We found that curiosity about the outcome of a lottery was enhanced for lotteries that were freely chosen, relative to lotteries that were equally preferred but not freely chosen

Choice Boosts Curiosity. Patricia Romero Verdugo et al. Psychological Science, October 26, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221082637

Abstract: In our connected era, we spend significant time and effort satisfying our curiosity. Often, we choose which information we seek, but sometimes the selection is made for us. We hypothesized that humans exhibit enhanced curiosity in the context of choice. We designed a task in which healthy participants saw two lotteries on each trial. On some trials, participants chose which lottery to play. On other trials, the lottery was selected for them. Participants then indicated their curiosity about the outcome of the to-be-played lottery via self-report ratings (Experiment 1, N = 34) or willingness-to-wait decisions (Experiment 2, N = 34). We found that participants exhibited higher curiosity ratings and greater willingness to wait for the outcome of lotteries they had chosen than for lotteries that had been selected for them (controlling for initial preference). This demonstrates that choice boosts curiosity, which may have implications for boosting learning, memory, and motivation.

Discussion

In the current set of experiments, we assessed whether freely choosing which information to sample increased curiosity. We found that curiosity about the outcome of a lottery was enhanced for lotteries that were freely chosen, relative to lotteries that were equally preferred but not freely chosen. In the absence of choice, curiosity was higher for lotteries that were preferred than for those that were not preferred. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of expected value and outcome uncertainty of lotteries on curiosity. In line with previous findings (Charpentier et al., 2018; Kobayashi et al., 2019; van Lieshout et al., 2018), our results showed that curiosity increased as a function of both of these factors. Interestingly, the effect of choice was independent of expected value and outcome uncertainty: Choice enhanced curiosity irrespective of how valuable the outcome was expected to be and of how much information could be gained from seeing it.

Choice boosted curiosity when participants reported their curiosity levels both explicitly (Experiment 1) and implicitly, by deciding to “pay” for information with their time (i.e., willingness to wait; Experiment 2). The fact that participants not only self-reported increased curiosity but were willing to give up a valuable resource (i.e., time) to see the outcome makes it unlikely that the effects were due to any inferred experimental-demand characteristics.

Our finding that choice increased curiosity generalizes the phenomenon of choice-induced preference change, observed in studies on value-based choice (Brehm, 1956; Izuma et al., 2010; Sharot et al., 2009, 2010), to the context of information seeking: Choice might boost the value of information just as it boosts the value of chosen options. Future studies could employ pre- and postchoice neuroeconomic preference tools to establish whether choice indeed alters the subjective value assigned to information.

Regarding what mechanisms underlie this choice-related curiosity boost, one possibility is that choice enhanced curiosity via an increase in (subjective) expected value. On the basis of previous evidence that perceived control inflates the subjective value of options proportionately to their objective value (Wang & Delgado, 2019), we initially predicted that an effect of choice on curiosity mediated by an increase in subjective expected value would result in an interaction between choice and expected value, whereas we observed an additive effect. Nevertheless, it is possible that choice enhanced curiosity by increasing subjective expected value equally for all levels of objective expected value. We cannot evaluate this possibility with our current data, but it is an interesting question that could be addressed in future studies using a revealed-preference procedure to assess participants’ subjective valuations of the chosen and unchosen vases.

Another possibility is that this choice-induced increase in curiosity resulted from participants’ drive to improve the quality of their decisions (i.e., learning to make better choices). Humans might learn through lifelong exposure that information and self-evaluation are especially useful under circumstances of agency (e.g., choice has been suggested to boost prediction errors; Cockburn et al., 2014). Hence, even though in our task, choice and no choice did not differ regarding learning opportunity, choice might generally boost capacity (or willingness) to learn, having enhanced curiosity in choice versus no choice in our experiment.

Alternatively, it could be that, rather than choice enhancing curiosity, no choice reduced it. In the choice condition, participants’ preferred lottery was always selected, but it was selected only half of the time in the no-choice condition. This could have generated an aversive association between no-choice and unfavored options or outcomes, in comparison with which choice appeared to boost curiosity. In this case, we would expect the effect of choice on curiosity to have increased throughout the task, as participants learned the contingencies and developed the aversive association for the no-choice condition. Follow-up analyses suggest that the effect of choice on curiosity was stable throughout the task (see the Supplemental Material), rendering this explanation unlikely. It remains possible that participants exhibited an aversion toward the no-choice condition right from the start. Further investigation is needed to assess to what extent choice increases curiosity and no-choice decreases it, for instance in a between-subjects experiment, in which one group performs the current task (choice vs. no choice) and another a no-choice task (otherwise matched).

