Publications

August 2020 (Revised December 2020)
Background Note

A Note on Ethical Analysis

By: Nien-hê Hsieh

To engage in ethical analysis is to answer such questions as “What is the right thing to do?” “What does it mean to be a good person?” “How should I live my life?” Ethical analysis, on its own, is often not adequate for doing the right thing or being a good... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Framework; Decision Making; Prejudice and Bias

Educators

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May 2016
Article

When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint Versus Separate Evaluation

By: Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max Bazerman

We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Performance; Gender

13 Sep 2018
HBS Seminar

Ashley Swanson, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

October 2012
Article

The Effect of Reference Point Prices on Mergers and Acquisitions

By: Malcolm Baker, Xin Pan and Jeffrey Wurgler

Prior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Stocks; Price; Valuation; Negotiation

Article

How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?

By: Andrew C. Baker, David F. Larcker and Charles C.Y. Wang

We explain when and how staggered difference-in-differences regression estimators, commonly applied to assess the impact of policy changes, are biased. These biases are likely to be relevant for a large portion of research settings in finance, accounting, and law that... View Details

Keywords: Difference In Differences; Staggered Difference-in-differences Designs; Generalized Difference-in-differences; Dynamic Treatment Effects; Mathematical Methods

November 12, 2021
Editorial

The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload

By: A.V. Whillans, Dave Feldman and Damian Wisniewski

Bad meetings are the bane of the corporate world — and yet despite what appears to be an overwhelming consensus that they’re often unnecessary and unproductive, many workplaces continue to struggle to avoid them. In this piece, the authors discuss the psychological... View Details

Keywords: Meetings; Collaboration; Psychology; Time Management; Communication

17 Oct 2016
News

How to Hire with Algorithms

Mandi Nerenberg

Mandi is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at Harvard Business School. She is interested in the impact of how gender and racial dynamics shape workplace evaluations. Her research explores gender biases in interpersonal professional contexts,... View Details

November 2015
Article

Why Organizations Don't Learn: Our Traditional Obsessions—Success, Taking Action, Fitting In, and Relying on Experts—Undermine Continuous Improvement

By: F. Gino and B. Staats

For any enterprise to be competitive, continuous learning and improvement are key—but not always easy to achieve. After a decade of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: we focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Learning

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January 2012 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s Entry into the Retirement Market

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy

This case examines Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA)'s decision to enter the retirement market with their new "Dimensional Managed DC" product, a complete retirement solution that aimed to provide investors with what they really wanted: the same standard of living in... View Details

Keywords: Retirement; Asset Management

Educators

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January 1982
Article

A Negativity Bias in Interpersonal Evaluation

By: T. M. Amabile and A. H. Glazebrook

Two studies were conducted to demonstrate a bias toward negativity in evaluations of persons or their work in particular social circumstances. In Study 1, subjects evaluated materials written by peers. Those working under conditions that placed them in low status... View Details

Keywords: Social Psychology; Status and Position; Prejudice and Bias; Performance Evaluation; Situation or Environment; Perception; Attitudes

Research Summary

Overview

By: Himabindu Lakkaraju

I develop machine learning tools and techniques which enable human decision makers to make better decisions. More specifically, my research addresses the following fundamental questions pertaining to human and algorithmic decision-making:

1. How to build... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Decision Analysis; Decision Support

February 1997
Background Note

Errors in Social Judgment: Implications for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Part 1

For the past quarter-century, the field of social cognition has documented a number of ways in which individuals and groups are prone to make characteristic errors when judging others. This note examines the ways in which these tendencies pose difficulties for... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Negotiation; Conflict and Resolution

Educators

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18 Apr 2016
News

How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews

The Psyche on Automatic: Amy Cuddy Probes Snap Judgments, Warm Feelings, and How to Become an “Alpha Dog”

Social psychologist Cuddy, an assistant professor of business administration, investigates how people perceive and categorize others. Warmth and competence, she finds, are the two critical variables. They account for about 80 percent of our... View Details

January 2021
Article

Veil-of-Ignorance Reasoning Mitigates Self-Serving Bias in Resource Allocation During the COVID-19 Crisis

By: Karen Huang, Regan Bernhard, Netta Barak-Corren, Max Bazerman and Joshua D. Greene

The COVID-19 crisis has forced healthcare professionals to make tragic decisions concerning which patients to save. Furthermore, the COVID-19 crisis has foregrounded the influence of self-serving bias in debates on how to allocate scarce resources. A utilitarian... View Details

Keywords: Self-serving Bias; Procedural Justice; Bioethics; COVID-19; Fairness; Health Pandemics; Resource Allocation; Decision Making

September 2, 2014
Article

Development of In-Group Favoritism in Children's Third-Party Punishment of Selfishness

By: Jillian J. Jordan, Katherine McAuliffe and Felix Warneken

When enforcing norms for cooperative behavior, human adults sometimes exhibit in-group bias. For example, third-party observers punish selfish behaviors committed by out-group members more harshly than similar behaviors committed by in-group members. Although evidence... View Details

Keywords: Ontogeny; Cooperation; Equality and Inequality

Forthcoming
Article

Reflexivity in Credit Markets

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Lawrence J. Jin

Reflexivity is the idea that investors' biased beliefs affect market outcomes and that market outcomes in turn affect investors’ future biases. We develop a dynamic behavioral model of the credit cycle featuring this two-way feedback loop. Investors form beliefs about... View Details

Keywords: Reflexivity; Attitudes; Financial Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Investment; Credit