Due to betrayal aversion, people take risks less willingly when the agent of uncertainty is another person rather than nature. Individuals in six countries (Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States

accuracy issues more directly. Moreover, this research attracts a great deal of attention because of what many take to be its dismal implications for the accuracy of human social reasoning. These implications are illusory, however, because an error is not the same thing as a "mistake. " An error is a judgment of an experimental stimulus that departs from a model of the judgment process. If this model is normative, then the error can be said to represent an incorrect judgment. A mistake, by contrast, is an incorrect judgment of a real-world stimulus and therefore more difficult to determine. Although errors can be highly informative about the process of judgment in general, they are not necessarily relevant to the content or accuracy of particular judgments, because errors in a laboratory may not be mistakes with respect to a broader, more realistic frame of reference and the processes that produce such errors might lead to correct decisions and adaptive outcomes in real life. Several examples are described in this article. Accuracy issues cannot be addressed by research that concentrates on demonstrating error in relation to artificial stimuli, but only by research that uses external, realistic criteria for accuracy. These criteria might include the degree to which judgments agree with each other and yield valid predictions of behavior. The accuracy of human social judgment is a topic of obvious

Research suggests that causal judgment is influenced primarily by counterfactual or covariational reasoning. In contrast, the author of this article develops judgment dissociation theory (JDT), which predicts that these types of reasoning differ in function and can lead to divergent judgments. The actuality principle proposes that causal selections focus on antecedents that are sufficient to generate the actual outcome. The substitution principle proposes that ad hoc categorization plays a key role in counterfactual and covariational reasoning such that counterfactual selections focus on antecedents that would have been sufficient to prevent the outcome or something like it and covariational selections focus on antecedents that yield the largest increase in the probability of the outcome or something like it. The findings of 4 experiments support JDT but not the competing counterfactual and covariational accounts. If causation is the cement of the universe, as the philosopher David Hume (1740/1938) put it, then it is fair to say that causal knowledge is the cement that binds together each person’s representational universe. Causal reasoning—the process that generates this glue—confers many functional advantages. In virtually every sphere of human interest, our abilities to learn and categorize

We analyze the value placed by rational agents on self-con�dence, and the strategies employed in its pursuit. Con�dence in one’s abilities generally enhances motivation, making it a valuable asset for individuals with imperfect willpower. This demand for self-serving beliefs (which can also arise from hedonic or signaling motives) must be weighed against the risks of overcon�dence. On the supply side, we develop a model of self-deception through endogenous memory that reconciles the motivated and rational features of human cognition. The resulting intrapersonal game of strategic communication typically leads to multiple equilibria. While “positive thinking ” can improve welfare, it can also be self-defeating (and nonetheless pursued). Believe what is in the line of your needs, for only by such belief is the need ful�lled... Have faith that you can successfully make it, and your feet are nerved to its accomplishment [William James, Principles of Psychology]. I have done this, says my memory. I cannot have done that, says my pride, remaining inexorable. Finally—memory yields [Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil]. I had during many years followed the Golden Rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such (contrary and thus unwelcome) facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from memory than favorable ones [Charles Darwin in The Life of Charles Darwin, by Francis

The authors argue against a purely behavioral definition of praise as verbal reinforcement in favor of the view that praise may serve to undermine, enhance, or have no effect on children’s intrinsic motivation, depending on a set of conceptual variables. Provided that praise is perceived as sincere, it is particularly beneficial to motivation when it encourages performance attributions to controllable causes, promotes autonomy, enhances competence without an overreliance on social comparisons, and conveys attainable standards and expectations. The motivational consequences of praise also can be moderated by characteristics of the recipient, such as age, gender, and culture. Methodological considerations, such as including appropriate control groups and measuring postfailure outcomes, are stressed, and directions for future research are highlighted. Praise, like penicillin, must not be administered haphazardly. There are rules and cautions that govern the handling of potent medicines— rules about timing and dosage, cautions about possible allergic reactions. There are similar regulations about the administration of emotional medicine. (H. Ginott, 1965, p. 39) On the whole, we as a society seem to believe that praise has

We investigated social inference practices of Koreans and Americans in two novel domains: behavioral predictions and folk theories of behavior. When dispositional and situational inferences were disentangled, Koreans showed dispositional thinking to the same extent as Americans. This was the case for behavioral predictions based on individual difference information (Study 1) and for endorsements of a dispositionist theory of behavior (Studies 1 and 3). Consistent with previous research in the causal attribution and attitude attribution paradigms, Koreans made greater situational inferences in behavioral prediction as long as situational information was salient (Study 2), and endorsed a situationist theory of behavior more (Studies 1 and 3). Koreans also differed from Americans in believing personality to be more malleable (Study 3). Cultural Similarities and Differences in Social Inference: Evidence from Behavioral Predictions and Lay Theories of Behavior "Lay dispositionism" (Ross & N...

