Publications

November 2004 (Revised April 2010)
Module Note

Module II: Moral Reasoning Class Summaries

By: Sandra J. Sucher

Presents class summaries for the The Moral Leader course. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Moral Sensibility; Leadership; Cognition and Thinking

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20 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

The Power of Ordinary Practices

An example of the influence of these feelings on performance is my finding that if people are in a good mood on a given day, they're more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day. There seems... View Details

Keywords: Re: Teresa M. Amabile

Article

Consumers' Misunderstanding of Health Insurance

By: George Loewenstein, Joelle Y. Friedman, Barbara McGill, Sarah Ahmad, Suzanne Linck, Stacey Sinkula, John Beshears, James J. Choi, Jonathan Kolstad, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, John A. List and Kevin G. Volpp

We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance. The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health insurance coverage. The second examines whether those insured... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Simplification; Insurance; Consumer Behavior; Health Care and Treatment; Cognition and Thinking; Insurance Industry; Health Industry; United States

Article

How to Bounce Back from Adversity

By: Joshua D. Margolis and Paul G. Stoltz

The article focuses on how companies can be managed to overcome adversity with resilience. The characteristics of resilient managers who provide leadership for their teams and can build resilience in their employees are discussed. The manager's ability to shift... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Leadership; Crisis Management; Managerial Roles; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking

November 2022
Technical Note

Leader Action Orientations

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Akshaya Varghese and Laura Weimer

Leaders are responsible for planning and executing actions that advance organizational goals. As individuals gain career experience, they tend to develop and rely on implicit mental models that shape how they go about “getting things done.” Without knowing it, most... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Prejudice and Bias; Cognition and Thinking; Decision Making; Behavior

Educators

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07 Dec 2011
Research & Ideas

Are Creative People More Dishonest?

"imagination," "invention," "originality," and so on. “We're not saying that creativity's bad, but we are saying that it can lead to problems.” To test whether the creativity prime worked, the researchers asked participants to solve a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

16 Dec 2015
Research & Ideas

Why ‘Sleep on It’ No Longer Sounds Like Great Advice

believe that with all of these positive cognitive effects, you might also get benefits for decision making,” says Karmarkar, who conducted the research with UMass Amherst psychology professor Rebecca Spencer... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

2024
Working Paper

How Inflation Expectations De-Anchor: The Role of Selective Memory Cues

By: Nicola Gennaioli, Marta Leva, Raphael Schoenle and Andrei Shleifer

In a model of memory and selective recall, household inflation expectations remain rigid when inflation is anchored but exhibit sharp instability during inflation surges, as similarity prompts retrieval of forgotten high-inflation experiences. Using data from the New... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Inflation and Deflation; Personal Finance

Register to Read

June 28, 2011
Article

Using Implementation Intentions Prompts to Enhance Influenza Vaccination Rates

By: Katherine L Milkman, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian

We evaluate the results of a field experiment designed to measure the effect of prompts to form implementation intentions on realized behavioral outcomes. The outcome of interest is influenza vaccination receipt at free on-site clinics offered by a large firm to its... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Nudge; Libertarian Paternalism; Public Health; Flu Shot; Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Health Care and Treatment; Cognition and Thinking

2008
Working Paper

Nameless + Harmless = Blameless: When Seemingly Irrelevant Factors Influence Judgment of (Un)ethical Behavior

By: Francesca Gino, Lisa L. Shu and Max H. Bazerman

People often make judgments about the ethicality of others' behaviors and then decide how harshly to punish such behaviors. When they make these judgments and decisions, sometimes the victims of the unethical behavior are identifiable, and sometimes they are not. In... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Ethics; Law; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Prejudice and Bias

Article

When Dreaming Is Believing: The (Motivated) Interpretation of Dreams

By: Carey K. Morewedge and Michael I. Norton

This research investigated laypeople's interpretation of their dreams. Participants from both Eastern and Western cultures believed that dreams contain hidden truths (Study 1) and considered dreams to provide more meaningful information about the world than similar... View Details

Keywords: Anchoring; Attribution; Dreams; Motivated Reasoning; Unconscious Thought; Communication Intention and Meaning; Judgments; Values and Beliefs; Information; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Motivation and Incentives

March 2001
Case

FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

By: William A. Sahlman

Describes some strategic and financial issues confronting the founder and executive director of a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving awareness of and interest in science and technology among elementary and high school students. The organization sponsors... View Details

Keywords: Middle School Education; Finance; Nonprofit Organizations; Cognition and Thinking; Strategy; Technology

July 1994
Background Note

Retail Expansion Strategies

By: David E. Bell

Describes issues that should be considered by a retailer who is thinking of expanding the number of stores from one or two to many. View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Cognition and Thinking; Expansion; Retail Industry

Educators

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26 Aug 2014
First Look

First Look: August 26

Abstract—To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

21 Sep 2010
First Look

First Look: September 21, 2010

continued collaboration. Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time Authors:Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely Publication:Perspectives on Psychological Science (forthcoming) Abstract Disagreements about the optimal level of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Mar 2007
News

The Joy of Work

Unit, and faculty chair of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at HBS. For the past several years, Amabile, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University, has been analyzing findings from her longitudinal research on... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

2011
Working Paper

Naiveté and Cynicism in Negotiations and Other Competitive Contexts

By: Chia-Jung Tsay, Lisa L. Shu and Max Bazerman

A wealth of literature documents how the common failure to think about the self-interests of others contributes to suboptimal outcomes. Yet sometimes, an excess of cynicism appears to lead us to over-think the actions of others and make negative attributions about... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perspective; Trust; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage

2007
Working Paper

I'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time

By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in the future differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases,... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Food; Decision Choices and Conditions; Conflict and Resolution; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry