Molnar, A., & Golman, R. (2023). Impatience for Information: Curiosity is here today, gone tomorrow.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, e2360.
Based on the curiosity-as-drive theory and the theory of information gaps, we argue that curiosity—that is, the desire to seek out novel information for its own sake—is highly transient, and while people may be tempted by immediate answers, they may be less motivated when they need to wait for information. Contrary to standard economic models, we predict an immediacy effect (or present bias) for information even in those cases when waiting does not affect the objective value of information. Furthermore, we argue that this immediacy effect is independent from motivated emotion-management; that is, introducing delays makes people less willing to obtain information for its own sake even when information does not elicit strong anticipatory feelings. We test these hypotheses in two pre-registered experiments (N=2406) featuring real effort and monetary incentives and find that introducing a delay in information provision significantly reduces participants’ willingness to obtain information. In Study1, we also show that people display a stronger immediacy effect for information than for monetary rewards. In Study 2, we demonstrate that people are impatient for information regardless of how they expect to feel after receiving the information, and even when the perceived instrumental value of information remains unaffected by the delay. The strong impatience for information in both studies is consistent with the notion that curiosity acts as a drive, and as such, is highly transient.
Molnar, A., Chaudhry, S. J., & Loewenstein, G. (2023). “It’s Not About the Money. It’s About Sending a Message!”: Avengers Want Offenders to Understand the Reason for Revenge.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 174. 104207.
While revenge is typically thought to serve utilitarian goals (deter future offenses) or as an end in itself (restore fairness, equate suffering), we test whether “belief-based” motives also shape revenge behavior. Across four studies—one observational, two hypothetical choice, and one real choice—we find evidence that avengers want the offender to understand why (and sometimes by whom) they are being punished, even when doing so cannot change the offender’s future behavior. Avengers prefer punishments that allow them to communicate the reason to offenders, and they are willing to compromise on distributive justice to do so. Furthermore, avengers are less motivated to cause suffering if offenders remain ignorant of the reason. We explore reasons beyond deterrence that explain why avengers may care about what offenders believe, and also discuss the implications of these motives for organizations.
Molnar, A., & Loewenstein, G. (2022). Thoughts and Players: An Introduction to Old and New Economic Perspectives on Beliefs.
In this chapter we summarize how economists conceptualize beliefs. Moving both backward and forward in time, we review the way that mainstream economics currently deals with beliefs, as well as, briefly, the history of economists’ thinking about beliefs. Most importantly, we introduce the reader to a recent, transformational movement in economics that focuses on belief-based utility. This approach challenges the standard economic assumption that beliefs are only an input to decision making and examines implications of the intuitive idea that people derive pleasure and pain directly from their beliefs. We also address the question of when and why people care about what other people believe. We close with a discussion of the implications of these insights for contemporary social issues such as political polarization and fake news.
Molnar, A., & Loewenstein, G. (2022). Ideologies Are Like Possessions.
Gries, Müller, & Jost address a topic of great theoretical and practical importance: the origin of the ideologies that shape—and increasingly define—the current political and social climate. Adopting an economist’s perspective on ideologies, they seek to understand what purpose belief systems serve and why specific ideologies are embraced by individuals. Their answer, in a nutshell, is that people assess how well different ideologies would satisfy their psychological needs (and consumption) and choose the belief system that addresses their needs the most (subject to constraints such as limited information about ideologies and limited supply of ideologies in the “market” of belief systems). While this economic perspective, with its emphasis on tradeoffs between material and psychological needs and its recognition of the consequences of limited information, is useful in highlighting some of the considerations that might go into an individual’s adoption of ideologies, the proposed trial-and-error and sampling perspective obscures psychological factors that are likely more important for making sense of the emergence and consequences of ideologies in the real world. Contrary to the economic model, we argue that people can’t freely sample, pick and choose their own ideology, even if there are no obvious limitations on the supply of ideologies, and even if we assume that people have adequate information about how well different belief systems would satisfy their needs. By contrast, there are various social, cognitive, and psychological barriers that prevent people from sampling and abandoning ideologies.
Golman, R., Loewenstein, G., Molnar, A., & Saccardo, S. (2021). The Demand for, and Avoidance of, Information.
Management Science, 68(9), 6454–6476.
Management scientists recognize that decision making depends on the information people have but lack a unified behavioral theory of the demand for (and avoidance of) information. Drawing on an existing theoretical framework in which utility depends on beliefs and the attention paid to them, we develop and test a theory of the demand for information encompassing instrumental considerations, curiosity, and desire to direct attention to beliefs one feels good about. We decompose an individual’s demand for information into the desire to refine beliefs, holding attention constant, and the desire to focus attention on anticipated beliefs, holding these beliefs constant. Because the utility of resolving uncertainty (i.e., refining beliefs) depends on the attention paid to it and more important or salient questions capture more attention, demand for information depends on the importance and salience of the question(s) it addresses. In addition, because getting new information focuses attention on one’s beliefs and people want to savor good news and ignore bad news, the desire to obtain or avoid information depends on the valence (i.e., goodness or badness) of anticipated beliefs. Five experiments (n = 2,361) test and find support for these hypotheses, looking at neutrally valenced as well as ego-relevant information. People are indeed more inclined to acquire information (a) when it feels more important, even if it cannot aid decision making (Experiments 1A and 2A); (b) when a question is more salient, manipulated through time lag (Experiments 1B and 2B); and (c) when anticipated beliefs have higher valence (Experiment 2C).