Publications

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

14 May 2012
News

It Gets Better at HBS

05 May 2016
News

Fumigating the Criminal Bug: New Research on the Insulation of Volkswagen’s Middle Management

May 2025
Article

Imagining the Future: Memory, Simulation and Beliefs

By: Pedro Bordalo, Giovanni Burro, Katherine B. Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

How do people form beliefs about novel risks, with which they have little or no experience? Motivated by survey data on beliefs about Covid we collected in 2020, we build a model based on the psychology of selective memory. When a person thinks about an event,... View Details

Keywords: Expectations; Memory; COVID-19 Pandemic; Risk and Uncertainty; Cognition and Thinking

2013
Article

Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal

By: Lara B. Aknin, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Justine Burns, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James and Michael I. Norton

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: Human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). In Study 1, survey data from 136 countries were examined... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Psychological Universal; Prosocial Behavior; Well-being; Happiness; Spending; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Canada; Uganda; South Africa; India

Research Summary

Selective Attention and Learning

By: Joshua R. Schwartzstein

What do we notice, and how does this affect what we learn? Standard economic models of learning ignore memory by assuming that we remember everything. But there is growing recognition that memory is imperfect. Further, memory imperfections do not stem from limited... View Details

"Selective Attention and Learning"

What do we notice and how does this affect what we learn and come to believe? I present a model of an agent who learns to make forecasts on the basis of readily available information, but is selective as to which information he attends to: he chooses whether to... View Details

16 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 16, 2008

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/ b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=809025 Mattel's Long Hot Summer Harvard Business School Case 308-129 In the summer of 2007, Mattel performed three major recalls of toys, mostly due to lead... View Details

30 Jan 2015
News

Why we tell strangers our secrets

08 Mar 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Memory Lane and Morality: How Childhood Memories Promote Prosocial Behavior

Keywords: by Francesca Gino & Sreedhari D. Desai

April 2019
Article

Score Blending: How Scale Response Grouping Biases Perceived Standing

By: Ryan Hauser and Norbert Schwarz

Numerical values—from test scores to credit scores—inform us of our relative standing and can shape our decisions. The values are usually presented in a continuous format (which places scores on a single line) or a grouped format (which separates scores into several... View Details

Keywords: Decision-making; Scale; Decision Making; Perception

May 2007
Article

Aspects of Endowment: A Query Theory of Value Construction

By: Eric Johnson, Gerald Häubl and Anat Keinan

How do people judge the monetary value of objects? One clue is provided by the typical endowment study (D. Kahneman, J. L. Knetsch, & R. H. Thaler, 1991), in which participants are randomly given either a good, such as a coffee mug, that they may later sell ("sellers")... View Details

Keywords: Profit; Forecasting and Prediction; Theory; Valuation; Loss; Ownership; Decision Choices and Conditions

February 2015
Case

Beckman Coulter, 2011

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In early 2011, Danaher was contemplating the acquisition of Beckman Coulter. With $3.7 billion of revenues in 2010 and $431 million in operating profits, California-based Beckman Coulter was a global leader in blood cell count diagnostic systems and also supplied a... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

Educators

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

March 2023 (Revised May 2023)
Case

OneTen at Delta Air Lines: Catalyzing Family-Sustaining Careers for Black Talent (A)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

It was December 10, 2020, and Ed Bastian, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Delta Air Lines (Delta), had just finished a meeting with Joanne Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, and Keyra Lynn Johnson, the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.... View Details

Keywords: Recruitment; Training; Race; Equality and Inequality; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Job Design and Levels; Air Transportation Industry; United States

Educators

07 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'

platforms and realizing the contrast with the real world, where we don’t usually share our pictures when we apply for a job,” Troncoso says. She recalls wondering, “Why do we need them?” Two million applications on Freelancer.com The need... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

20 Jun 2023
Research & Ideas

Looking to Leave a Mark? Memorable Leaders Don't Just Spout Statistics, They Tell Stories

Harvard Business School. People are more likely to recall information over a longer period when it’s wrapped in an anecdote as opposed to statistics, according to the study, “Stories, Statistics and Memory.” Graeber’s research validates... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

4 Jul 2014 - 7 Jul 2014
Talk

I'm Just Passionate!: Attributing Emotional Displays to Passion versus Emotionality

By: Elizabeth Baily Wolf and Alison Wood Brooks

People often express emotions at work that violate workplace display rules. In particular, expressing self-focused sadness is often viewed as inappropriate. Across three experimental studies, we find that the attributions that people make for their inappropriate... View Details

Keywords: Passion; Emotion; Display Rules; Emotions

June 2024
Module Note

Value Creation Potential of New Business Models

By: David J. Collis

A business model is composed of three elements. These describe a generic way of creating value and identify the maximum potential value of that model for customers. The elements of a business model are the “job to be done” for the customer, the asset configuration, or... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Corporate Strategy; Mission and Purpose; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation