Addressing many social challenges requires both structural and behavioral change. The binary of an i- and s-frame obscures how behavioral science can help foster bottom-up collective action. Adopting a community-frame perspective moves toward a more integrative view of how social change emerges, and how it might be promoted by policymakers and publics in service of addressing challenges like climate change.

Individual differences in decision making are a topic of longstanding interest, but often yield inconsistent and contradictory results. After providing an overview of individual difference measures that have commonly been used in judgment and decision-making (JDM) research, we suggest that our understanding of individual difference effects in JDM may be improved by amending our approach to studying them. We propose four recommendations for improving the pursuit of individual differences in JDM research: a more systematic approach; more theory-driven selection of measures; a reduced emphasis on main effects in favor of interactions between individual differences and decision features, situational factors, and other individual differences; and more extensive communication of results (whether significant or null, published or unpublished). As a first step, we offer our database—the Decision Making Individual Differences Inventory (DMIDI; http://html://www.sjdm.org/dmidi), a free, public resource that categorizes and describes the most common individual difference measures used in JDM research.

We examine a Query Theory account of risky choice framing effects — when risky choices are framed as a gain, people are generally risky averse but, when an equivalent choice is framed as a loss, people are risk seeking. Consistent with Query Theory, frames affected the structure of participants’ arguments: gain frame participants listed arguments favoring the certain option earlier and more often than loss frame participants. These argumentative shifts mediated framing effects; manipulating participants initial arguments attenuated them. While emotions, as measured by PANAS, were related to frames but not related to choices, an exploratory text analysis of the affective valence of arguments was related to both. Compared to loss-frame participants, gain-frame participants expressed more positive sentiment towards the certain option than the risky option. This relative-sentiment index predicted choices by itself but not when included with structure of arguments. Further, manipulated initial arguments did not significantly affect participant’s relative sentiment. Prior to changing choices, risky choice frames alter both the structure and emotional valence of participants’ internal arguments.

In two studies, time preferences for financial gains and losses at delays of up to 50 years were elicited using three different methods: matching, fixed-sequence choice titration, and a dynamic “staircase” choice method. Matching was found to create fewer demand characteristics and to produce better fits with the hyperbolic model of discounting. The choice-based measures better predicted real-world outcomes such as smoking and payment of credit card debt. No consistent advantages were found for the dynamic staircase method over fixed-sequence titration.

Studying group decision-making is challenging for multiple reasons. An important logistic difficulty is studying a sufficiently large number of groups, each with multiple participants. Assembling groups online could make this process easier and also provide access to group members more representative of real-world work groups than the sample of college students that typically comprise lab Face-to-Face (FtF) groups. The main goal of this paper is to compare the decisions of online groups to those of FtF groups. We did so in a study that manipulated gain/loss framing of a risky decision between groups and examined the decisions of both individual group members and groups. All of these dependent measures are compared for an online and an FtF sample. Our results suggest that web-conferencing can be a substitute for FtF interaction in group decision-making research, as we found no moderation effects of communication medium on individual or group decision outcome variables. The effects of medium that were found suggest that the use of online groups may be the preferred method for group research. To wit, discussions among the online groups were shorter, but generated a greater number of thought units, i.e., they made more efficient use of time.

Failures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by adopting policies, technologies, and lifestyle changes have led the world to the brink of crisis, or likely beyond. Here we use Internet surveys to attempt to understand these failures by studying factors that affect the adoption of personal energy conservation behaviors and also endorsement of energy conservation goals proposed for others. We demonstrate an asymmetry between goals for self and others (“I’ll do the easy thing, you do the hard thing”), but we show that this asymmetry is partly produced by actor/observer differences: people know what they do already (and generally do not propose those actions as personal goals) and also know their own situational constraints that are barriers to action. We also show, however, that endorsement of conservation goals decreases steeply as a function of perceived difficulty; this suggests a role for motivated cognition as a barrier to conservation: difficult things are perceived as less applicable to one’s situation.

This paper proposes a revised version of the original Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale developed by Weber, Blais, and Betz (2002) that is shorter and applicable to a {broader range of ages, cultures, and educational levels}. It also provides a French translation of the revised scale. Using multilevel modeling, we investigated the risk-return relationship between apparent risk taking and risk perception in 5 risk domains. The results replicate previously noted differences in reported degree of risk taking and risk perception at the mean level of analysis. The multilevel modeling shows, more interestingly, that within-participants variation in risk taking across the 5 content domains of the scale was about 7 times as large as between-participants variation. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of the person-situation debate related to risk attitude as a stable trait.

