sizes, the Harvard Business School student worked with classmates to develop a solution that both fixed her problem and launched Unshrinkit, a successful consumer goods company with a widely-available product for... View Details

Keywords: Bargaining; Startups; Negotiation; Contracts; Negotiation Tactics; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry

September 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Teaching Note

Project Restart: Deciding the Future of English Football

By: Nour Kteily and Deepak Malhotra

September 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Teaching Note

Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (A) & (B)

By: Nour Kteily and Deepak Malhotra

September 28, 2021
Editorial

A Guide to Implementing the 4-Day Workweek

By: A.V. Whillans and Charlotte Lockhart

As organizations continue to explore a variety of flexible work options, one promising avenue is the four-day workweek: The standard 40 hours per week is reduced to 32 hours, with the same pay and the same productivity expectations. Research suggests reducing hours can... View Details

Keywords: Workweek; Stress; Employees; Health; Performance Productivity; Organizational Change and Adaptation

September 2021
Case

Francoise Brougher (A)

By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn

Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer... View Details

Keywords: Gender Discrimination; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Resignation and Termination; Negotiation

September 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Supplement

Francoise Brougher (B)

By: Edward H. Chang, Nour Kteily and Kathleen McGinn

September 2021
Article

Diagnostic Bubbles

By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Spencer Yongwook Kwon and Andrei Shleifer

We introduce diagnostic expectations into a standard setting of price formation in which investors learn about the fundamental value of an asset and trade it. We study the interaction of diagnostic expectations with two well-known mechanisms: learning from prices and... View Details

Keywords: Bubble; Speculation; Diagnostic Expectations; Price Bubble; Mathematical Methods

September 2021
Article

Gender Stereotypes in Deliberation and Team Decisions

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Clio Bryant Flikkema and Olga Shurchkov

We explore how groups deliberate and decide on ideas in an experiment with communication. We find that gender biases play a significant role in which group members are chosen to answer on behalf of the group. Conditional on the quality of their ideas, individuals are... View Details

Keywords: Gender Differences; Stereotypes; Teams; Economic Experiments; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Groups and Teams; Perception

September 2021
Article

Income More Reliably Predicts Frequent Than Intense Happiness

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Ruo Mo, Adam Eric Greenberg, Bertus Jeronimus and Ashley V. Whillans

There is widespread consensus that income and subjective well-being are linked, but when and why they are connected is subject to ongoing debate. We draw on prior research that distinguishes between the frequency and intensity of happiness to suggest that higher income... View Details

Keywords: Life Satisfaction; Time Use; Happiness; Income; Money; Satisfaction

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2021
Working Paper

Salience

By: Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

We review the fast-growing work on salience and economic behavior. Psychological research shows that salient stimuli attract human attention “bottom up” due to their high contrast with surroundings, their surprising nature relative to recalled experiences, or their... View Details

Keywords: Salience; Economic Behavior; Bottom Up Attention; Microeconomics; Decision Making; Behavior

Article

Unconscious Bias Training That Works

By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgments—often based on race and gender—about people’s talents or character, it strives to... View Details

Keywords: Implicit Bias; Social Integration; Empathy; Prejudice and Bias; Employees; Training; Attitudes; Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Article

Measuring the Scientific Effectiveness of Contact Tracing: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

By: Thiemo Fetzer and Thomas Graeber

Contact tracing has for decades been a cornerstone of the public health approach to epidemics, including Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and now COVID-19. It has not yet been possible, however, to causally assess the method’s effectiveness using a randomized... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Contact Tracing; Public Health; Infectious Diseases; Health Pandemics

2021
Working Paper

'Just Letting You Know…': Underestimating Others' Desire for Constructive Feedback

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer Abel, Juliana Schroeder and Francesca Gino

People often avoid giving feedback to others even when it would help fix a problem immediately. Indeed, in a pilot field study (N=155), only 2.6% of individuals provided feedback to survey administrators that the administrators had food or marker on their faces.... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Helping; Prosocial Behavior; Relationships; Social Psychology; Theory; Perception

Article

A Multi-country Test of Brief Reappraisal Interventions on Emotions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By: Ke Wang, Amit Goldenberg, Charles Dorison, Jeremy Miller, Jennifer Lerner and James Gross

The COVID-19 pandemic is increasing negative emotions and decreasing positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes may have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we will examine the impact of... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Emotion Regulation; Reappraisal; Interventions; Health Pandemics; Emotions; Global Range

August 2021
Article

Anger Damns the Innocent

By: Katherine DeCelles, Gabrielle Adams, Holly S. Howe and Leslie K. John

False accusations of wrongdoing are common and can have grave consequences. In six studies, we document a worrisome paradox in perceivers’ subjective judgments of a suspect’s guilt. Specifically, we find that laypeople (online panelists; N = 4,983) use suspects’ angry... View Details

Keywords: Morality; Accusations; Deception; Guilt; Affect; Emotions; Behavior; Perception; Judgments; Decision Making

July 2021
Case

Amazon HQ2

By: James K. Sebenius and Ben Cook

Amazon’s failed bid for a second headquarters location (“HQ2”) in Long Island City, New York offers many lessons for negotiators looking to avoid similar high-profile defeats in strategically important deals. The company’s project – which promised to bring billions of... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Negotiation; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Problems and Challenges

July 2021 (Revised October 2021)
Case

Trouble at Basecamp: Managing Politics, Polarization, and Conflict in the Workplace (A)

By: Nour Kteily, Deepak Malhotra and David Lane

As founders of the software company Basecamp, Jason Fried and David H. Hansson were used to being the subjects of social media attention. Both maintained active and dedicated Twitter followings for their unique perspectives on management and life. But on April 26,... View Details