An intriguing question for future work pertains to the neural mechanisms underlying the effect of the choice-related curiosity boost. Given the link between midbrain dopamine neuronal firing and information-prediction errors (Bromberg-Martin & Hikosaka, 2011), it is plausible that the mechanism suggested to underlie choice-induced preference change, involving feedback projections from the striatum to the midbrain (Cockburn et al., 2014), could also account for choice-induced increases in curiosity.

In addition, the noradrenaline system might play a role, given its implication in modulating arousal, which is likely enhanced in conditions of increased autonomy (Howells et al., 2010; Sara & Bouret, 2012; Varazzani et al., 2015). A role for noradrenaline in information seeking is also supported by recent evidence suggesting pharmacological blockade of noradrenergic-receptor stimulation with propranolol, decreased information gathering in a task in which participants uncovered cards until they felt confident to guess a predominant feature (Hauser et al., 2018). Hence, the increased autonomy experienced under choice in our task may have further implicated the noradrenergic system, boosting participants’ information-seeking drive.

Preference enhanced curiosity. In other words, for lotteries selected without participants having a choice, they were more curious about lotteries that they preferred than those they did not, suggesting that preference itself boosts the perceived value of information. Alternatively, it is possible that the mechanism underlying the effect of preference on curiosity was akin to that of choice, given that in our experiments, participants had to provide a preference indication (i.e., engaging in a comparison process, making a decision, and executing a response), which they might have experienced as a kind of choice.

Curiosity increased as a function of expected value. In other words, the more positive participants expected the information to be, the more curious they were. This aligns with previous findings that humans prefer information about future desirable outcomes over information about undesirable outcomes (Kobayashi et al., 2019) and are willing to pay for the positive information (Charpentier et al., 2018). This effect of expected value was more marked than in previous studies with a similar paradigm but without the valuation and choice phases (van Lieshout, de Lange, & Cools, 2021; van Lieshout et al., 2018; van Lieshout, Traast, et al., 2021). Unlike in the previous studies, participants in the current study were instructed to make a value-based comparison between pairs of lotteries to indicate their preferred option and to make a selection. These task features likely increased the salience of the expected value of the lotteries. Other characteristics of the task might have boosted participants’ attention and/or engagement further, including the longer duration of the lottery presentation (up to 11 s, vs. 3 s in previous studies) as well as the fact that participants got to continue with their preferred lotteries in the majority of trials (75%), whereas in previous studies, participants did not have a choice between lotteries. Surprisingly, we found that in lotteries with higher expected value, the effect of preference on implicit curiosity diminished. One possible explanation is that this higher expected value became more salient than other features of the trial, driving participants to focus their attention on the points they could win and less so on whether their preferred lottery was selected. Nevertheless, it is not clear to us why this would be the case when curiosity was assessed implicitly but not explicitly.

Our findings are in line with recent evidence that autonomy boosts curiosity: Participants who watched a video of their choice (from a given set) self-reported higher interest in the topic than those who watched a video without a choice (Schutte & Malouff, 2019), and participants bid larger amounts for lotteries they chose than those they had not chosen (Jiwa et al., 2021). However, in these recent studies, autonomy was confounded with preference. In the earlier study (Schutte & Malouff, 2019), the researchers did not consider participants’ preferences when assigning the options. This resulted in participants in the choice condition likely choosing their preferred option, and participants in the no-choice condition likely receiving their not-preferred option (with a probability of .66 because there were three options). In the more recent study (Jiwa et al., 2021), participants always made a choice, but half of the times, their choice was vetoed (resulting in a loss of agency). In agency trials, participants always received their chosen (presumably preferred) option, whereas in no-agency trials, they always received an unchosen (presumably not preferred) option. These designs did not enable dissociation between preference and choice; hence, the supposed effect of choice on curiosity also included a (confounded) effect of preference. Our study goes beyond these previous efforts by quantifying the effects of choice and preference separately, by demonstrating that these two factors boost curiosity independently, and by reporting these effects using both explicit (ratings) and implicit (willingness-to-wait) measures of curiosity.

Our paradigm enabled us to manipulate choice, outcome uncertainty, and expected value in a quantitative and controlled fashion, allowing us to draw inferences independently of extraneous variables. Although other paradigms relate more closely to real-world situations (e.g., trivia paradigms; Kang et al., 2009; Ligneul et al., 2018), these more naturalistic paradigms pose more difficulty in deconfounding factors of no interest, such as participants’ real-life knowledge and interests. Nevertheless, it would be important for future research to broaden the scope of application by, for instance, combining performance on this task with tracking sampling of real-life information (e.g., browsing news sites).

Furthermore, curiosity (Gruber et al., 2014; Kang et al., 2009; Kidd & Hayden, 2015) and choice (Cockburn et al., 2014; Murty et al., 2015) have both been shown to boost learning and memory, implicating couplings between reward-related areas (i.e., ventral striatum) and the hippocampus. However, the exact nature of the link between curiosity and choice in boosting memory remains unknown, an interesting question being whether enhanced memory for chosen items is mediated by increased curiosity. One step in that direction would be to introduce a curiosity assessment in paradigms that manipulate autonomy in learning—for example, memory for novel associations (Murty et al., 2015) or about stories and pseudoinformation—connecting these so far independently studied effects. Our findings may open the way for future work aimed at linking autonomy with curiosity and dopamine or noradrenaline as well as further investigating the nature of the relationship between choice, curiosity, learning, and memory.

Less than one in five people have actually ever acted on their favorite or most-recurring sexual fantasy

Sexual Fantasy Research: A Contemporary Review. Justin J. Lehmiller, Aki M.Gormezano. Current Opinion in Psychology, October 25 2022, 101496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101496

Abstract: Understanding sexual fantasies is central to understanding human sexuality. The current review synthesizes recent trends and findings in sexual fantasy research and points to several important conclusions. First, few sexual fantasies appear to be statistically unusual or rare. Second, while the bulk of sexual fantasy research to date has focused on young, cisgender, heterosexual adults in North America, studies that have accounted for diversity (e.g., LGBTQ+ inclusion, cross-cultural work) reveal multiple similarities in sexual fantasy content, but also several notable differences. Third, what people fantasize about is not necessarily synonymous with what they are interested in or do in-person. Limitations and directions for future research on sexual fantasy are discussed.

While making inferences about the future, most of us intuitively discount outlying values in a sample, treating the data as a Gaussian distribution

How people deal with …............................ outliers. Jennifer E. Dannals,Daniel M. Oppenheimer. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, October 23 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2303

Abstract: People regularly make sense of distributions that are complicated by noise. How do individuals determine whether an outlying observation should be incorporated into one's understanding of the true distribution of the population or considered a fluke that ought to be disregarded? In a simple prediction task, we examine how individuals incorporate outliers and compare their behavior to various prescriptive models (e.g., averaging and tests of discordancy). We find that, on average, individuals do discount outlying values and that their outlier detection strategies approximate approaches that statisticians have recommended for Gaussian distributions, even when the observed distributions are not Gaussian. However, there are notable differences in treatment of outliers across individuals.

The proportion of lone shoppers was higher in a used versus a regular bookstore, lone individuals were more likely to select a used over a new product, people without a date on Valentine’s Day expressed stronger preference for used products

Feeling Lonely Increases Interest in Previously Owned Products. Feifei Huang and Ayelet Fishbach. Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 58, Issue 5, Jun 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211030685

Abstract: Consumption of used products has the potential to symbolically connect present and previous users of these products, something that may appeal to lonely consumers. Accordingly, across seven studies, feeling lonely increased consumers’ preference for previously owned products. Specifically, the authors found that the proportion of lone shoppers was higher in a used versus a regular bookstore, lone individuals (vs. those sitting in pairs) were more likely to select a used over a new product, people without (vs. with) a date on Valentine’s Day expressed stronger preference for used products, and individual differences in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic predicted interest in used products. Other studies documented that the desire to symbolically connect underlies the effect of loneliness on consumption. At a time when loneliness is on the rise, the authors discuss implications for the marketing of used products and how loneliness might motivate consumers to reduce waste.

Overall, mental effort felt aversive in different tasks, in different populations, and on different continents; paradoxically, some also love chess or brain teasers

David, Louise, Eliana Vassena, and Erik Bijleveld. 2022. “The Aversiveness of Mental Effort: A Meta-analysis.” PsyArXiv. October 25. psyarxiv.com/m8zf6

Abstract: Influential theories in psychology, neuroscience, and economics assume that the exertion of mental effort should feel aversive. Yet, this assumption is usually untested, and it is challenged by casual observations and previous studies. Here we test (a) whether mental effort is generally experienced as aversive and (b) whether the association between mental effort and aversive feelings depends on population and task characteristics. We meta-analyzed a set of studies (358 tasks, 4670 people) that assessed perceived mental effort and negative affect. As expected, we found a strong positive association between mental effort and negative affect. Surprisingly, just one of our 15 moderators had a significant effect (effort felt somewhat less aversive in studies from Asia vs. Europe and North America). Overall, mental effort felt aversive in different tasks, in different populations, and on different continents. Supporting theories that conceptualize effort as a cost, we suggest that mental effort is inherently aversive.