Interventions to increase cooperation in social dilemmas depend on understanding decision makers’ motivations for cooperation or defection. We examined these in five real-world social dilemmas: situations where private interests are at odds with collective ones. An online survey (N = 929) asked respondents whether or not they cooperated in each social dilemma and then elicited both open-ended reports of reasons for their choices and endorsements of a provided list of reasons. The dilemmas chosen were ones that permit individual action rather than voting or advocacy: (1) conserving energy, (2) donating blood, (3) getting a flu vaccination, (4) donating to National Public Radio (NPR), and (5) buying green electricity. Self-reported cooperation is weakly but positively correlated across these dilemmas. Cooperation in each dilemma correlates fairly strongly with self-reported altruism and with punitive attitudes toward defectors. Some strong domain-specific behaviors and beliefs also correlate with cooperation. The strongest example is frequency of listening to NPR, which predicts donation. Socio-demographic variables relate only weakly to cooperation. Respondents who self-report cooperation usually cite social reasons (including reciprocity) for their choice. Defectors often give self-interest reasons but there are also some domain-specific reasons—some report that they are not eligible to donate blood; some cannot buy green electricity because they do not pay their own electric bills. Cooperators generally report that several of the provided reasons match their actual reasons fairly well, but most defectors endorse none or at most one of the provided reasons for defection. In particular, defectors often view cooperation as costly but do not endorse free riding as a reason for defection. We tentatively conclude that cooperation in these settings is based mostly on pro-social norms and defection on a mixture of self-interest and the possibly motivated perception that situational circumstances prevent cooperation in the given situation.

Morally challenging decisions tend to be perceived as difficult by decision makers and often lead to post-decisional worry or regret. To test potential causes of these consequences, we employed realistic, morally challenging scenarios with two conflicting choice options. In addition to respondents’ choices, we collected various ratings of choice options, decision-modes employed, as well as physiological arousal, assessed via skin conductance. Not surprisingly, option ratings predicted choice, such that the more positively rated option was chosen. However, respondents’ self-reported decision modes also independently predicted choice. We further found that simultaneously engaging in decision modes that predict opposing choices increased decision difficulty and post-decision worry. In some cases this was related to increased arousal. Results suggest that at least a portion of the negative consequences associated with morally challenging decisions can be attributed to conflict in the decision modes one engages in.

What are the roles of bottom-up and top-down signals in the formation of climate change policy preferences? Using a large sample of American residents (n = 1520) and combining an experimental manipulation of descriptive social norms with two choice experiments, we investigate the effects of descriptive norms and policy endorsements by key political actors on climate policy support. We study these questions in two areas considered to be central in a number of decarbonization pathways: the phase-out of fossil fuel-powered cars and the deployment of carbon capture and storage. Our study provides two important results. First, social norm interventions may be no silver bullet for increasing citizens’ support for ambitious climate policies. In fact, we not only find that climate policy support is unaffected by norm messages communicating an increased diffusion of pro-environmental behaviors, but also that norm messages communicating the prevalence of non-sustainable behaviors decrease policy support. Second, in the presence of policy endorsements by political parties, citizens’ trust in these parties influences their support for climate policies. This study contributes to research in behavioral climate policy by examining the impact of descriptive norms and elite cues on climate policy support.

When people make decisions with a pre-selected choice option – a ‘default’ – they are more likely to select that option. Because defaults are easy to implement, they constitute one of the most widely employed tools in the choice architecture toolbox. However, to decide when defaults should be used instead of other choice architecture tools, policy-makers must know how effective defaults are and when and why their effectiveness varies. To answer these questions, we conduct a literature search and meta-analysis of the 58 default studies (pooled n = 73,675) that fit our criteria. While our analysis reveals a considerable influence of defaults (d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval = 0.53–0.83), we also discover substantial variation: the majority of default studies find positive effects, but several do not find a significant effect, and two even demonstrate negative effects. To explain this variability, we draw on existing theoretical frameworks to examine the drivers of disparity in effectiveness. Our analysis reveals two factors that partially account for the variability in defaults’ effectiveness. First, we find that defaults in consumer domains are more effective and in environmental domains are less effective. Second, we find that defaults are more effective when they operate through endorsement (defaults that are seen as conveying what the choice architect thinks the decision-maker should do) or endowment (defaults that are seen as reflecting the status quo). We end with a discussion of possible directions for a future research program on defaults, including potential additional moderators, and implications for policy-makers interested in the implementation and evaluation of defaults.

