Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(532)
- Faculty Publications (218)
- 2017
- Article
True Happiness: The Role of Morality in the Concept of Happiness
By: Jonathan Phillips, Julian De Freitas, Christian Mott, June Gruber and Joshua Knobe
Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has... View Details
- August 2, 2016
- Article
Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details
- August 2016
- Article
The Role of (Dis)similarity in (Mis)predicting Others' Preferences
By: Kate Barasz, Tami Kim and Leslie K. John
Consumers readily indicate liking options that appear dissimilar—for example, enjoying both rustic lake vacations and chic city vacations or liking both scholarly documentary films and action-packed thrillers. However, when predicting other consumers’ tastes for the... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
The Empirical Economics of Online Attention
By: Andre Boik, Shane Greenstein and Jeffrey Prince
In several markets, firms compete not for consumer expenditure but instead for consumer attention. We model and characterize how households allocate their scarce attention in arguably the largest market for attention: the Internet. Our characterization of household... View Details
- May 31, 2016
- Article
Memories of Unethical Actions Become Obfuscated over Time
By: Maryam Kouchaki and Francesca Gino
Despite our optimistic belief that we would behave honestly when facing the temptation to act unethically, we often cross ethical boundaries. This paper explores one possibility for why people engage in unethical behavior over time by suggesting that memory for their... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Paying (for) Attention: The Impact of Information Processing Costs on Bayesian Inference
By: Scott Duke Kominers, Xiaosheng Mu and Alexander Peysakhovich
Human information processing is often modeled as costless Bayesian inference.
However, research in psychology shows that attention is a computationally costly and potentially limited resource. We study a Bayesian individual for whom computing posterior beliefs is... View Details
- Article
Beyond Good Intentions: Prompting People to Make Plans Improves Follow-through on Important Tasks
By: Todd Rogers, Katherine L Milkman, Leslie K. John and Michael I. Norton
Many intend to stay fit but fail to exercise or eat healthfully; students intend to earn good grades but study too little; citizens intend to vote but fail to turnout. How can policymakers help people follow through on intentions like these? Plan-making, a tool that... View Details
- Article
The What and Why of Self-deception
By: Zoë Chance and Michael I. Norton
Scholars from many disciplines have investigated self-deception, but defining self-deception and establishing its possible benefits have been a matter of heated debate—a debate impoverished by a relative lack of empirical research. Drawing on recent research, we first... View Details
Keywords: Cognition and Thinking
- 2015
- Chapter
Consuming Brands
By: Jill Avery and Anat Keinan
Traditional definitions of branding often underestimate the value a brand has for infusing a choice situation with meaning. This chapter explores how people consume brands and presents three perspectives on the meaning of brands that have diverse theoretical roots in... View Details
- Article
Conveniently Upset: Avoiding Altruism by Distorting Beliefs About Others' Altruism
By: Rafael Di Tella, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andres Babino and Mariano Sigman
We present results from a “corruption game” (a dictator game modified so that recipients can take a side payment in exchange for accepting a reduction in the overall size of the pie). Dictators (silently) treated to be able to take more of the recipient’s tokens, took... View Details
- November 2015
- Article
The Highest Form of Intelligence: Sarcasm Increases Creativity for Both Expressers and Recipients
By: Li Huang, F. Gino and Adam D. Galinsky
Sarcasm is ubiquitous in organizations. Despite its prevalence, we know surprisingly little about the cognitive experiences of sarcastic expressers and recipients or their behavioral implications. The current research proposes and tests a novel theoretical model in... View Details
- 2015
- Article
Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment
By: George E. Newman, Julian De Freitas and Joshua Knobe
Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about
(a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness
of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend... View Details
- 2015
- Chapter
Design Thinking and Innovative Problem Solving
By: Srikant Datar and Caitlin N. Bowler
In 2012 we set out to answer two key questions. Can anyone, including MBAs and executives with superb analytical skills, learn to think more innovatively? If so, how might we go about developing these skills? Through close collaboration with individuals from major... View Details
- Article
Smart People Ask for (My) Advice: Seeking Advice Boosts Perceptions of Competence
By: A.W. Brooks, F. Gino and M.E. Schweitzer
Although individuals can derive substantial benefits from exchanging information and ideas, many individuals are reluctant to seek advice from others. We find that people are reticent to seek advice for fear of appearing incompetent. This fear, however, is misplaced.... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
'Be Careless with That!' Availability of Product Upgrades Increases Cavalier Behavior Toward Possessions
By: Silvia Bellezza, Joshua M. Ackerman and Francesca Gino
Consumers are often faced with the opportunity to purchase a new, enhanced product (e.g., a new phone), even though the device they currently own is still fully functional. We propose that consumers act more recklessly with their current products and are less concerned... View Details
Keywords: Carelessness; Product Upgrade; Justification; Loss; Consumer Behavior; Attitudes; Product; Ownership
- March–April 2015
- Article
Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform
By: Lan Nguyen Chaplin and Michael I. Norton
Theory of Mind (ToM) allows children to achieve success in the social world by understanding others' minds. A study with 3–12 year olds, however, demonstrates that gains in ToM are linked to decreases in children's desire to engage in performative behaviors associated... View Details
- January 2015
- Article
Costly Third-party Punishment in Young Children
By: Katherine McAuliffe, Jillian J. Jordan and Felix Warneken
Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly third-partypunishment in 5- and 6-year-old children. Participants were asked to accept (enact) or reject... View Details
- Article
Guilt Enhances the Sense of Control and Drives Risky Judgments
By: Maryam Kouchaki, Christopher Oveis and F. Gino
The present studies investigate the hypothesis that guilt influences risk-taking by enhancing one's sense of control. Across multiple inductions of guilt, we demonstrate that experimentally induced guilt enhances optimism about risks for the self (Study 1), preferences... View Details
- Article
A 'Present' for the Future: The Unexpected Value of Rediscovery
Although documenting everyday activities may seem trivial, four studies reveal that creating records of the present generates unexpected benefits by allowing future rediscoveries. In Study 1, we use a "time capsule" paradigm to show that individuals underestimate the... View Details
- Article
The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts
By: Carey K. Morewedge, Colleen Giblin and Michael I. Norton
Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher-order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life. The seeming randomness by which spontaneous thoughts arise might give people good reason to dismiss them as... View Details