Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. Howmer, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion-that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation-xtends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for inmased use of indirect measures--which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with r ent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects arc often reduced by focusing judges ' attention on their judg-ment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination. Long before they became central to other areas of psycholog-ical theory, concepts of cognitive mediation dominated the anal-ysis of social behavior. The constructs on which this article fo-

People prefer to make changeable decisions rather than unchangeable decisions because they do not realize that they may be more satisfied with the latter. Photography students believed that having the opportunity to change their minds about which prints to keep would not influence their liking of the prints. However, those who had the opportunity to change their minds liked their prints less than those who did not (Study 1). Although the opportunity to change their minds impaired the postdecisional processes that normally promote satisfaction (Study 2a), most participants wanted to have that opportunity (Study 2b). The results demonstrate that errors in affective forecasting can lead people to behave in ways that do not optimize their happiness and well-being. In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. —T. S. Eliot, Poetry (Vol. 6)

Subjects spent 45 s studying the names of 4 members of a hypothetical group. This brief name study exercise produced both implicit liking for and implicit identification with the group. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated these effects and compared them to the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968). The effect due to studying names was much larger than the effect of either 6 extra exposures to each name (in Experiment 2) or 10 extra exposures (in Experiment 3). Implicit partisanship differs from the minimal group effect (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971) because its procedure involves no membership in the target group, and it differs from the mere exposure effect because the target stimuli are presented as members of a group, rather than multiple times as unrelated individuals. A plausible (but not established) interpretation is that the attitude and identification effects are consequences of mere categorization. `Channel surfing' is the act of rapidly scanning television broadcast channels in search of something interesting to watch. For one of the authors, this pastime produced a repeated and puzzling observation: On arriving at and dwelling at least briefly on a televised sports contest between unfamiliar players or teams, he would often notice a near-immediate preference for one of the competitors -- in effect, taking sides in the contest for no reason. There are many possible explanations for such a rapidly formed preference. For example, the viewer may identify with a competitor who is similar on some noticeable attribute such as home town, age, or ethnicity; or the viewer may prefer (or, alternately, be offended by) one competitor's appearance (such as physical features, clothing, hair style); or the viewer may identify with the competitor who is presently winning,...

We examine Belk's (1988) construct of self extension experimentally. Participants were given a small rock and randomly assigned to design the rock for themselves or to sell. The participants who designed the rock for themselves were more likely than sellers to say the rock symbolized themselves. Participants whose rock symbolized themselves rated its personality more similarly to their ratings of themselves than did other participants, and were less agreeable to making their rock into a product line of pet rocks. We explore process explanations for our results. EXTENDED ABSTRACT Belk's (1988) construct of self extension is widely cited but has been criticized as difficult to test empirically (e.g., Cohen 1989). We examined the construct of self extension experimentally. Participants each were given a small rock and randomly assigned to design a pet rock for themselves or to sell. We developed hypotheses about a possible cause and two consequences of self extension from Belk (1988), Wicklund & Gollwitzer (1982), and Burris and Rempel's (2004) self theory. We hypothesized that those designing the rock for themselves would be more likely to experience self-extension to the rock than would participants designing the rock for sale. We also hypothesized that participants who experienced a feeling of self extension to the rock would perceive the rock to be more similar to themselves, and more unique, than those who did not experience a feeling of self extension to the rock. Participants were 106 volunteer undergraduate students. They each were given a Mexican river rock and were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions--design the rock for yourself (Self condition) or design the rock to sell (Seller condition). All participants returned a week later with their decorated ...

