Papers by Barbara Mellers
Current Directions in Psychological Science, Mar 15, 2021
Reconciling loss aversion and gain seeking in judged emotions.
When the pleasure of winning exceeds the pain of losing
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 1998
ACR North American Advances, 2017
How do people feel about successes or failures relative to multiple goals? We investigate whether... more How do people feel about successes or failures relative to multiple goals? We investigate whether theories of goals as reference points generalize to multiple goals. Four studies support loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity, but we find violations of additivity: peoples' feelings are not the sum of each outcome.

Attention Perception & Psychophysics, Nov 1, 1983
argue that there exists an "absolute coupling" of numbers to sensation magnitudes and conclude th... more argue that there exists an "absolute coupling" of numbers to sensation magnitudes and conclude that, when subjects are left unconstrained by a designated stimulus-number pair, they may use this "absolute" scale. The purpose of the studies reported here was to test whether Zwislocki and Goodman's (1980) absolute scaling procedure reduces contextual effects due to variations in the stimulus spacing. It was found that magnitude estimations vary as a function of the stimulus spacing, regardless of whether subjects are instructed to use a standard and modulus, and, furthermore, that category ratings yield effects of the stimulus spacing comparable to those obtained with magnitude estimations. It is argued that removing the so-called constraints of a standard and modulus does not yield an "absolute" scale of sensation. The absolute scaling procedure increases response variability and thereby lowers the power of a test for contextual effects.

In this paper, we examine decisions to cooperate in economic games. We investigate which payoffs ... more In this paper, we examine decisions to cooperate in economic games. We investigate which payoffs give players the greatest pleasure and whether the pleasure they feel about payoffs predicts their decisions to cooperate. To do this, we modify the ultimatum and dictator games by asking players to consider a fixed set of offers and report their preferences over all offers. Players also report the pleasure they imagine feeling from each possible payoff. Results show that players differ in the extent to which they derive pleasure from fairness or greediness. They also differ in the extent to which their choices depend on what we call bstrategicQ and bnon-strategicQ pleasure. Strategic pleasure is the expected pleasure of offers, whereas non-strategic pleasure is the pleasure of accepted payoffs. Players whose pleasure primarily depends on larger payoffs tend to make fair offers in the ultimatum game and selfish offers in the dictator game. They maximize strategic pleasure in the ultimatum game and non-strategic pleasure in the dictator game. Players who derive greater pleasure from fairness tend to act fairly in both games. These players maximize non-strategic pleasure. Brain imaging studies should address the question of whether the observed differences in pleasure and preference are systematically linked to differences in neurological activation.

ACR North American Advances, 2008
Delight is the augmented pleasure that accompanies a positive outcome, such as a gift or a sales ... more Delight is the augmented pleasure that accompanies a positive outcome, such as a gift or a sales promotion, due to its unexpectedness. To be delighted, consumers must be surprised. Surprise makes an enjoyable event even more pleasurable. Past research shows that East Asians are less likely than Westerners to experience surprise. If that is the case, East Asians may react differently to unexpected positive outcomes. We investigate whether East Asians are less delighted than Westerners by an unexpected promotional gift since East Asians are more likely than Westerners to think "holistically" and exhibit the hindsight bias (or the tendency to "have known it all along"). Relative to Westerners, East Asians report less pleasure and less surprise with unanticipated promotional gifts. However, when an unexpected gift is attributed to luck, East Asians experience even more delight than Westerners. For East Asians, luck is a means for external control that turns an unexpected outcome into a delightful one.
Psychological Science, 2001
In this article, Mellers, Hertwig, and Kahneman presented what they believed was "a new method fo... more In this article, Mellers, Hertwig, and Kahneman presented what they believed was "a new method for resolving scientific debate" (p. 269). They have since been informed by Edwin Locke that the method, though good, is not new. Locke and two "antagonists," Gary Latham and Miriam Erez, engaged in a similar collaboration described in an article titled "Resolving Scientific Disputes by the Joint Design of Crucial Experiments by the Antagonists: Application to the Erez-Latham Dispute Regarding Participation in Goal-Setting,"

Judgment and Decision Making
To successfully select and implement nudges, policy makers need a psychological understanding of ... more To successfully select and implement nudges, policy makers need a psychological understanding of who opposes nudges, how they are perceived, and when alternative methods (e.g., forced choice) might work better. Using two representative samples, we examined four factors that influence U.S. attitudes toward nudges – types of nudges, individual dispositions, nudge perceptions, and nudge frames. Most nudges were supported, although opt-out defaults for organ donations were opposed in both samples. “System 1” nudges (e.g., defaults and sequential orderings) were viewed less favorably than “System 2” nudges (e.g., educational opportunities or reminders). System 1 nudges were perceived as more autonomy threatening, whereas System 2 nudges were viewed as more effective for better decision making and more necessary for changing behavior. People with greater empathetic concern tended to support both types of nudges and viewed them as the “right” kind of goals to have. Individualists opposed b...

