The relationship between political ideology and judgements of bias in distributional outcomes.

We examine judgements of bias in distributional outcomes. Such judgements are often based on imbalance in distributional outcomes, namely, the under- or over-representation of a target group relative to some baseline. Using data from 26 studies (N = 14,925), we test how these judgements of bias vary with the target group's characteristics (traditionally dominant or non-dominant) and the observer's political ideology (liberal or conservative). We find that conservatives set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally non-dominant targets (women, Black people, immigrants), as compared with liberals. Conversely, liberals set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally dominant targets (men, white people, native-born citizens), as compared with conservatives. However, these relationships between political ideology and judgements of bias diminish when the targets are unknown or ideologically irrelevant. These findings emphasize the context-dependency of bias judgements and underscore the importance of stimulus sampling and appropriate selection of controls.

A neural signature of the vividness of prospective thought is modulated by temporal proximity during intertemporal decision making.

Why do people discount future rewards? Multiple theories in psychology argue that one reason is that future events are imagined less vividly than immediate events, thereby diminishing their perceived value. Here we provide neuroscientific evidence for this proposal. First, we construct a neural signature of the vividness of prospective thought, using an fMRI dataset where the vividness of imagined future events is orthogonal to their valence by design. Then, we apply this neural signature in two additional fMRI datasets, each using a different delay-discounting task, to show that neural measures of vividness decline as rewards are delayed farther into the future.

Capturing life or missing it: How mindful photo-taking can affect experiences.

The impact of technology on mindfulness is theoretically and practically important. We propose that photo-taking can naturally promote mindful attention to visual aspects of experiences. Such mindful photo-taking can increase enjoyment of and memory for experiences, generate positive mood, and heighten life-satisfaction. When people adopt a social or temporal outward-focused perspective, threats to mindful photo-taking may negate these positive consequences. A social outward-focus can arise when considering others' evaluations of shared photos. A temporal outward-focus can arise with the principal objective and outcome of photo-taking: creating durable visual representations of experiences. Ultimately, reviewing photos provides visual memory cues, can improve memory, and allows people to reminiscence, although these benefits depends on the stock of accumulated photos.

Duration sensitivity of key moments.

The role of duration in the evaluation of experiences has been a topic of great interest. Extensive research finds "duration neglect," defined as the duration of experiences exerting only a negligible direct effect on overall evaluations of experiences over that of key moments, usually peak and end. In contrast, we argue that the temporal location of key moments that are embedded in an experience affects how people experience these key moments. Thus, duration enters overall evaluations indirectly through the experience of key moments. Seven studies, as well as three supplementary studies, employing diverse designs and analyses find that temporal location affects the evaluation of peak and end, and consequently duration has a significant indirect effect on overall evaluations, while also replicating duration neglect. Establishing duration-dependent key moments in the evaluation of experiences, our account also uniquely predicts, and we subsequently test, that the temporal location of key moments matters for evaluations of experiences.

Inconsistent allocations of harms versus benefits may exacerbate environmental inequality.

We report five studies that examine preferences for the allocation of environmental harms and benefits. In all studies, participants were presented with scenarios in which an existing environmental inequality between two otherwise similar communities could either be decreased or increased through various allocation decisions. Our results demonstrate that despite well-established preferences toward equal outcomes, people express weaker preferences for options that increase equality when considering the allocation of environmental harms (e.g., building new polluting facilities) than when considering the allocation of environmental benefits (e.g., applying pollution-reducing technologies). We argue that this effect emerges from fairness considerations rooted in a psychological incompatibility between the allocation of harms, which is seen as an inherently unfair action, and equality, which is a basic fairness principle. Since the allocation of harms is an inevitable part of operations of both governments and businesses, our results suggest that where possible, parties interested in increasing environmental equality may benefit from framing such proposals as bestowing relative benefits instead of imposing relative harms.

Psychological time and intertemporal preference.

Many decisions people make involve intertemporal tradeoffs between current and future costs and benefits. Because outcomes in such decisions are separated by time (i.e., delay), the perception of time should play an important role. Traditionally, researchers have treated time as objective information (i.e., calendar time) and examined the effect of different delays on intertemporal preference. Recently, researchers have started to take into account the subjective nature of future time perception and to use psychological (subjective) time rather than objective calendar time as a focal explanatory variable for intertemporal preference. The subjective nature of future time perception and its impact on intertemporal preference has particular significance because it implies that one's impatience can be reduced by altering his or her time perception.

The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance.

With technological advancements, the desire, ability, and often necessity to multitask are pervasive. Although multitasking refers to the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks, most activities that require active attention cannot actually be done simultaneously. Therefore, whether a certain activity is considered multitasking is often a matter of perception. This article demonstrates the malleability of what people perceive as multitasking, showing that the same activity may or may not be construed as multitasking. Importantly, although engaging in multiple tasks may diminish performance, we found that, holding the activity constant, the mere perception of multitasking in fact improves performance. Across 32 studies (30 of which had performance-based incentives) containing a total of 8,242 participants, we found that individuals who perceived an activity as multitasking were more engaged and consequently outperformed those who perceived that same activity as single tasking.

Photographic Memory: The Effects of Volitional Photo Taking on Memory for Visual and Auditory Aspects of an Experience.

