The dynamics of punishment and trust.

The trade-off between mercy and justice is a classic moral dilemma, particularly for organizational leaders and managers. In 3 complementary studies, we investigated how resolving the "punishment dilemma" influences interpersonal trust. Study 1 used controlled scenarios to show that uninvolved observers trusted leaders who administered large or medium punishment more than leaders who administered no punishment when transgressors deserved punishment.

The Goldilocks contract: The synergistic benefits of combining structure and autonomy for persistence, creativity, and cooperation.

Contracts are commonly used to regulate a wide range of interactions and relationships. Yet relying on contracts as a mechanism of control often comes at a cost to motivation. Integrating theoretical perspectives from psychology, economics, and organizational theory, we explore this control-motivation dilemma inherent in contracts and present the Contract-Autonomy-Motivation-Performance-Structure (CAMPS) model, which highlights the synergistic benefits of combining structure and autonomy.

Cheating at the end to avoid regret.

How do people behave when they face a finite series of opportunities to cheat with little or no risk of detection? In 4 experiments and a small meta-analysis, we analyzed over 25,000 cheating opportunities faced by over 2,500 people. The results suggested that the odds of cheating are almost 3 times higher at the end of a series than earlier. Participants could cheat in 1 of 2 ways: They could lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a payoff that they would otherwise not receive (Studies 1-3) or they could overbill for their work (Study 4).

The tell-tale look: viewing time, preferences, and prices.

Even the simplest choices can prompt decision-makers to balance their preferences against other, more pragmatic considerations like price. Thus, discerning people's preferences from their decisions creates theoretical, empirical, and practical challenges. The current paper addresses these challenges by highlighting some specific circumstances in which the amount of time that people spend examining potential purchase items (i.

Life or death decisions: framing the call for help.

Background: Chronic blood shortages in the U.S. would be alleviated by small increases, in percentage terms, of people donating blood.