Mistakenly, respondents from the online sample believed that people on parole would be much more likely to deceive than their counterparts

The public’s overestimation of immorality of formerly incarcerated people. Sarah Kuehn & Joachim Vosgerau. Journal of Experimental Criminology, Oct 22 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11292-022-09534-w

Abstract

Objectives: This study tests if the public overestimates the immoral behavior of formerly incarcerated people.

Methods: In a benchmark study with people on parole and people without a criminal record, participants played a game that allowed them to deceive their counterparts in order to make more money. A subsequent prediction study asked an online US-nationally representative sample to estimate how both groups played the game. By comparing the estimated likelihoods to the observed likelihoods of deception we examine if people correctly assess the deception rates of both groups.

Results: Both groups showed an equal propensity to deceive. In contrast, respondents from the online sample believed that people on parole would be much more likely to deceive than their counterparts.

Conclusions: The results suggest that the public holds stigmatizing attitudes towards formerly incarcerated people, which can be a detriment to successful reentry into their communities.

The Temporal Doppler Effect (the subjective perception that the past is further away than the future) couldn't be replicated; in some cases, the correlations were significant in the opposite direction

Is the past farther than the future? A registered replication and test of the time-expansion hypothesis based on the filling rate of duration. Qinjing Zhang et al. Cortex, October 23 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2022.10.005

Abstract: Caruso et al. (2013) reported the Temporal Doppler Effect (TDE), in which people feel that the past is farther than the future. In this study, we made two high-power (N = 2244 in total), direct replication studies of Caruso et al., and additionally examined whether illusory temporal expansion, depending on the degree of fulfillment in durations, is related to the TDE. We predicted that the past would be felt farther than the future because the filling rate of duration of the past should be higher than that of the future. The results showed that psychological distance was significantly closer in the past than in the future and was inconsistently correlated with the filling rate of duration or the number and length of events and errands. Further, in some cases, the correlations were significant in the opposite direction of the predictions. Overall, our results did not replicate the previous findings but were reversed, and the filling rate of duration failed to explain the psychological distance. Based on these findings, we highlight the aspects that need to be clarified in future TDE studies.

Keywords: Temporal Doppler Effectfilling rate of durationpsychological distancefilled-duration illusion

6. General Discussion

This is a registered report per the Caruso et al.’s (2013) Studies 1a and 1b, which aimed to examine differences in psychological distance underlying past and future conditions (TDE) and to investigate the relationship between psychological distance and the filling rate of duration inspired by FDI studies in time perception. In our Study 1, the results showed that the past felt closer than the future, which is the opposite of H1, and suggested a failure to replicate the Caruso et al.’s (2013) Study 1a. We also examined whether the TDE could be explained by the filling rate of duration. The results indicated that the filling rate of duration was higher in the past than in the future, as predicted. The correlation between psychological distance and the length of errands and events was significantly positive, however, no significant correlation between psychological distance and the filling rate of duration, the number of errands and events were observed. In other words, our hypothesis that the filling rate of duration was higher in the past than in the future and had an effect on the TDE was not supported as a whole.

Next, in our Study 2, in which the time scale was changed from 1 month to 1 year, the results also indicated that the past felt closer than the future. It showed an opposite direction from H1 and suggested that the Caruso et al.’s (2013) Study 1b was not replicated. We then examined whether the TDE could be explained by the filling rate of duration. In H2-1, the filling rate of duration was higher in the past than in the future. In H2-2, there was a significant negative correlation between psychological distance and the filling rate of duration. In other words, our hypothesis that the filling rate of duration was higher in the past than in the future and that this had an effect on the TDE was not supported as a whole.

One of the aims of this study was to contribute to the robustness and transparency of the TDE research using the Registered Reports system. Although approximately 1000 people participated in Studies 1 and 2 to increase statistical power of the test, the TDE was not replicated (rather, our results were the opposite of the original research).

Investigating what contributed to these discrepancies in the results between the studies would be beneficial in forming a better understanding of the TDE. Indeed, there are several differences in the research methodology between Caruso et al. (2013) and our study: (i) our experiment used crowdsourcing services rather than face-to-face methods; (ii) the instructions and questionnaires were written in Japanese, and only Japanese people participated in the experiment; and (iii) the experiment was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the following section, we discuss these differences and how they influence the replication of the TDE.

First, unlike the previous study, we used crowdsourcing to recruit participants. Previous studies show that even for demanding cognitive and perceptual experiments, web experiments do not reduce data quality (Germine et al., 2012). Therefore, it is unlikely that the crowdsourced web experiment, especially with the present less demanding task compared with perceptual experiments, caused any significant deterioration in measurement accuracy or failed to detect any true effects that should have existed. In addition, we excluded data from participants who did not respond properly to the ACQ to ensure the quality of our data. These points led us to consider that the difference in the experimental platform did not play a major role in the present failure to replicate Caruso et al. (2013).

