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Full-Text Articles in Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Individual Differences In Decision-Making And Emotions: A Study Of Alexithymia Using The Columbia Card Task, Kaycee A. Stewart Ms. Jul 2023

Individual Differences In Decision-Making And Emotions: A Study Of Alexithymia Using The Columbia Card Task, Kaycee A. Stewart Ms.

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Making effective decisions requires a balance between rational thinking and emotional processing. Optimal decision-making approaches involve carefully analyzing available information to make informed and advantageous choices. This study investigates how people’s ability to identify, process, and express emotions (alexithymia) relates to their decision-making in different emotional contexts. We used the Hot and Cold versions of the Columbia Card Task (CCT) to evaluate how participants make decisions. By analyzing their decisions as a function of their alexithymia levels and three manipulated game parameters (loss probability, loss amount, and gain amount), we discovered that people with higher levels of alexithymia had reduced …


Responses To Covid-19 Threats: An Evolutionary Psychological Analysis., Stephen M. Colarelli, Tyler J. Mirando, Kyunghee Han, Norman P. Li, Carter Vespi, Katherine A. Klein, Charles P. Fales Dec 2022

Responses To Covid-19 Threats: An Evolutionary Psychological Analysis., Stephen M. Colarelli, Tyler J. Mirando, Kyunghee Han, Norman P. Li, Carter Vespi, Katherine A. Klein, Charles P. Fales

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Responses to COVID-19 public health interventions have been lukewarm. For example, only 64% of the US population has received at least two vaccinations. Because most public health interventions require people to behave in ways that are evolutionarily novel, evolutionary psychological theory and research on mismatch theory, the behavioral immune system, and individual differences can help us gain a better understanding of how people respond to public health information. Primary sources of threat information during the pandemic (particularly in early phases) were geographic differences in morbidity and mortality statistics. We argue that people are unlikely to respond to this type of …


The Effect Of Magnitude And Probability On Plea Bargain Decision-Making, Megan L. Small Jan 2022

The Effect Of Magnitude And Probability On Plea Bargain Decision-Making, Megan L. Small

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Decision-making is studied in various aspects of life and can be especially vital in the context of the criminal justice system, such as plea bargains. Previous research in this area used a less commonly used task (fill-in-the-blank) in addition to a student sample (Falligant & Pence, 2019). The current study uses probability discounting to study the choice between accepting a plea bargain for a shorter incarceration sentence or risking a trial with a longer sentence on a sample of adults with experience in the criminal justice system. Three sentence durations, or magnitudes, were used (1 year, 5 years, and 25 …


The Effects Of Situational And Individual Factors On Algorithm Acceptance In Covid-19-Related Decision-Making: A Preregistered Online Experiment, Sonja Utz, Lara N. Wolfers, Anja S. Göritz Sep 2021

The Effects Of Situational And Individual Factors On Algorithm Acceptance In Covid-19-Related Decision-Making: A Preregistered Online Experiment, Sonja Utz, Lara N. Wolfers, Anja S. Göritz

Human-Machine Communication

In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n = 1,127). As expected, algorithm preference was lowest in the most moral-laden scenario. The effect of perspective (i.e., decision-makers vs. decision targets) was only significant in the most moral scenario. Need for leadership predicted a stronger …


Competitive Frontoparietal Interactions Mediate Implicit Inferences, Martijn E. Wokke, Tony Ro Jun 2019

Competitive Frontoparietal Interactions Mediate Implicit Inferences, Martijn E. Wokke, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

Frequent experience with regularities in our environment allows us to use predictive information to guide our decision process. However, contingencies in our environment are not always explicitly present and sometimes need to be inferred. Heretofore, it remained unknown how predictive information guides decision-making when explicit knowledge is absent and how the brain shapes such implicit inferences. In the present experiment, 17 human participants (9 females) performed a discrimination task in which a target stimulus was preceded by a predictive cue. Critically, participants had no explicit knowledge that some of the cues signaled an upcoming target, allowing us to investigate how …


Understanding Everyday Decisions: An Examination Of Biases In Decision-Making, Educational Attainment, And Use Of Tobacco And Nicotine Delivery Products Among Women Of Reproductive Age, Laura L. Chivers Jan 2015

Understanding Everyday Decisions: An Examination Of Biases In Decision-Making, Educational Attainment, And Use Of Tobacco And Nicotine Delivery Products Among Women Of Reproductive Age, Laura L. Chivers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The aim of this study was to examine associations between biases in decision-making (delay discounting [DD], opportunity cost neglect [OCN], status quo bias [SQB]), educational attainment, and use of cigarettes and other tobacco and nicotine delivery products among women of reproductive age. Women of reproductive age are of special interest because of the additional risks that cigarette smoking or use of these other products represents should they become pregnant. Data were collected anonymously online in survey format using Amazon Mechanical Turk [AMT]. Participants were 800 women of reproductive age (24-44 years) from across the US. Half (n = 400) were …


Curiosity Killed The Cat: Investigating A Link Between Curiosity And Risk-Taking Propensity, Carolyn E. Gibson Jan 2014

Curiosity Killed The Cat: Investigating A Link Between Curiosity And Risk-Taking Propensity, Carolyn E. Gibson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Curiosity, or the drive for information and experiences that motivates exploration, plays a role in intellectual development. Curiosity is perhaps essential to education and intellectual achievement, but curiosity research is limited. Curiosity has been thought a motivation for learning and a cause of non-sanctioned behaviors and behavioral disorders. This prompts a connection with decision-making, specifically risky decision-making, perhaps with curiosity as a motivating force. In Experiment 1, college students were primed with curiosity, then participated in a lab-based behavioral measure of risk-taking, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, and answered self-report inventories concerning risk-taking and curiosity. In Experiment 2, 4th and …


The Effect Of Emotionally Arousing Negative Images On Judgments About News Stories, Martin Daniel Smith-Rodden Jan 2013

The Effect Of Emotionally Arousing Negative Images On Judgments About News Stories, Martin Daniel Smith-Rodden

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Two experiments investigated the effects of the presentations of photographic images (highly emotionally arousing/low arousal/no image) on people's attitudes after reading a news story. Experiment 1 presented a story and images about U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan War. Experiment 2 replicated the design with a story and images about African famine relief efforts. Consistent with predictions of the affect heuristic model of judgment formation, the addition of emotionally arousing pictures had an effect on people's support for the war in Afghanistan and their support for famine aid. Additionally, effects were observed in broader attitudes concerning participant's support of a militaristic …