The success of choice architecture, including its adoption in government policy and practice, has prompted questions of whether choice architecture design decisions are sufficiently transparent and publicly acceptable. We examined whether disclosing to decision-makers that a particular choice architecture is in place reduces its effectiveness and whether an understanding of the effectiveness of choice architecture design decisions increases their acceptability. We find that disclosure of the design decision does not reduce its effectiveness and that individuals perceive the effectiveness of specific designs to be higher for others than for themselves. Perceived effectiveness for self increases when individuals have actually experienced the effect of a design decision rather than having it simply described to them. Perceived effectiveness for oneself and others increases the acceptability of the designs. We also find that the intentions of the source matter more than who the source actually is. Important for policy-makers, then, is that disclosure of design decisions does not reduce their effectiveness, and their acceptability depends on their perceived effectiveness and the inferred motivations of the design architect.

This paper investigates the effect of decision-makers' culture on their implicit choice of how to make decisions. In a content analysis of major decisions described in American and Chinese twentieth-century novels, we test a series of hypotheses based on prior theoretical and empirical investigations of cross-cultural variation in human motivation and decision processes. The data show a striking degree of cultural similarity in the relationships between decision content, situational characteristics and the decision mode(s) employed, but also support several hypotheses about cultural differences. As predicted, Chinese decision-makers more frequently used role-based logic (a form of recognition-based decision-making) to arrive at decisions, by virtue of their greater awareness of and need for relational obligations. The hypothesis (based on conjectures about Chinese thinking style and personality differences) that Chinese decision-makers would show more rule-and case-based decision-making (two other variants of recognition-based decision-making) than decision-makers in American novels was also supported. After controlling for other predictor variables, there also was support for the hypothesis (based on comparative analyses of Chinese and Western philosophy) that analytic modes which base decisions on the calculation of best consequences would be used less frequendy by Chinese decision-makers. There was no evidence of greater prevention focus in Chinese decisions. These and other observed cultural similarities and differences in the dynamics of decision mode selection have implications for the study and practice of decision-making in managerial settings.

Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) are often characterized as possessing excessive self-control and are unusual in their ability to reduce or avoid the consumption of palatable foods. This behavior promotes potentially life-threatening weight loss and suggests disturbances in reward processing. We studied whether individuals with AN showed evidence of increased self-control by examining the tendency to delay receipt of a monetary, non-food related, reward. Underweight AN (n = 36) and healthy controls (HC, n = 28) completed a monetary intertemporal choice task measuring delay discounting factor. Individuals with AN reduced the value of a monetary reward over time significantly less than HC (F[1,61] = 5.03; p = 0.029). Secondary analyses indicated that the restricting subtype of AN, in particular, showed significantly less discounting than HC (F[1,46] = 8.3; p = 0.006). These findings indicate that some individuals with AN show less temporal discounting than HC, suggestive of enhanced self-control that is not limited to food consumption. This is in contrast to other psychiatric disorders, for example, substance abuse, which are characterized by greater discounting. Though preliminary, these findings suggest that excessive self-control may contribute to pathological processes and individuals with AN may have neuropsychological characteristics that enhance their ability to delay reward and thereby may help to maintain persistent food restriction. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–8)

Mercier and Sperber (M&S) argue that reasoning is social and argumentative, and that this explains many apparently irrational judgment phenomena. We look at the relationship between interpersonal and intrapersonal argumentation and discuss parallels and differences from the perspective of query theory, a memory-based model of constructive preferences. We suggest an important goal is to integrate models across inference and preference.

Institutions influence and shape behaviour. This paper suggests one way in which they do so that has been largely overlooked in institutional analysis and design. When faced with a decision or problem, people have more than one mechanism at their disposition for addressing it. The human mind offers multiple tools, ranging from conscious deliberation to spontaneous, affective reactions. Relying on technology or experts, decision-makers can also muster additional resources. Often, the meta-choice of which decision-making or problem-solving mode is used has an impact on the output. Some normative goals are more likely met if the decision-maker uses a specific problem-solving mode. We argue that the meta-choice of which problem-solving mode to use for a given decision can be influenced by institutions. In the interest of defining access points for institutions, we develop a conceptual framework for the selection and implementation of decision-making and problem-solving modes.