Research on judgment and choice has been dominated by functionalist assumptions that depict people as either intuitive scientists animated by epistemic goals or intuitive economists animated by utilitarian ones. This article identifies 3 alternative social functionalist starting points for inquiry: people as pragmatic politicians trying to cope with accountability demands from key constituencies in their lives, principled theologians trying to protect sacred values from secular encroachments, and prudent prosecutors trying to enforce social norms. Each functionalist framework stimulates middle-range theories that specify (a) cognitive–affective–behavioral strategies of coping with adaptive challenges and (b) the implications of these coping strategies for identifying empirical and normative boundary conditions on judgmental tendencies classified as errors or biases within the dominant research programs. Once an esoteric specialty of a small cadre of cognitive psychologists, experimental research on judgment and choice has—to judge just by citation counts—become psychology’s leading intellectual export to the social sciences as well as to a host of applied fields. The influence of this research program has spread (critics might say “metastasized”) into such diverse domains as

The authors propose that people adopt others ’ perspectives by serially adjusting from their own. As predicted, estimates of others ’ perceptions were consistent with one’s own but differed in a manner consistent with serial adjustment (Study 1). Participants were slower to indicate that another’s perception would be different from—rather than similar to—their own (Study 2). Egocentric biases increased under time pressure (Study 2) and decreased with accuracy incentives (Study 3). Egocentric biases also increased when participants were more inclined to accept plausible values encountered early in the adjustment process than when inclined to reject them (Study 4). Finally, adjustments tend to be insufficient, in part, because people stop adjusting once a plausible estimate is reached (Study 5). We have endeavored to show... that thought in the child is egocentric, i.e., that the child thinks for himself without troubling to make himself understood nor to place himself at the other person’s point of view.... If this be the case, we must expect childish reasoning to differ very considerably from ours, to be deductive and above all less rigorous. (Piaget, 1959, p. 1) Children view their perceptions of the world as accurate reflections

People often choose intuitive rather than equally valid nonintuitive alternatives. The authors suggest that these intuitive biases arise because intuitions often spring to mind with subjective ease, and the subjective ease leads people to hold their intuitions with high confidence. An investigation of predictions against point spreads found that people predicted intuitive options (favorites) more often than equally valid (or even more valid) nonintuitive alternatives (underdogs). Critically, though, this effect was largely determined by people’s confidence in their intuitions (intuitive confidence). Across naturalistic, expert, and laboratory samples (Studies 1–3), against personally determined point spreads (Studies 4–11), and even when intuitive confidence was manipulated by altering irrelevant aspects of the decision context (e.g., font; Studies 12 and 13), the authors found that decreasing intuitive confidence reduced or eliminated intuitive biases. These findings indicate that intuitive biases are not inevitable but rather predictably determined by contextual variables that affect intuitive confidence.

Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one’s own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators “hear” a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.

Maintaining equitable social relations often requires reciprocating “in kind ” for others ’ prosocial favors. Such “in kind ” reciprocity requires assessing the value of a prosocial action, an assessment that can lead to egocentric biases in perceived value between favor givers versus favor receivers. In any prosocial exchange, one person (the giver) incurs a cost to provide a benefit for another person (the receiver). Six experiments suggest that givers may attend more to the costs they incur in performing a prosocial act than receivers who tend to focus relatively more on the benefits they receive. Givers may therefore expect to be reciprocated on the basis of the costs they incur whereas receivers actually reciprocate primarily on the basis of the benefit they receive. This research identifies one challenge to maintaining a sense of equity in social relations, and predicts when people are likely to feel fairly versus unfairly valued in their relationships.

This paper presents a series of studies (laboratory, archival, and field) that test models of cognitive and emotional decision-making in the context of Internet auctions. We demonstrate for the first time a behavioral reversal of the classic anchoring effect, finding that lower starting prices can produce higher final sale prices. We show that this effect results from lower starting prices reducing barriers to entry into the auction, thereby increasing interest, traffic, and, in the end, higher final prices. We also show how starting price interacts with a number of different variables, and in doing so, find support for Mandler’s (1975; 1982) congruity model, an affective extension of that model, and a new model of competitive arousal (Ku, Malhotra, & Murnighan, 2003). The discussion focuses on extending our understanding of the effects of anchors from intrapersonal and dyadic to group domains, contextualizing anchors in social processes, and the need to simultaneously consider cognitive and affective influences in decision-making. Congruity, Competitive Arousal, and Anchoring Reversal 3 Starting low but ending high: Congruity, competitive arousal, and a reversal of the anchoring effect in auctions “When the competition swings into high gear, e-motion really comes into play, … In the