Second, several linguistic and cultural differences exist. In Japanese, the past is sometimes expressed as “mae (前)” which means “before” as an expression of time, while it also means “front” referring to a spatial direction, and the future as “ato (後)” which means both “after” and “back.” This suggests that the spatio-temporal metaphors in Japanese and English may be reversed. This reversal in the spatio-temporal metaphors may have led to the different results on the TDE between the previous and present studies. It should be noted that even if the spatio-temporal metaphors are reversed between Japanese and English speakers, it does not affect the original explanation of the TDE that the future approaches the present and the past moves away from it. This is because the mechanism proposed by Caruso et al. (2013), as an analogy to the Doppler effect in physics, focuses on temporal distance, that is, whether the past or future approaches or moves away from the present on the temporal dimension. In their explanation, the movement on the psychological temporal dimension is critical, regardless of the spatial metaphor unique to Japanese. Therefore, the TDE mechanism proposed by Caruso et al. cannot explain our results from the Japanese sample. Nevertheless, cross-cultural comparative studies focusing more on this point are warranted since the contributions of language and culture to the TDE, or possibly the mental timeline (Starr & Srinivasan, 2021), are important for clarifying its cognitive mechanism and generalizability.

In terms of conducting the experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic, the tendency to think about the past rather than the uncertain future may have strengthened, which may have led to an opposite result to that of Caruso et al. (2013). Previous findings showing that the tendency to think about the past, such as nostalgia, increases when psychological threat and loneliness are high, can suggest this possibility (Routledge et al., 2013; Wildschut et al., 2006, 2010). Indeed, the findings of this study that the filling rate of duration is higher in the past than in the future seem to be part of the tendency that the phenomenon of thinking more about the past rather than the uncertain future was strengthened during the COVID-19. However, since these results are not a direct indicator of the aforementioned time orientation, and this study was the first to report on the TDE during the pandemic, this influence cannot be concluded. It should be discussed from the integrated view of this study and subsequent studies that examine the TDE during the pandemic. It should also be noted that a comparison with previous studies examining the TDE before the pandemic is necessary in such cases.

Thus, more evidence is needed to determine whether the methodological and contextual differences between our study and Caruso et al. (2013) influence the TDE, as well as to understand the underlying mechanism. Moreover, the mechanism of the TDE needs to be discussed according to the differences mentioned above. This study attempts to explain the TDE based on the filling rate of duration. Although the filling rate of duration was higher in the past than in the future, as we predicted, the correlation with psychological distance was extremely weak in Study 1, and contrary to our prediction, a negative correlation was observed in Study 2. These results suggest that it is not appropriate to explain the TDE based on the filling rate of duration. However, this mechanism-oriented approach is crucial in itself, and rather than just examining whether the phenomenon is related to some factors, as in previous TDE studies, future TDE studies should focus more on the underlying cognitive mechanism. Importantly, this requires the TDE to be replicated robustly. Moreover, because there is a possibility that the TDE may not be replicated, as in our study, it is appropriate to conduct the study as a registered report to prevent publication bias.

In the present study, the TDE was not replicated as already known (although there are several possible influences) and the mechanism remains unclear. Given the sample size, the TDE does not appear to be a robust and culturally universal phenomenon, and there still seems to be room for reconsideration of this phenomenon and its mechanism.

People would rather spend time with rich individuals who acquired their wealth through hard work than with a lottery winner, presumably because of their perceived differences in valence & competence

Cues of wealth and the subjective perception of rich people. Robin Rinn, Jonas Ludwig, Pauline Fassler & Roland Deutsch. Current Psychology, Oct 22 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-022-03763-y

Abstract: These pre-registered studies shed light on the cues that individuals use to identify rich people. In two studies (N = 598), we first developed a factor-analytical model that describes the content and the mental structure of 24 wealth cues. A third within-subject study (N = 89) then assessed the perception of rich subgroups based on this model of wealth cues. Participants evaluated the extent to which the wealth cues applied to two distinct subgroups of rich people. The results show: German and US-American participants think that one can identify rich people based on the same set of cues which can be grouped along the following dimensions: luxury consumption, expensive hobbies, spontaneous spending, greedy behavior, charismatic behavior, self-presentation, and specific possessions. However, Germans and US-Americans relied on these cues to different degrees to diagnose wealth in others. Moreover, we found evidence for subgroup-specific wealth cue profiles insofar as target individuals who acquired their wealth via internal (e.g., hard work) compared to external means (e.g., lottery winners) were evaluated differently on these wealth cues, presumably because of their perceived differences in valence and competence. Together, this research provides new insights in the cognitive representation of the latent construct of wealth. Practical implications for research on the perception of affluence, and implications for political decision makers, are discussed in the last section.