Nature, 2021
Policy-makers are increasingly turning to behavioural science for insights about how to improve c... more Policy-makers are increasingly turning to behavioural science for insights about how to improve citizens' decisions and outcomes 1 . Typically, different scientists test different intervention ideas in different samples using different outcomes over different time intervals 2 . The lack of comparability of such individual investigations limits their potential to inform policy. Here, to address this limitation and accelerate the pace of discovery, we introduce the megastudy-a massive field experiment in which the effects of many different interventions are compared in the same population on the same objectively measured outcome for the same duration. In a megastudy targeting physical exercise among 61,293 members of an American fitness chain, 30 scientists from 15 different US universities worked in small independent teams to design a total of 54 different four-week digital programmes (or interventions) encouraging exercise. We show that 45% of these interventions significantly increased weekly gym visits by 9% to 27%; the top-performing intervention offered microrewards for returning to the gym after a missed workout. Only 8% of interventions induced behaviour change that was significant and measurable after the four-week intervention. Conditioning on the 45% of interventions that increased exercise during the intervention, we detected carry-over effects that were proportionally similar to those measured in previous research . Forecasts by impartial judges failed to predict which interventions would be most effective, underscoring the value of testing many ideas at once and, therefore, the potential for megastudies to improve the evidentiary value of behavioural science. A major impediment to prescribing behaviourally informed policy interventions is the inability to make apples-to-apples comparisons of their efficacy 2 . Scientific teams tend to run studies independently, recruiting their own samples, making their own decisions about design parameters and targeting behavioural outcomes of their own choosing. As a consequence, differences in treatment efficacy are obscured by massive heterogeneity in sample demographics, treatment and follow-up periods, contexts and outcomes. Furthermore, many promising ideas for changing behaviour do not work in practice 7 , and it can be surprisingly difficult to predict ex ante which seeds will eventually
Bounded Rationality, 2002

Perioperative medicine (London, England), 2016
Explicit consideration of anticipated regret is not part of the standard shared decision-making p... more Explicit consideration of anticipated regret is not part of the standard shared decision-making protocols. This pilot study aimed to compare decisions about a hypothetical surgery for breast cancer and examined whether regret is a consideration in treatment decisions. In this randomized experimental study, 184 healthy female volunteers were randomized to receive a standard decision aid (control) or one with information on post-surgical regret (experimental). The main outcome measures were the proportion of subjects choosing lumpectomy vs. mastectomy and the proportion reporting that regret played a role in the decision made. We hypothesized that a greater proportion of the experimental group (regret-incorporated decision aid) would make a surgical treatment preference that favored the less regret-inducing option and that they would be more likely to consider regret in their decision-making process as compared to the control group. A significantly greater proportion of the experiment...
A reconsideration of two-person inequity judgments: A reply to Anderson
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1985
ABSTRACT Replies to N. H. Anderson's (see record 1984-22881-001) argument that "... more ABSTRACT Replies to N. H. Anderson's (see record 1984-22881-001) argument that "two-operation logic," which was applied to N. H. Anderson and A. J. Farkas's (1975) experiment, supported the ratio model, established the linearity of the response scale, and refuted the subtractive model proposed by the present author (see record 1982-29568-001). A reanalysis shows that the data of Anderson and Farkas are more consistent with subtractive models than ratio models and illustrates problems with the two-operation logic that led Anderson to his conclusions. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Advances in Decision Analysis, 2007
The authors discuss the steps involved in good decision making and use those steps to organize re... more The authors discuss the steps involved in good decision making and use those steps to organize results from behavioral decision research. Framing effects, self serving biases, and context effects are a few of the many errors and biases that are presented. The authors also discuss techniques for reducing errors. They conclude by providing examples of human cognitive strengths, while emphasizing the importance of learning from our mistakes.
Handbook of Consumer Psychology, 2014
Surprise
Progress in Brain Research, 2013
Surprise is a fundamental link between cognition and emotion. It is shaped by cognitive assessmen... more Surprise is a fundamental link between cognition and emotion. It is shaped by cognitive assessments of likelihood, intuition, and superstition, and it in turn shapes hedonic experiences. We examine this connection between cognition and emotion and offer an explanation called decision affect theory. Our theory predicts the affective consequences of mistaken beliefs, such as overconfidence and hindsight. It provides insight about why the pleasure of a gain can loom larger than the pain of a comparable loss. Finally, it explains cross-cultural differences in emotional reactions to surprising events. By changing the nature of the unexpected (from chance to good luck), one can alter the emotional reaction to surprising events.

