“I feel and think,therefore I am”: An Affect-Cognitive Theory of management decisions

I propose an Affect-Cognitive Theory to comprehensively understand how decisions occur in organizations. To this aim, I first review the assumptions of sensemaking and decision-making streams of research, especially the influence of bounded rationality, affective states and their relationships with cognition; then, I integrate them on the common basis of socially situated cognition. This new theory emphasizes the role of affective states in determining/being determined by cognition and its errors, pointing out decision makers’ affect as the result of multi-level adaptations to the physical and social environment. Management decisions are path dependent but not immutable; they, indeed, bank on the predominant feeling resulting from the modifying interactions and regulations of decision makers with their physical and social environment. Here, decision makers are proposed as “emotional cognizers” overcoming the thinking-feeling dichotomy that has often featured in the study of management decisions. This theory is beneficial for behavioral strategy, offering the needed assumptions to intertwine human cognition, emotions, and social behavior.     

Help or hype: Symbolic or behavioral communication during Hurricane Katrina

Public relations professionals increasingly rely on the World Wide Web to communicate with their publics on a variety of issues, including the corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts the organization has undertaken. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there is an opportunity to discover how the Best 100 Global Brands used their corporate websites and the power of their brand equity to help the victims of the disaster, as well as to communicate their own CSR efforts. Results show that 51% of these Top 100 firms had messages on their homepages about Hurricane Katrina, and 86% of those firms made donations totaling $105,000,000. The remaining 14% of firms exhibited symbolic communication only, with links to philanthropic organizations aiding rescue efforts.     

Generalizability of an adult-validated model for predicting increased physical activity in after-school program children: Effects of treatment formats on fitness indicators

Inappropriately high weight in children is a persistent problem in the United States, and physical activity is often reduced in schools due to academic demands. Effective after-school programs could positively impact both physical activity and overweight/obesity, however previous reviews and meta-analyses have indicated minimal effects. Both 4- and 3-day/week versions of a social cognitive theory-driven physical activity/nutrition after-school program were evaluated against unstructured care to assess effects in children (overall M_age = 10.00 years, SD = .80). For changes over 9 months in body mass index (BMI), effects sizes (Cohen’s d) were .68, .40, and .07 in the 4-day (n = 70), 3-day (n = 70), and unstructured (n = 50) groups, respectively. Similar patterns of effects were found for changes in free-time physical activity and cardiovascular endurance. Incorporating a theory-based prediction model previously supported in teens through older adults, with and without medical disorders and health-risk factors, improvements in exercise-related self-regulation and self-efficacy, and mood, significantly predicted increased free-time physical activity (R² = .48). Effects significantly strengthened to R² = .62 when completion/non-completion of the recommended 300 min/week of physical activity was also accounted for. Change in BMI was inversely related to physical activity change, β=-.14, p < .05. The present evaluation process indicated promising effects, and indicated theory-based targets to foster future program improvements.     

Because they were there: Access,deliberation, and the mobilization of networks for support

When people need help, what is the process through which they decide whom in their network to turn to? Research on social support has described a process that is deliberative in nature: people determine their needs, assess who in their network has the needed attributes—such as skill, trustworthiness, intimacy, and accessibility—and then activate that tie. Nevertheless, research in behavioral economics and other fields has shown that people make many decisions not deliberatively but intuitively. We examine this possibility in the context of social support by focusing on one factor: accessibility. Although researchers have argued that people weigh the accessibility of potential helpers as they do any other attribute, accessibility may be not only an attribute of the helper but also a condition of the situation. We develop a framework to make this question tractable for survey research and evaluate competing hypotheses using original data on an analytically strategic sample of ∼2000 college students, probing concrete instances of social support. We identify and document not one but three decision processes, reflective, incidental, and spontaneous activation, which differ in the extent to which actors had deliberated on whether to seek help and on whom to approach before activating the tie. We find that while the process was reflective (consistent with existing theory) when skill or trustworthiness played a role, it was significantly less so (consistent with the alternative) when accessibility did. Findings suggest that actors decide whom in their network to mobilize through at least three systematically different processes, two of which are consistent less with either active “mobilization” or explicit “help seeking” than with responsiveness to opportunity and context.     