General discussion

We examined the content and the structure of wealth cues, which are a part of the rich stereotype. So far, research has either asked participants to reproduce stereotypes about the rich without focusing on visible cues (e.g., Ragusa, 2015) or made a pre-selection of wealth cues (e.g., Bertram-Hümmer et al., 2015). But it remained unclear if these approaches appropriately reflect the full range of wealth cues and how these cues can be structured to aptly describe the mental representation of the latent wealth construct. Our work addressed this gap in the literature. We systematically studied wealth cues generated by participants through free association, rather than predefined attributes that qualify a person as rich. Our studies thereby added important novel insights to our understanding of the range of attributes taken to indicate wealth, and how these wealth cues are organized to form one complex cognitive representation of the social category of the rich.

First, regarding the content, the present research revealed subjective wealth cues that were rarely studied so far. To our knowledge, there are no studies that examined the role of charismatic behavior and only few that examined greedy behavior in the subjective perception of wealth in other people. One reason might be that traits in general are hard to observe and to operationalize. Greedy behavior might be overlooked, possibly because stereotypes about the rich are mainly positive (Christopher & Schlenker, 2000; Ragusa, 2015). Furthermore, we are also not aware of any study that examined the role of wasteful behavior in rich people, as indicated by the spontaneous spending dimension. Although there is one recent study that developed a ‘spending implies wealth belief scale’ (Kappes et al., 2021), our spontaneous spending dimension is more differentiated as it contains three sub-dimensions that are more specific about what individuals shall spend their money on to be identifiable as rich. Thus, contrary to earlier studies (e.g., Bertram-Hümmer & Baliki, 2015; Kappes et al., 2021; Ragusa, 2015), our research provides a validated model of various wealth cues.

Our wealth cue model also shows some parallels with earlier research regarding the content. We confirmed the prior findings that rich people are recognized by specific possessions (e.g., Bertram Hümmer et al., 2015; Ragusa, 2015). Moreover, we observed that individuals ascribed a high spending willingness (luxury consumption, expensive hobbies) to the rich, which is somewhat in line with what Maaravi and Hameiri (2019) have found in their examination of the influence of wealth cues (e.g., cars) on first offers in business negotiations. Based on their findings that wealth cues go along with high first offers, it may be concluded that individuals believe that rich people are more willing to spend than people who do not show such cues. In addition, our results further showed that rich people are also thought to have different looks because they present themselves with different symbols compared to people who are not rich (Gillath et al., 2012). And although some wealth cue dimensions do not appear to be new, or intuitively surprising, the present results allow a broader understanding of their meaning (i.e., their content) and yield possible operationalizations of the wealth cue dimensions.

Regarding the structure, our wealth cue model indicates that wealth cues cluster around latent dimensions just like stereotypes of the rich and other subgroups of the society do (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011; Ragusa, 2015). Furthermore, the results indicate an overall latent factor that may reflect how individuals imagine how a rich person looks like. This is in line with the assumption that several directly observable cues combined serve as a lens through which it is possible to infer an underlying latent construct of wealth (Asendorpf, 2018; Brunswik, 1956). Notably however, results from a factorial invariance analysis show that although the structure of wealth cues is similar for participants in Germany and the USA, it seems that the abstract concept of what is typical for a rich person differs in both countries. We speculate that the different wealth concepts stem from different observations of conspicuous consumption behavior of rich people in Germany and the USA.

Regarding the wealth cue profiles, we found that some wealth cues are more indicative for people who acquired their wealth via internal compared to external means than other wealth cues. So far, studies that examined these subgroups of the rich (e.g., Sussman et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2018) have only investigated the likeability of those rich groups (Sussman et al., 2014), for example with the use of stereotypes from the stereotype content model (Sarkar et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2018). In contrast to this, Study 3 revealed that people relate specific behaviors and use different wealth cues to identify these rich subgroups, because the subgroups are seen as differently competent and likeable. The results revealed that wealth cues can be distinguished in their perceived valence and competence which shows that the developed wealth cues have a good predictive validity.

Limitations

The wealth cues that were generated in the Pilot Study stem from students and two experts in this research area. It is thereby possible that there could be further relevant wealth cues that were not covered through our sample and could in the future be included by asking participants from other classes of society. Moreover, our research is likely to be subject to cultural dependency (Bonn et al., 1999) because wealth cues might differ across cultures (especially within the ‘possessions’ domain), meaning that depending on the cultural background, different cues are believed to indicate that a person is rich. Furthermore, this study relied on semantic descriptions of participants and what cues they use to identify rich people. Research has shown that individuals, however, can identify affluence based on non-verbal cues that did not show up in the verbal descriptions of the participants (such as positive affect, Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2017). Thus, it seems that there are cues that are hard to verbalize but that still are used to identify the rich.