Psychological Science, 2001
The present article offers an approach to scientific debate called adversarial collaboration. The... more The present article offers an approach to scientific debate called adversarial collaboration. The approach requires both parties to agree on empirical tests for resolving a dispute and to conduct these tests with the help of an arbiter. In dispute were Hertwig's claims that frequency formats eliminate conjunction effects and that the conjunction effects previously reported by Kahneman and Tversky occurred because some participants interpreted the word “and” in “bank tellers and feminists” as a union operator. Hertwig proposed two new conjunction phrases, “and are” and “who are,” that would eliminate the ambiguity. Kahneman disagreed with Hertwig's predictions for “and are,” but agreed with his predictions for “who are.” Mellers served as arbiter. Frequency formats by themselves did not eliminate conjunction effects with any of the phrases, but when filler items were removed, conjunction effects disappeared with Hertwig's phrases. Kahneman and Hertwig offer different inte...

Test of a distributional theory of intuitive numerical prediction
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1986
ABSTRACT This paper investigates models that describe how subjects combine uncertain information ... more ABSTRACT This paper investigates models that describe how subjects combine uncertain information to arrive at an intuitive prediction of a criterion. Subjects were trained, with feedback, to predict a numerical criterion from each of three single cues. Then they were asked to predict the criterion, without feedback, either from pairs of cues or from single cues. Their predictions were not consistent with a relative weight averaging model, since pairs of cues did not combine additively. Instead, the effect of a cue was inversely proportional to the standard deviation of the criterion at each level of the cue. Subjects appeared to apply greater weight to cue levels with smaller variance, i.e., those cue levels that were more valid. The data could be described by a distributional theory referred to as the equal probability model. For the present experiment, this model implies that the criterion means associated with the levels of each cue are weighted by the reciprocals of the standard deviations and then averaged. Relations between the equal probability model and other models of impression formation are discussed.

Marketing Letters, 2005
This article presents an introduction to and analysis of an emerging area of research, namely dec... more This article presents an introduction to and analysis of an emerging area of research, namely decision neuroscience, whose goal is to integrate research in neuroscience and behavioral decision making. The article includes an exposition of (1) how the exponential accumulation of knowledge in neuroscience can potentially enrich research on decision making, (2) the range of techniques in neuroscience that can be used to shed light on various decision making phenomena, (3) examples of potential research in this emerging area, and (4) some of the challenges readers need to be cognizant of while venturing into this new area of research. * Corresponding author. † The genesis of this workshop session and article was a meeting that Dipankar Chakravarti, Antoine Bechara, and Baba Shiv had one balmy Iowa City summer afternoon in 2003. We coined the term Decision Neuroscience to describe the emerging stream of research outlined in this article. SHIV ET AL.
Law and Human Behavior, 2002
Surveys of public opinion indicate that people have high expectations for juries. When it comes t... more Surveys of public opinion indicate that people have high expectations for juries. When it comes to serious crimes, most people want errors of convicting the innocent (false positives) or acquitting the guilty (false negatives) to fall well below 10%. Using expected utility theory, Bayes' Theorem, signal detection theory, and empirical evidence from detection studies of medical decision making, eyewitness testimony, and weather forecasting, we argue that the frequency of mistakes probably far exceeds these "tolerable" levels. We are not arguing against the use of juries. Rather, we point out that a closer look at jury decisions reveals a serious gap between what we expect from juries and what probably occurs. When deciding issues of guilt and/or punishing convicted criminals, we as a society should recognize and acknowledge the abundance of error.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989
The authors would like to express appreciation to Michael Birnbaum, Jerome Busemeyer, and Richard... more The authors would like to express appreciation to Michael Birnbaum, Jerome Busemeyer, and Richard Harris for valuable comments or discussions, to Karen Biagini for help with data collection, and to Norman Anderson for providing his data for reanalysis.
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Papers by Barbara Mellers