The effect of cognitive diversity on the illusion of control bias in strategic decisions: An experimental investigation

By integrating cognitive diversity into debiasing literature, this paper contributes towards opening the black box of executive judgment. Based on information processing theory we investigate the role of cognitive diversity in strategic decision making. We apply a vignette-based experimental research design to examine the effect of cognitive diversity in teams on decision maker's illusion of control. The results of these experiments provide evidence for a positive influence of high cognitive diversity for debiasing judgment while similarly indicating no such effect for groups with low cognitive diversity. These findings suggest that group composition aspects can play an important role for improving judgment in decision making teams and open promising new avenues for studying debiasing in behavioral strategy research.     

The triggers of local and distant search: Relative magnitude and persistence in explaining acquisition relatedness

Research on problemistic search has assumed negative attainment discrepancy to be the trigger of both local and distant search. Extending this research, we present and compare two additional triggers: (1) relative attainment discrepancy, which reflects how much a firm's attainment discrepancy deviates from its past negative attainment discrepancies; and (2) persistent attainment discrepancy, which reflects how often the firm experiences below-aspirations performance. Our triggers for distant search model a behavioral explanation for the timing and relatedness of acquisitions. We find support for baseline arguments of problemistic search whereby firms increase both industry- and skill-related acquisitions when they perform below aspirations. When they persistently perform below aspirations, however, this likelihood is reduced and firms engage in acquisitions that are more unrelated, thereby providing support for the notion of expanding search boundaries from local to distant search. Of the two triggers of distant search proposed, relative attainment discrepancy does not induce firms to expand search boundaries. Our results indicate that persistent attainment discrepancy is a key construct to consider when studying the expansion of search boundaries.     

心理学对经济学的贡献

随着人类经济活动的日益丰富与多样化,以新古典理论为核心的主流经济学不断与现实经济世界产生矛盾与冲突,许多经济现象仅通过对理性人模型的量变扩张已无法解释。认知心理学的发展为经济学考察人类的经济行为提供了坚实的科学依据。被称作＂心理学的经济学＂的行为经济学,剥去了假设理性人光鲜的外衣,强调对行为的分析应以行为的真实心理形成机制为基础,不能以主观的先验假定为依据。行为经济学更适合对我国当前整体经济行为的深入研究。将个体行为纳入经济学分析体系,这对我国构建以人为本的和谐社会具有重要的现实意义。行为经济学修正了主流经济理论中＂自利人＂的假定,吸收社会心理学关于＂利他行为＂等研究成果,不仅与我国传统道德文化相吻合,对当前构建市场经济条件下社会主义核心价值体系更具借鉴意义。     

基于行为金融学框架下的认知偏差综述

近十年实证金融学的前沿文献常常涉及潜在的来自心理学、社会学、人类学的行为原则的影响,将心理学和金融学有机结合的行为金融学成为实证金融学的重要研究方向,在已有的文献的基础上综述行为金融学的产生和发展.由于认知心理学是构成了行为金融的两大根基之一,详细综述了认知心理学与金融学之间的交叉关系,期望通过认知偏差的理解,提供有效...     

实验经济学的兴起、发展及其在中国的应用前景

实验经济学是过去三十年中经济学发展最快的分支领域之一,近年来,田野实验的快速发展进一步加快了经济学的实验化进程。可以说,经济学家已经越来越依赖于实验来理解和解释经济现象与行为。不过这一状态来之不易。实验经济学一直是在驳斥与怀疑之中成长的,直到现在,围绕实验经济学的方法论而展开的争论也还在继续。本次访谈邀请了当前国际实验经济学的领军人物丹尼 尔.豪瑟（Daniel Houser）教授和在方法论上造诣颇深的罗卫东教授就实验经济学方法上的一些关键问题进行阐述,内容涉及实验经济学为什么会兴起并获得发展,实验室实验所面临的人工性、外部有效性方面的质疑,实验室实验、田野实验以及自然实验之间的关系,行为经济学和实验经济学之间的关系等核心问题,两位教授还对未来实验经济学在中国的发展提出了建设性意见。