Journal ArticleDOI
Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives
Daniel Kahneman,Dale T. Miller +1 more
TLDR
In this article, a theory of norms and normality is presented and applied to some phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes, such as emotional response to events that have abnormal causes, the generation of predictions and inferences from observations of behavior and the role of norms in causal questions and answers.Abstract:
A theory of norms and normality is presented and applied to some phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes. Norms are assumed to be constructed ad hoc by recruiting specific representations. Category norms are derived by recruiting exemplars. Specific objects or events generate their own norms by retrieval of similar experiences stored in memory or by construction of counterfactual alternatives. The normality of a stimulus is evaluated by comparing it to the norms that it evokes after the fact, rather than to precomputed expectations. Norm theory is applied in analyses of the enhanced emotional response to events that have abnormal causes, of the generation of predictions and inferences from observations of behavior, and of the role of norms in causal questions and answers. This article is concerned with category norms that represent knowledge of concepts and with stimulus norms that govern comparative judgments and designate experiences as surprising. In the tradition of adaptation level theory (Appley, 1971; Helson, 1964), the concept of norm is applied to events that range in complexity from single visual displays to social interactions. We first propose a model of an activation process that produces norms, then explore the role of norms in social cognition. The central idea of the present treatment is that norms are computed after the event rather than in advance. We sketch a supplement to the generally accepted idea that events in the stream of experience are interpreted and evaluated by consulting precomputed schemas and frames of reference. The view developed here is that each stimulus selectively recruits its own alternatives (Garner, 1962, 1970) and is interpreted in a rich context of remembered and constructed representations of what it could have been, might have been, or should have been. Thus, each event brings its own frame of reference into being. We also explore the idea that knowledge of categories (e.g., "encounters with Jim") can be derived on-line by selectively evoking stored representations of discrete episodes and exemplars. The present model assumes that a number of representations can be recruited in parallel, by either a stimulus event or anread more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Whatever It Takes to Win: Rivalry Increases Unethical Behavior
TL;DR: This paper investigated the link between rivalry and unethical behavior and found that people will be more likely to engage in unethical behavior when competing against their rivals than when competing with non-rival competitors.
Book
Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience
TL;DR: A review of the current state of research on subjective well-being and methods for the measurement can be found in this paper, where the authors present a range of potential experienced wellbeing data applications, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and assessment of end-of-life treatment options.
Journal ArticleDOI
How alike is it versus how likely is it: A disjunction fallacy in probability judgments.
Maya Bar-Hillel,Efrat Neter +1 more
TL;DR: This paper examined a disjullctioll fallaQ< Ss received brief case descriptions and ordered 7 categories according to 1 of 4 criteria: (a) probability of membership, (b) wiIlingness to bet on membership, inclination to predict membership, and (c) suitability for membership.
Journal ArticleDOI
Antecedents to Spontaneous Counterfactual Thinking: Effects of Expectancy Violation and Outcome Valence
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of expectancy violation and outcome valence on spontaneous counterfactual thinking were examined, and it was shown that more additive than subtractive counterfatuals were generated after failure, particularly unexpected failure, and more subtractive than additive counterfactually were found after unexpected success.
Journal ArticleDOI
Counterfactual thinking and ascriptions of cause and preventability.
David R. Mandel,Darrin R. Lehman +1 more
TL;DR: This paper found that counterfactual content overlapped primarily with how an outcome might have been prevented (preventability ascriptions) rather than with thoughts of how it may have been caused (causal ascriptions).
References
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Book
Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
TL;DR: The concepts of power analysis are discussed in this paper, where Chi-square Tests for Goodness of Fit and Contingency Tables, t-Test for Means, and Sign Test are used.
Journal ArticleDOI
Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
TL;DR: An integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment is presented and findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive mode of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes.
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Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research
Martin Fishbein,Icek Ajzen +1 more
Journal ArticleDOI
An inventory for measuring depression
TL;DR: The difficulties inherent in obtaining consistent and adequate diagnoses for the purposes of research and therapy have been pointed out and a wide variety of psychiatric rating scales have been developed.
Book ChapterDOI
Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk
Daniel Kahneman,Amos Tversky +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develop an alternative model, called prospect theory, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights.