Publications

Register to Read

October 2020
Article

What Goes Down When Advice Goes Up: Younger Advisers Underestimate Their Impact

By: Ting Zhang and Michael S. North

Common wisdom suggests that older is wiser. Consequently, people rarely give advice to older individuals—even when they are relatively more expert—leading to missed learning opportunities. Across six studies (N=3,445), we explore the psychology of advisers when they... View Details

Keywords: Advice; Expertise; Knowledge Sharing; Experience and Expertise; Age; Perception

2017
Working Paper

Equality and Equity in Compensation

By: Jiayi Bao and Andy Wu

Equity compensation is widely used for incentivizing skilled employees, particularly in new technology businesses. Traditional theories explaining why firms offer equity suggest that workers with higher rank should receive compensation packages more heavily weighted in... View Details

Keywords: Inequality Aversion; Compensation; Stock Options; Scarcity; Experiment; Compensation and Benefits; Equity; Equality and Inequality; Perception

Article

Anger and Regulation

By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details

Keywords: Altruism; Populism; Public Relations; Profit; Consumer Behavior; Perception; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms

2023
Working Paper

Going Beyond the ‘Self’ in Self-Control: Interpersonal Consequences of Commitment Strategy Use

By: Ariella Kristal and Julian Zlatev

Commitment strategies are effective mechanisms individuals can use to overcome self-control problems. Across seven studies (and three supplemental studies), we explore the negative interpersonal consequences of commitment strategy use. In Study 1, using an incentivized... View Details

Keywords: Self-control; Willpower; Commitment Strategies; Goals and Objectives; Behavior; Strategy; Perception

February 2019
Article

Pettiness in Social Exchange

By: Tami Kim, Ting Zhang and Michael I. Norton

We identify and document a novel construct—pettiness, or intentional attentiveness to trivial details—and examine its (negative) implications in interpersonal relationships and social exchange. Seven studies show that pettiness manifests across different types of... View Details

Keywords: Relationships; Personal Characteristics; Perception; Societal Protocols

Article

Motivated Inferences of Price and Quality in Healthcare Decisions

By: Emily Prinsloo, Kate Barasz and Peter A. Ubel

Policy makers have increasingly advocated for healthcare price transparency, whereby prices are made salient before services are rendered. While such policies may empower consumers, they also bring price to the forefront of healthcare choices as never before, with yet... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Price Transparency; Health Care and Treatment; Price; Quality; Perception; Consumer Behavior; Decisions; Insurance

Register to Read

September 2017
Article

The Belief in a Favorable Future

By: Todd Rogers, Don A. Moore and Michael I. Norton

People believe that future others’ preferences and beliefs will change to align with their own. People holding a particular view (e.g., support of President Trump) are more likely to believe that future others will share their view than to believe that future others... View Details

Keywords: Social Cognition; Judgment; Prediction; Forecasting; False Consensus; Donation; Open Data; Open Materials; Preregistered; Forecasting and Prediction; Perception; Values and Beliefs; Behavior

1979
Chapter

Learning from Mistakes Is Easier Said than Done: Group and Organization Influences on the Detection and Correction of Human Error

By: A. Edmondson

Keywords: Learning; Perception; Attitudes; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Power and Influence

09 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

Who Sways the USDA on GMO Approvals?

agencies such as the USDA is to protect public health and safety; based on previous economic theory, however, Hiatt started with a different assumption—the primary goal of an agency is really to protect its own legitimacy. After all, it's the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Biotechnology; Agriculture & Agribusiness

05 Feb 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Stereotypes and Belief Updating

Keywords: by Katherine B. Coffman, Manuela Collis, and Leena Kulkarni

2025
Working Paper

Lessons from an App Update at Replika AI: Identity Discontinuity in Human-AI Relationships

By: Julian De Freitas, Noah Castelo, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Zeliha Oğuz-Uğuralp

As consumers increasingly interact with AI applications specialized for social relationships, what is the nature and depth of these relationships among actual users, and can company actions influence these dynamics? We find that active users of the US-based AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Welfare; Loss; Well-being; Identity; Perception; Relationships

SSRN

Article

The Interplay Between Sharing Behavior and Beliefs About Others in Children During Dictator Games

By: Hernando Santamaría-García, María Luz González-Gadea, Rafael Di Tella, Agustín Ibáñez and Mariano Sigman

Previous studies in adults demonstrated that beliefs and sharing decisions in social scenarios are closely related. However, to date, little is known about the development of this relationship in children. By using a modified dictator game, we assessed sharing behavior... View Details

Keywords: Dictator Game; Altruism; Generosity; Development; Conveniently Upset; Behavior; Values and Beliefs; Perception; Decision Making

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

Claudine, Andrea Prat, and George Serafeim Abstract—We construct a measure of corporate purpose within a sample of U.S. companies based on approximately 500,000 survey responses of worker perceptions about their employers. We find that... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

19 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Analyzing Institutions to Solve Big Problems

Weeding Out the Competition: How Alternatives Are Eliminated during Institutionalization looks at factors that make us take information for granted, even when the information isn't accurate. For example, the common perception is that the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel & Anna Secino

December 2007
Article

The Malleability of Environmentalism

By: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Min Li, Leigh L. Thompson and Max Bazerman

In this paper, we predict and find that self-perceptions of environmentalism are changed by subtle manipulations of context and, in turn, affect environmental behavior. In Study 1, we found that people exhibit greater positive assessments of their environmental... View Details

Keywords: Research; Environmental Sustainability; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Identity; Perception; Personal Characteristics

19 Jun 2007
First Look

First Look: June 19, 2007

and that this difference in construal partly underlies future lock-in. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-038.pdf A Perceptions Framework for Categorizing Inventory Policies in Single-stage Inventory Systems... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

July, 2024
Article

Consumer Protection in an Online World: An Analysis of Occupational Licensing

By: Chiara Farronato, Andrey Fradkin, Bradley Larsen and Erik Brynjolfsson

We study the demand and supply implications of occupational licensing using transaction-level data from a large online platform for home improvement services. We find that demand is more responsive to a professional's reviews than to the professional's... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Licensing; Consumer Protection; Perception; Experience and Expertise; Public Opinion; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Demand and Consumers