Directions for future research

Our studies provide a broader understanding of the content and the structure of wealth cues. Future research might examine whether the wealth cues that we identified here are ecologically valid cues of rich people. Brunswik’s (1956) lens model might be a framework for such research. Furthermore, we found that although the wealth cue structure was similar among two countries that share a similar living standard, there were systematic differences regarding the relative importance of individual cues. This prompts further cross-cultural research regarding the perception of wealthy people.

Furthermore, Maaravi and Hameiri (2019) showed that individuals received higher first offers in business negotiations when they were perceived being rich. Given the insights from our studies, there is now a set of cues that are related to rich people that goes beyond money and single indicators of wealth (or status), such as cars or leather-bound books. It may be an interesting avenue for future research to experimentally manipulate these wealth cues to check which of them are most important for certain behaviors related to wealthy people.

Implications

The findings of our studies are relevant for theories on the perception of wealth since they suggest that wealth cues are not ‘absolute’. That is, people differ to some extent regarding what wealth cues they deem to be indicative of richness (see e.g., the results of the pilot study), the country of origin seems to make a difference in what kind of wealth cue concept people have in mind, and wealth cues differ depending on what subgroups of rich people individuals think of. Thus, the stereotype activation and the subsequent judgement of others is not only subject to visible cues but also the context in which these cues are presented (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000).

The findings of our studies are also of practical relevance. One major implication for individuals working as legal decision makers (e.g., political decision makers or judges) is the following: Earlier research has shown that wealth triggers social expectations (e.g., Götte, 2015). Since wealth cues might be used to categorize someone being rich, individuals who display such cues are admired by others as they are also perceived as competent (Wu et al., 2018) and assumed to have desirable personality traits (Christopher & Schlenker, 2000; Leckelt et al., 2019) that lead to great social advantages. A recent paper for example, reports on a court case in the USA which involved two comparable crimes (two juveniles who drove drunk and killed pedestrians) (Weiner & Laurent, 2021). One of the two cases was committed by a poor person and the other was committed by a rich person. In both cases, the attorneys used the same defense strategy. Notably, however, the rich defendant was sentenced to only 10 years’ probation whereas the poor defendant was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. It seems as if the presence (or absence) of wealth cues leads to certain decisions that are at risk to turn out to be unfair probably because judges ascribe more positive personality traits to rich individuals than to poorer ones. We therefore recommend that individuals who work in legal decision-making contexts should be aware of the existence of such social class stereotypes and try to counteract against them to not be at risk to make unfair decisions.

For researchers who aim to examine the perception of wealthy people, the model that we developed indicates what cues individuals use to identify rich people. Thus, there is now a set of replicated wealth cues that might help to categorize earlier research. Furthermore, these wealth cues might serve as dependent variables in future studies like we used them in our Study 3, or to measure perceived wealth without directly asking individuals how much money this person earns or how rich they are.

There are also implications for the legislative branch. As outlined above, there is no uniform definition of wealth and research demonstrates that individuals form their impression of wealth and probably wealth cues based on other people around them (Galesic et al., 2018). Thus, debates (e.g., about whom to tax) are prone to be influenced by individuals with whom a person interacts on a regular basis and not by uniform definitions. When addressing, for instance, tax or social security reform, legislators should clearly define who the rich are before they start to talk about them. Otherwise, it is likely that they disadvantage certain social classes because they base their reasoning on their own experiences or on wealth cues that might be perceived differently depending on one’s own social standing.

The negative consequences of apology gifts — Are evaluated more negatively than no or gift label, & are accepted and appreciated less, and regifted more than regular gifts

Don't tell me you are sorry with a gift: The negative consequences of apology gifts. Ilona E. De Hooge, Laura M. Straeter. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Volume 70, January 2023, 103144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.103144

Highlights

• Products given to apologize have different effects compared to regular gifts.

• Products with an apology label are evaluated more negatively than no or gift label.

• Apology gifts are accepted and appreciated less, and regifted more than regular gifts.

• These effects occur because apology gifts act as negative reminders.

• The findings suggest retailers to be careful with presenting products as apology gifts.

Abstract: While products are regularly presented as gifts to apologize, little is known about the effect of an apology context on product evaluations and relationships. Past research suggests that recipients positively evaluate gifts. Instead, our five studies reveal that, when recipients receive an apology gift, they evaluate the gift and the giver-recipient relationship more negatively compared to regular products, to receiving regular gifts, or towards verbal apologies. This occurs because apology gifts remind the recipient of transgressions, and signal misunderstandings of recipients’ emotions. These findings highlight the importance of the gift-giving context when promoting products as gifts.

