Publications

2017
Working Paper

Shopping for Confirmation: How Disconfirming Feedback Shapes Social Networks

By: Paul Green Jr., Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats

Many organizations employ interpersonal feedback processes as a structured means of informing and motivating employee improvement. Ample evidence suggests that these feedback processes are largely ineffective, and despite a wealth of prescriptive literature, these... View Details

Keywords: Developmental Feedback; Self-concept; Positive Illusions; Social Network; Threat; Identity; Social and Collaborative Networks; Behavior; Performance; Social Media

SSRN

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

August 19, 2015
Article

The Slow Decay and Quick Revival of Self-deception

By: Zoe Chance, Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

People demonstrate an impressive ability to self-deceive, distorting misbehavior to reflect positively on themselves—for example, by cheating on a test and believing that their inflated performance reflects their true ability. But what happens to self-deception when... View Details

Keywords: Self-deception; Cheating; Self-enhancement; Positive Illusions; Motivated Reasoning; Perception; Behavior; Ethics

September 2011
Article

The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value

By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton

A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Perception; Valuation; Service Delivery; Consumer Behavior; Performance Effectiveness; Customer Satisfaction; Service Industry

March 2011
Article

Keeping the Illusion of Control Under Control: Ceilings, Floors, and Imperfect Calibration

By: F. Gino, Z. S. Sharek and D. A. Moore

2010
Working Paper

Cognitive Barriers to Environmental Action: Problems and Solutions

By: Lisa L. Shu and Max Bazerman

We explore interventions at the individual level and focus on recognized cognitive barriers from behavioral decision-making literature. In particular, we highlight three cognitive barriers that impede sound individual decision making that have particular relevance to... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Cognition and Thinking; Prejudice and Bias

October 2009
Article

A Decision-making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look into the Future

By: Chia-Jung Tsay and Max Bazerman

Through the decision-analytic approach to negotiations, the past quarter century has seen the development of a better dialog between the descriptive and the prescriptive, as well as a burgeoning interest in the field for both academics and practitioners. Researchers... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Negotiation; Perspective; Ethics; Emotions; Perception; Relationships; Management Practices and Processes; Training; Behavior

2009
Working Paper

A Decision-making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look into the Future

By: Chia-Jung Tsay and Max H. Bazerman

Through the decision-analytic approach to negotiations, the past quarter century has seen the development of a better dialog between the descriptive and the prescriptive, as well as a burgeoning interest in the field for both academics and practitioners. Researchers... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Ethics; Negotiation; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Emotions

2009
Chapter

On the General Relativity of Fiscal Language

By: Jerry R. Green and Lawrence Kotlikoff

A century ago, everyone thought time and distance were well defined physical concepts. But neither proved absolute. Instead, measures/reports of time and distance were found to depend on one's reference point, specifically one's direction and speed of travel, making... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Finance; Labels; Measurement and Metrics

2005
Working Paper

Money Illusion in the Stock Market: The Modigliani-Cohn Hypothesis

By: Randolph B. Cohen, Christopher Polk and Tuomo Vuolteenaho

Modigliani and Cohn [1979] hypothesize that the stock market suffers from money illusion, discounting real cash flows at nominal discount rates. While previous research has focused on the pricing of the aggregate stock market relative to Treasury bills, the... View Details

Keywords: Stocks; Price; Cash Flow