Contradictory deviations from maximization: Environment-specific biases, or reflections of basic properties of human learning?

Analyses of human reaction to economic incentives reveal contradictory deviations from maximization. For example, underinvestment in the stock market suggests risk aversion, but insufficient diversification of financial assets suggests risk-seeking. Leading explanations for these contradictions assume that different choice environments (e.

Symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Are Associated with Sub-Optimal and Inconsistent Temporal Decision Making.

The link between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and steeper delay discounting has been established and incorporated into theories of ADHD. This study examines a novel interpretation according to which ADHD is linked to sub-optimal temporal decision-making and suggests inconsistency as a potential underlying mechanism. In two experiments, MTurk workers completed a self-report questionnaire on symptoms of ADHD and a temporal decision making task consisting of choices between smaller-immediate and larger-delayed options.

Food Perceptions in Adults with and without ADHD.

Introduction: Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have unhealthy eating habits, associated with overweight/obesity. We explored whether they present with different food-related benefit/risk perceptions, compared to those without ADHD.

Methods: One hundred five university students with (n = 36) and without (n = 69) ADHD, aged 22-30, participated in the study.

Experiencing risk: Higher-order risk attitudes in description- and experience-based decisions.

Risky decisions are often characterized by (a) imprecision about consequences and their likelihoods that can be reduced by information collection, and by (b) unavoidable background risk. This article addresses both aspects by eliciting risk attitude, prudence, and temperance in decisions from description and decisions from experience. The results reveal a novel description-experience gap for prudence and replicate the known gap for risky decisions.

The influence of attractiveness and convenience cues on food appeal in adults with and without ADHD.

Objective: Previous research on adults with ADHD revealed high rates of overweight and obesity, as well as unhealthy diet habits. Other studies demonstrated that social-affective contexts can influence food choice. This study examines the sensitivity of adults with ADHD to cues of food attractiveness and convenience, for healthy and unhealthy foods.

Advertising Influences Food Choices of University Students With ADHD.

Previous research in adults with ADHD showed high rates of obesity and unhealthy food choices. There is evidence that contextual cues, for example, advertisements, influence food choices. This study assessed the sensitivity of university students with ADHD to advertised food.

Bridging the gap between self-assessments and measured household food waste: A hybrid valuation approach.

Great effort is invested in mapping the extent of household food waste and its main determinants. However, food waste valuation remains a challenging task. Valuation methods can be divided roughly into objective measurements that are based on physical waste surveys, and subjective self-assessments that are based on diaries or questionnaires.

What gets measured gets managed: A new method of measuring household food waste.

The quantification of household food waste is an essential part of setting policies and waste reduction goals, but it is very difficult to estimate. Current methods include either direct measurements (physical waste surveys) or measurements based on self-reports (diaries, interviews, and questionnaires). The main limitation of the first method is that it cannot always trace the waste source, i.

Potential psychological accounts for the relation between food insecurity and body overweight.

We suggest two psychological mechanisms, temporal discounting and feeling of resource scarcity, for explaining the relation between food insecurity and body overweight. We demonstrate how Nettle et al.'s findings could be explained, post hoc, by each of these accounts, suggesting that their data are not rich enough to allow identification of mechanisms that underlie food insecurity and overweight relationship.

From anomalies to forecasts: Toward a descriptive model of decisions under risk, under ambiguity, and from experience.

Experimental studies of choice behavior document distinct, and sometimes contradictory, deviations from maximization. For example, people tend to overweight rare events in 1-shot decisions under risk, and to exhibit the opposite bias when they rely on past experience. The common explanations of these results assume that the contradicting anomalies reflect situation-specific processes that involve the weighting of subjective values and the use of simple heuristics.

Pricing decisions from experience: the roles of information-acquisition and response modes.

While pricing decisions that are based on experience are quite common, e.g., setting a selling price for a used car, this type of decision has been surprisingly overlooked in psychology and decision research.

The emergence of "us and them" in 80 lines of code: modeling group genesis in homogeneous populations.

Psychological explanations of group genesis often require population heterogeneity in identity or other characteristics, whether deep (e.g., religion) or superficial (e.

Smokers' decision making: more than mere risk taking.

The fact that smoking is bad for people's health has become common knowledge, yet a substantial amount of people still smoke. Previous studies that sought to better understand this phenomenon have found that smoking is associated with the tendency to take risk in other areas of life as well. The current paper explores factors that may underlie this tendency.

Risk attitude in decision making: in search of trait-like constructs.

We evaluate the consistency of different constructs affecting risk attitude in individuals' decisions across different levels of risk. Specifically, we contrast views suggesting that risk attitude is a single primitive construct with those suggesting it consists of multiple latent components. Additionally, we evaluate such constructs as sensitivity to losses, diminishing sensitivity to increases in payoff, sensitivity to variance, and risk acceptance (the willingness to accept probable outcomes over certainty).

Consistent constructs in individuals' risk taking in decisions from experience.

The current research evaluates the consistency of different constructs affecting risk taking in individuals' experiential decisions across different levels of risk. Specifically, we contrast three major views concerning the psychological constructs that underlie risk taking behavior. The first is the classical economic approach which views risk as the sensitivity to differences in variance.