Two field experiments examined the effectiveness of signs requesting hotel guests’ participation in an environmental conservation program. Appeals employing descriptive norms (e.g., “the majority of guests reuse their towels”) proved superior to a traditional appeal widely used by hotels that focused solely on environmental protection. Moreover, normative appeals were most effective when describing group behavior that occurred in the setting that most closely matched individuals’ immediate situational circumstances (e.g., “the majority of guests in this room reuse their towels”), which we refer to as provincial norms. Theoretical and practical implications for managing proenvironmental efforts are discussed. Until recently, the greatest towel-related dilemma travelers faced was reflected in the old joke told by the nightclub comic, Henny Youngman, about the hotel where he had stayed the previous night: “What a hotel: the towels were so big and fluffy that I could hardly close my suitcase.” In recent years, however, the question of whether or not to remove hotel towels has been supplanted by the question of whether or not to reuse hotel towels during the course of one’s stay. With the adoption of environmental programs by hotels, more and more travelers are finding themselves urged to reuse their towels to help conserve environmental resources by saving energy and reducing the amount of detergent-related pollutants released into the environment. *Noah J. Goldstein is assistant professor of behavioral sciences at the

this paper is to show how the trust association with network closure is more complex, and decidedly less salutary, than argued in closure models of social capital. Building on earlier work (Burt and Knez 1995; Burt 1999a), my argument is framed with respect to two hypotheses describing how closure affects the flow of information in a network. What I will discuss as a bandwidth hypothesis presumed in closure models of social capital and in related work such as reputation models in economics says that network closure enhances information flow. The echo hypothesis based on the social psychology of selective disclosure in informal conversations says that closed networks do not enhance information flow so much as they create an echo that reinforces predispositions. Information obtained in casual conversations is more redundant than personal experience but not properly discounted, which creates an erroneous sense of certainty. Interpersonal evaluations are amplified to positive and negative extremes. Favorable opinion is amplified into trust. Doubt is amplified into distrust. In Section 1, I summarize as a baseline model the dyadic exchange theory of trust production that ignores social context. Bandwidth and echo hypotheses are introduced in Section 2 as contextual extensions of the baseline. In Section 3, I use network data on three study populations to illustrate contradiction between the hypotheses and empirical support for echo over bandwidth. My summary conclusion in Section 4 is that network closure does not facilitate trust so Bandwidth and Echo, Page 3 much as it amplifies predispositions, creating a structural arthritis in which people cannot learn what they do not already know. 1. TRUST WITHOUT CONTEXT: BASELINE HYPOTHESIS Take as the unit of analysis the relat...

Philosophical theories summarized here include regularity and necessity theories from Hume to the present; manipulability theory; the theory of powerful particulars; causation as connected changes within a defined state of affairs; departures from "normal " events or from some standard for compar-ison; causation as a transfer of something between objects; and causal propagation and production. Issues found in this literature and of relevance for psychology include whether actual causal relations can be perceived or known; what sorts of things people believe can be causes; different levels of causal analysis; the distinction between the causal relation itself and cues to causal relations; causal frames or fields; internal and external causes; and understanding of causation in different realms of the world, such as the natural and artificial realms. A full theory of causal inference by laypeople should address all of these issues. The main purpose of this article is to survey philosophical theories of causation in a manner intended to be suitable for psychologists interested in causation. The article has two sec-tions: The first presents brief summaries of philosophical theo-ries of causation from Aristotle to the present. In the second, issues found in the philosophical literature are used to suggest new approaches to the study of causation in psychology. Philosophical Theories of Causation Several psychologists have written about selected philosophi-cal theories of causation (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Einhorn &

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