The results of five field and laboratory experiments reveal a “time versus money effect ” whereby activating time (vs. money) leads to a favorable shift in product attitudes and decisions. Because time increases focus on product experience, activating time (vs. money) augments one’s personal connection with the product, thereby boosting attitudes and decisions. However, because money increases the focus on product possession, the reverse effect can occur in cases where merely owning the product reflects the self (i.e., for prestige possessions or for highly materialistic consumers). The time versus money effect proves robust across implicit and explicit methods of construct activation. References to time and money are pervasive in the consumer landscape. Consider, for example, the marketing campaigns of two brands of beer: Miller’s “it’s Miller time” commercials have appealed to consumers by guiding attention to time, whereas Stella Artois’s “perfection has its price ” campaign has appealed by focusing attention on money. Even Citibank, an institution based on monetary transactions, brings focal attention to how one chooses to spend time (not money) in their “live richly ” campaign (e.g., “there is no preset spending limit when it comes to time with your family”). In fact, a content analysis of ads in four magazines targeting a wide range of consumers (Money, New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and Rolling Stone) revealed that, out of 300 advertisements, nearly half of the ads (48%) integrated the concepts of time and/or money into their messages. Despite the preponderance of marketers ’ decisions to use these constructs in their communications, little is known about the downstream effects of directing consumers ’ at-*Cassie Mogilner is a PhD candidate in marketing at Stanford University,

Subjective valuations determine the demand for information. Users formulated value judgments regarding information are important for the design of information systems. This paper focuses on information as content. We begin with the "Endowment Effect" extension of "Prospect Theory". In a simple computer simulated business game, two groups of fourteen and seventeen participants simulated a management task in which they were provided opportunities to buy or sell information. The bidding mechanism was incentive compatible. Results show that, in agreement with Endowment Effect theory, people value information they own much more than information not owned by them. Our findings indicate a place for the subjective value of information on the WTA/WTP ratio continuum that emerges from pertinent literature. The ratio for information is similar to that of market goods. Participants had a strong inclination to purchase but not to sell information although the profit data suggests that the use of information had no objective benefit for profit-making. This preference is attributed to risk aversion rather than to loss aversion which is the most widely-accepted explanation of the Endowment Effect. 3

amount of money that decision makers give up to acquire a commodity. The present research investigated when and why the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs. Drawing on William James’s concept of the material self, we tested a model specifying relationships among sadness, self-focus, and the amount of money that decision makers spend. Consistent with our Jamesian hypothesis, results demonstrated that the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs only when self-focus is high. That is, self-focus moderates the effect of sadness on spending. Moreover, mediational analyses revealed that, at sufficiently high levels, self-focus mediates (explains) the relationship between sadness and spending. Because the study used real commodities and real money, the results hold implications for everyday decisions, as well as implications for the development of theory. For example, economic theories of spending may benefit from incorporating psychological theories—specifically, theories of emotion and the self—into their models. A man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house... his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. (James, 1890, p. 291) Since William James’s classic work (1890), the self has been regarded as one of the most important concepts in psychology. A survey of psychology articles published between 1974 and 1993 found more than 31,000 articles that addressed the self (Ashmore & Jussim, 1997). Baumeister’s (1998) authoritative review on the self for the Handbook of Social Psychology reported that ‘‘trying to keep abreast of the research on the self is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose’ ’ (p. 681). Address correspondence to Cynthia Cryder, Carnegie Mellon University,

www.academicpress.com Beyond mere ownership: transaction demand as a moderator of the endowment effect

Because most people possess positive associations about themselves, most people prefer things that are connected to the self (e.g., the letters in one’s name). The authors refer to such preferences as implicit egotism. Ten studies assessed the role of implicit egotism in 2 major life decisions: where people choose to live and what people choose to do for a living. Studies 1–5 showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names (e.g., people named Louis are disproportionately likely to live in St. Louis). Study 6 extended this finding to birthday number preferences. People were disproportionately likely to live in cities whose names began with their birthday numbers (e.g., Two Harbors, MN). Studies 7–10 suggested that people disproportionately choose careers whose labels resemble their names (e.g., people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among dentists). Implicit egotism appears to influence major life decisions. This idea stands in sharp contrast to many models of rational choice and attests to the importance of understanding implicit beliefs. What role do people’s thoughts and feelings about themselves play in their important day-to-day decisions and behaviors? Contemporary research on the self-concept suggests many answers to this question. For example, the desire to maintain positive feelings about the self appears to influence things as diverse as whether people derogate those who criticize their governments (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1997, 1999), whether people sabotage the performance of others when playing a game (Tesser & Smith, 1981), what people find rational (Kunda, 1990), and what people find humorous (Wills, 1981). Like people’s social beliefs and behavior, people’s beliefs about themselves are also influenced by the desire to view the self favorably. Most people have mostly favorable beliefs about themselves (see Crocker & Major,

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