Publications

April 2023
Article

Inattentive Inference

By: Thomas Graeber

This paper studies how people infer a state of the world from information structures that include additional, payoff-irrelevant states. For example, learning from a customer review about a product’s quality requires accounting for the reviewer’s otherwise irrelevant... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Information Types; Behavior; Knowledge Acquisition

13 Oct 2015
First Look

October 13, 2015

new data that are emerging. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49829 Does Google Content Degrade Google Search? Experimental Evidence By: Luca, Michael, Timothy Wu,... View Details

2015
Working Paper

Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment

By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas

We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details

Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Heterogeneity; Loss Aversion; Reciprocity; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits

December 2016
Article

The Effects of Endowment Size and Strategy Method on Third Party Punishment

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Katherine McAuliffe and David G. Rand

Numerous experiments have shown that people often engage in third-party punishment (3PP) of selfish behavior. This evidence has been used to argue that people respond to selfishness with anger, and get utility from punishing those who mistreat others. Elements of the... View Details

Keywords: Third-party Punishment; Norm-enforcement; Strategy Method; Economic Games; Cooperation; Emotions; Fairness

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13 Apr 2012
HBS Seminar

Drazen Prelec, Professor of Management Science and Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management

12 Feb 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 12, 2019

forthcoming World Happiness Report Happiness and Prosocial Behavior: An Evaluation of the Evidence By: Aknin, Lara B., A.V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton, and Elizabeth W. Dunn Abstract— Humans are an extremely prosocial species. Compared... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 16, 2022
Article

A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties

By: Karthik Rajkumar, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor I. Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson and Sinan Aral

The authors analyzed data from multiple large-scale randomized experiments on LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm, which recommends new connections to LinkedIn members, to test the extent to which weak ties increased job mobility in the world’s largest... View Details

Keywords: Job Mobility; Social Networks; Social Ties; Networks; Personal Development and Career

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Article

Heuristics Guide the Implementation of Social Preferences in One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma Experiments

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Valerio Capraro and David G. Rand

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behavior. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behavior by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner’s Dilemma (i.e. one-shot... View Details

Keywords: Human Behavior; Social Evolution; Behavior; Cooperation; Decision Making; Game Theory

Article

Gender Bias, Social Impact Framing, and Evaluation of Entrepreneurial Ventures

By: Matthew Lee and Laura Huang

Recent studies find that female-led ventures are penalized relative to male-led ventures due to role incongruity, or a perceived “lack of fit,” between female stereotypes and expected personal qualities of business entrepreneurs. We examine whether social impact... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Gender; Prejudice and Bias; Framework; Perception; Performance Evaluation

Article

Handshaking Promotes Deal-Making by Signaling Cooperative Intent

By: Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton

We examine how a simple handshake—a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions—can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive... View Details

Keywords: Handshake; Cooperation; Affiliation; Competition; Negotiation; Nonverbal Communication; Negotiation Participants; Behavior; Communication Intention and Meaning; Negotiation Deal

August 20, 2024
Article

Sexual Assault Victims Face a Penalty for Adjacent Consent

By: Jillian J. Jordan and Roseanna Sommers

Across 11 experimental studies (n = 12,257), we show that female victims of sexual assault are blamed more and seen as less morally virtuous if their assault follows voluntary sexual intimacy, a factor we term “adjacent consent”. Moreover, we illuminate a... View Details

Keywords: Perception; Prejudice and Bias; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption; Social Issues

03 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 3

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-062.pdf 'Fit': Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting, Incentives and Creative Worker Performance Authors:Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani Abstract We present the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Article

Work Group Rituals Enhance the Meaning of Work

By: Tami Kim, Ovul Sezer, Juliana Schroeder, Jane L. Risen, Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton

The many benefits of finding meaning in work suggest the importance of identifying activities that increase job meaningfulness. The current paper identifies one such activity: engaging in rituals with workgroups. Five studies (N = 1,099) provide evidence that... View Details

Keywords: Groups; Meaningfulness; Task Meaning; Ritual; Teams; Organizational Citizenship; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Familiarity

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

PublicationsHappiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness Authors:Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, and Michael I. Norton Publication:Journal of Happiness Studies 13... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

1982
Article

When Self-Descriptions Contradict Behavior: Actions do Speak Louder than Words

By: T. M. Amabile and L. Kabat

Subjects viewed two videotapes, one depicting a stimulus person's self-description and the other depicting that person's behavior in a conversation, according to a four-way factorial design personality descriptor used in the self-description ("introvert" or... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Perception; Cognition and Thinking; Judgments