The role of impulse and interference control in aversive personality: A comprehensive assessment.

Ethically and socially aversive behaviors have been attributed to several personality traits, including characteristics collectively referred to under the umbrella term of impulsivity. It is an open question, however, whether such characteristics are an integral part of ethically and socially aversive personality. Relying on three large samples (total N = 9854) and implementing longitudinal assessments, the present study provides a comprehensive investigation of the role of impulse and interference control in aversive personality. Based on contemporary conceptualizations of the impulsivity domain, a total of 17 dimensions spanning both self-reports and behavioral tasks are assessed. To represent aversive personality, we consider the D Factor of Personality (D), i.e., the basic disposition shared by all aversive traits. Results indicate that D co-occurs with a deficit in inhibiting the incorrect action when multiple actions are available, a preference for immediate rewards while failing to consider the consequences of one's actions, and maladaptive behavior directed towards regulating strong affect. However, most associations between D and dimensions of impulsivity were small or non-significant, thereby disconfirming the notion that characteristics related to a lack of impulse control are an integral feature of aversive personality in general.

On the Lack of Real Consequences in Consumer Choice Research.

Experimental tasks measure actual behavior when the consequences that follow actions and choices mirror those of real-life behavior. Consequently, choice tasks in consumer research would need to include both costs (losing a previously earned endowment) and gains (actually receiving what was chosen) to structurally resemble real-life consumer choices. A literature review of studies ( k = 446) in consumer research confirms that full implementation of consequences is rare. The extent to which presence versus absence of these consequences systematically affects observable behavior is tested in an experiment ( N = 669) comparing a fully consequential (cost and gain consequences), a partially consequential (gain consequence only), and a hypothetical (no consequences) consumer choice task. Results show that consequences, once real, affect both the general willingness to purchase and the relative preferences for different products. Hence, it would seem advisable to more carefully consider the role of consequences in future consumer research.

Does everyone have a price? On the role of payoff magnitude for ethical decision making.

Most approaches to dishonest behavior emphasize the importance of corresponding payoffs, typically implying that dishonesty might increase with increasing incentives. However, prior evidence does not appear to confirm this intuition. However, extant findings are based on relatively small payoffs, the potential effects of which are solely analyzed across participants. In two experiments, we used different multi-trial die-rolling paradigms designed to investigate dishonesty at the individual level (i.e., within participants) and as a function of the payoffs at stake - implementing substantial incentives exceeding 100€. Results show that incentive sizes indeed matter for ethical decision making, though primarily for two subsets of "corruptible individuals" (who cheat more the more they are offered) and "small sinners" (who tend to cheat less as the potential payoffs increase). Others ("brazen liars") are willing to cheat for practically any non-zero incentive whereas still others ("honest individuals") do not cheat at all, even for large payoffs. By implication, the influence of payoff magnitude on ethical decision making is often obscured when analyzed across participants and with insufficiently tempting payoffs.

Whatever the cost? Information integration in memory-based inferences depends on cognitive effort.

One of the most prominent models of probabilistic inferences from memory is the simple recognition heuristic (RH). The RH theory assumes that judgments are based on recognition in isolation, such that other information is ignored. However, some prior research has shown that available knowledge is not generally ignored. In line with the notion of adaptive strategy selection--and, thus, a trade-off between accuracy and effort--we hypothesized that information integration crucially depends on how easily accessible information beyond recognition is, how much confidence decision makers have in this information, and how (cognitively) costly it is to acquire it. In three experiments, we thus manipulated (a) the availability of information beyond recognition, (b) the subjective usefulness of this information, and (c) the cognitive costs associated with acquiring this information. In line with the predictions, we found that RH use decreased substantially, the more easily and confidently information beyond recognition could be integrated, and increased substantially with increasing cognitive costs.