Interaction Effects

Source: http://bit.ly/2C6Isdh Do people who do good deeds, always do good deeds? We often tend to categorize people into inherently good or inherently bad. However, most people often mix good and bad deeds such that they would profit from doing the bad deed and yet be able to see themselves as a good person [1]. The "Moral Credits" theory can explain why people who do good deeds need not necessarily always do good deeds. Studies have found that when a person does a moral deed, he has collected moral credits in his mind which entitles him to commit immoral deeds. In a study conducted at the University of Toronto, 156 participants were asked to shop at either a green online-store or at a conventional online-store [2]. The green store had a majority of green products. After they shopped, they were given $6 and were told that they could split this money with a randomly assigned participant and take home the proportion of the $6 that they choose to keep for themselves. The...

In a study , 1017 respondents were asked their opinion about the Monetary Control Bill (MCB). About 10% of the respondents tended to support the bill and about 5% of the respondents tended to oppose the bill. If they claim to support or oppose the bill, you would assume that they also know what the bill is about. However, they can't know what the bill is about since the bill is fictitious. The authors made it up just for the experiment. Essentially, respondents claimed to know about something that was fictitious. The tendency to "overclaim", or to claim to know more than you do, has been found in several studies. For example, people claim to know about fictitious topics in science  and in finance.  People tend to overclaim if they think that they are aware of the topic.  For example, one study finds that respondents are more likely to claim to be familiar with non-existent consumer brands, for which there was broad knowledge to refer to. He finds that peopl...

Colonoscopy is a screening procedure commonly used to identify Colorectal cancer. People could be reluctant to undergo this procedure because it is painful. A study by Redelmeier, Katz, and Kahneman ran an experiment to see if there was a possibility to reduce a patient's perception of how painful the Colonoscopy procedure was. If you can't find the link between Colonoscopy and the title of this article,  wait till the end.  Outpatients who would undergo the procedure between November 1994 and December 1995 in a particular hospital, were part of the study. Patients could receive either the Standard care or the Modified care. The Standard care was the standard procedure used by the Hospital. The modified care extended the duration of the standard procedure by about 3 minutes extra. In the extended duration, the tip of the Colonoscope (the instrument used), remained inside the person's body although it didn't function. The extended duration was less painful than the...

Can renaming "Zucchini Cookies" to "Grandma’s Zucchini Cookies" change how people perceive it?  A study  decided to test this in a 6-week field study at the Bevier Cafeteria at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They chose 6 products that were offered twice a week and found descriptive labels for them. The products chosen were as following:  Traditional Cajun Red Beans with Rice (vs. Red Beans with Rice), Succulent Italian Seafood Filet (vs. Seafood Filet), Tender Grilled Chicken (vs. Grilled Chicken), Homestyle Chicken Parmesan (vs. Chicken Parmesan), Satin Chocolate Pudding (vs. Chocolate Pudding), and Grandma’s Zucchini Cookies (vs. Zucchini Cookies). On Tuesdays and Fridays, 2 of the items were presented with their regular name, 2 of them with a descriptive label, and 2 of them were not presented. In weeks 2 and 3, the items and conditions were systematically rotated. In weeks 4 through 6, the rotation repeated. Each item was ava...

Can a risk-averse sports fan bet on his opponent to hedge his happiness? In a theoretical paper, Stemmet models the happiness of a sports fan as a function of opposition strength, tournament situation, quality of the game, and expected result of the game. The results of the paper suggest that people who bet on the opponent and face an unexpected loss are happier than if they hadn't done so. However, the happiness is lower if a person bets on the opponent and the team that he supports has an unexpected or expected win. The authors suggest that if people are risk averse and are more affected by a loss than by a gain, then they will choose to hedge their happiness. Betting on the opponent can be looked at as an either here or there situation. The fan is able to mitigate risk and remain happy(or at least not unhappy) regardless of the outcome of the game. However, this strategy is not applicable to everyone.  For many fans,  it would be considered disloyalty to...

When considering the factors affecting brand choice, Ambiguity Aversion could potentially be an important one. Ambiguity aversion refers to the behavior of individuals who show a higher preference for lotteries where the probabilities are known than for those with unknown probabilities. If you carry your own toilet paper to the toilet because you are afraid there might not be any, then you are ambiguity averse (as opposed to risk averse) because you don't know the probability of missing toilet paper.  An interesting study  (MWX, hereafter) argue that ambiguity aversion makes consumers more inclined to choose established brands. They suggest that if people have subjective beliefs of the choice described with precise probabilities and ambiguous probabilities, similar beliefs should arise by a choice between two brands that vary in terms of how people perceive the quality of the brands. They asked participants to choose between the following lotteries: Lottery A: R...