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
The consideration of future consequences: Weighing immediate and distant outcomes of behavior.
TL;DR: This paper proposed a new construct called consideration of future consequences (CFC), which is hypothesized to be a stable individual difference in the extent to which people consider distant versus immediate consequences of potential behaviors.
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A stitch in time: Self-regulation and proactive coping.
TL;DR: The authors highlight the unique predictions afforded by a focus on proactive coping and the importance of understanding how people avoid and offset potential stressors.
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The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences
TL;DR: This article investigated the origin and validity of common beliefs regarding "the hot hand" and "streak shooting" in the game of basketball and found no evidence for a positive correlation between the outcomes of successive shots.
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Explanation and Understanding
TL;DR: The study of explanation, while related to intuitive theories, concepts, and mental models, offers important new perspectives on high-level thought and particularly adept at using situational support to build explanations on the fly in real time.
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“Coherent Arbitrariness”: Stable Demand Curves Without Stable Preferences
TL;DR: The authors show that initial valuations of familiar products and simple hedonic experiences are strongly influenced by arbitrary "anchors" (sometimes derived from a person's social security number) and that subsequent valuations are also coherent with respect to salient differences in perceived quality or quantity of these products and experiences.
References
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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.
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Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research
Martin Fishbein,Icek Ajzen +1 more
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An inventory for measuring depression
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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.