How does volitional photo taking affect unaided memory for visual and auditory aspects of experiences? Across one field and three lab studies, we found that, even without revisiting any photos, participants who could freely take photographs during an experience recognized more of what they saw and less of what they heard, compared with those who could not take any photographs. Further, merely taking mental photos had similar effects on memory. These results provide support for the idea that photo taking induces a shift in attention toward visual aspects and away from auditory aspects of an experience. Additional findings were in line with this mechanism: Participants with a camera had better recognition of aspects of the scene that they photographed than of aspects they did not photograph. Furthermore, participants who used a camera during their experience recognized even nonphotographed aspects better than participants without a camera did. Meta-analyses including all reported studies support these findings.

How taking photos increases enjoyment of experiences.

Experiences are vital to the lives and well-being of people; hence, understanding the factors that amplify or dampen enjoyment of experiences is important. One such factor is photo-taking, which has gone unexamined by prior research even as it has become ubiquitous. We identify engagement as a relevant process that influences whether photo-taking will increase or decrease enjoyment. Across 3 field and 6 lab experiments, we find that taking photos enhances enjoyment of positive experiences across a range of contexts and methodologies. This occurs when photo-taking increases engagement with the experience, which is less likely when the experience itself is already highly engaging, or when photo-taking interferes with the experience. As further evidence of an engagement-based process, we show that photo-taking directs greater visual attention to aspects of the experience one may want to photograph. Lastly, we also find that this greater engagement due to photo-taking results in worse evaluations of negative experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record

Brain activity in valuation regions while thinking about the future predicts individual discount rates.

People vary widely in how much they discount delayed rewards, yet little is known about the sources of these differences. Here we demonstrate that neural activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and ventral striatum (VS) when human subjects are asked to merely think about the future--specifically, to judge the subjective length of future time intervals--predicts delay discounting. High discounters showed lower activity for longer time delays, while low discounters showed the opposite pattern. Our results demonstrate that the correlation between VMPFC and VS activity and discounting occurs even in the absence of choices about future rewards, and does not depend on a person explicitly evaluating future outcomes or judging their self-relevance. This suggests a link between discounting and basic processes involved in thinking about the future, such as temporal perception. Our results also suggest that reducing impatience requires not suppression of VMPFC and VS activity altogether, but rather modulation of how these regions respond to the present versus the future.

Can Victoria's Secret change the future? A subjective time perception account of sexual-cue effects on impatience.

Sexual cues influence decisions not only about sex, but also about unrelated outcomes such as money. In the presence of sexual cues, individuals are more impatient when making intertemporal monetary tradeoffs, choosing smaller immediate amounts over larger delayed amounts. Previous research has emphasized the power of sexual cues to induce a strong general psychological desire to obtain not only sex-related but all available rewards. In the case of money, that heightened appetite enhances the perceived value of immediate monetary rewards. We propose a different psychological mechanism to explain this effect: Sexual cues induce impatience through their ability to lengthen the perceived temporal distance to delayed rewards. That is, sexual cues make the temporal delay seem subjectively longer, resulting in greater impatience for monetary rewards. We attribute this process to the arousing nature of sexual cues, thus extending findings on arousal and overestimation of elapsed time to the domain of future time perception and intertemporal preferences.

1995 feels so close yet so far: the effect of event markers on subjective feelings of elapsed time.

Why does an event feel more or less distant than another event that occurred around the same time? Prior research suggests that characteristics of an event itself can affect the estimated date of its occurrence. Our work differs in that we focused on how characteristics of the time interval following an event affect people's feelings of elapsed time (i.e., their feelings of how distant an event seems). We argue that a time interval that is punctuated by a greater number of accessible intervening events related to the target event (event markers) will make the target event feel more distant, but that unrelated intervening events will not have this effect. In three studies, we found support for the systematic effect of event markers. The effect of markers was independent of other characteristics of the event, such as its memorability, emotionality, importance, and estimated date, a result suggesting that this effect is distinct from established dating biases.

Consuming now or later? The interactive effect of timing and attribute alignability.

Decisions are often temporally separated from their outcomes. Using theories of structural alignment and temporal construal, we examined how temporal distance and the associated shift in decision processes moderate susceptibility to context effects. Specifically, in two experiments (one hypothetical, one with real outcomes), we demonstrated that people attend more to nonalignable differences when the outcome of the decision is in the distant future than when it is in the near future. This shift in decision processes was found in preference and choice data, as well as coded written protocols. We further show that this temporal shift cannot be explained by differential involvement with the decision or by the feasibility and desirability of the attributes. Our findings establish temporal distance as an important moderator of structural alignment effects and also extend the implications of temporal construal theory beyond the nature of the attributes to the structural relationships among attributes.

Resource slack and propensity to discount delayed investments of time versus money.

The authors demonstrate that people discount delayed outcomes as a result of perceived changes over time in supplies of slack. Slack is the perceived surplus of a given resource available to complete a focal task. The present research shows that, in general, people expect slack for time to be greater in the future than in the present. Typically, this expectation of growth of slack in the future is more pronounced for time than for money. In 7 experiments, the authors demonstrate that systematic temporal shifts of perceived slack determine the extent and the pattern of delay discounting, including hyperbolic discounting. They use this framework to explain differential propensity to delay investments and receipts of time and money.