Keywords: Gift givingApologyProduct evaluationRelationshipsMotives

8. General discussion

Usually, presenting product as gifts may positively affect product evaluations (Baumann & Hamin, 2014; Park & Yi, 2022). We demonstrate, however, that presenting products as apology gifts can negatively affect product evaluations and giver-recipient relationships. Moreover, products received as apology gifts are less accepted, and more often regifted. These negative effects occur because products given as apology gifts can act as transgression reminders, and can signal that givers misunderstand recipients’ emotions. Together, these findings suggest that giving a gift to apologize, or presenting products as gifts, may not be so beneficial after all.

8.1. Implications

Our findings reveal that the gift-giving setting in which products are presented as gifts are relevant to bear in mind. Recently, some authors have suggested that it can be valuable to include emotional aspects in retail and consumer research (Souiden et al., 2019). The current findings suggest that negative emotions or experiences, which may be unrelated to products, may still affect the product evaluation process. It may be possible that other emotional experiences that are unrelated to products, such as pride experiences after consumers have achieved something or sadness after consumers have lost something valuable, may affect their responses to products. Similarly, other gift-giving contexts or product-labels that relate to emotional experiences, such as get-well-soon gifts, farewell gifts, or consolation prizes, may also exert effects on product evaluations. Uncovering the effects of emotional experiences, gift-giving contexts, and product labels would help build a more nuanced understanding of the effects of emotional experiences on product evaluations.

The present findings also provide new insights for consumer research on gift-giving. Research has shown that emotions may affect the selection of gifts (De Hooge, 2014), and that emotions may be generated during gift receipt (Gupta et al., 2020; Ruth et al., 1999). The current research extends these findings by showing that emotional experiences prior to the gift-giving act may affect recipient responses to gifts. Moreover, while most research suggests that gift-giving has positive consequences for both product evaluations and relationships, we are one of the first to suggest that some gift-giving settings may negatively impact product evaluations and relationships. It may thus be valuable to examine whether the dynamics of other emotional gift-giving settings also negatively affect product evaluations.

The current research also adds to existing apology research. In general, apologies are perceived positively, both in interpersonal settings and in retail or service contexts (e.g., Exline et al., 2007; Honora et al., 2022; Kaleta & Mroz, 2021). Yet, apologies may have negative consequences. Recent research has shown that, in retail contexts where retailers have restricted customers, providing an apology for the restriction may generate more negative responses from customers (Luo et al., 2021). In a similar vein, we show that, although the intention may be positive, giving a gift as an apology may negatively affect customer responses. Future research proposes that retail and consumer contexts apologies may have positive versus negative effects on consumer responses.

8.2. Limitations and future research

As current studies provide evidence supporting that apology gifts can have negative consequences, there are still limitations. Gift-giving usually occurs in a complex, dynamic setting, in which the giver-recipient relationship, the gift-giving reason, and the product type presented all interact. Our research aims to examine a varied sample of gift-giving situations, which develops an idea of how apology gifts affect product evaluations and relationships. Yet, as a consequence, every study contains specific weaknesses. For example, one may wonder whether DVDs are ever actually regifted. Also, none of the studies may fully capture the interactions between giver identities, recipient identities, giver-recipient relationships, the gift-giving reason, and gift aspects. Therefore, the current studies may not capture the full scope of how apology gifts influence consumer responses.

Moreover, the current research did not provide a full mediation explanation for the effect, nor a clear overview of the relevance of individual characteristics of consumers. Our results reveal that apology gifts act as negative reminders, and as signals that givers misunderstand recipients’ emotions. The findings also show that an inadequate compensation for the hurt caused, and an obligation to reciprocate the gift do not explain the effects of apology gifts on product evaluations. We have learned that materialism does not moderate the effects of apology gifts, but other individual characteristics may matter. Additionally, our studies focused on transgressions including some emotional damage, but apology gifts may support transgressions with mostly material damage, or those which concern more experiential gifts. These could all form fruitful paths for future research.

8.3. Conclusion

Together, our findings shed light on how presenting products in a gift-giving context or with a special motive, such as to apologize for transgressions, can have negative consequences for product evaluations and for relationships. Apparently, presumably good intentions, such as making a costly apology, can tarnish recipients' views of products and relationships. Similarly, retailers’ good intentions to support apology gift giving, may negatively affect consumer responses towards their products. It may thus be wise for givers to find alternative apologizing tactics, and for retailers to rethink promoting their products as apology gifts.