Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

Editorial.
The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied has a new editor. This article describes the aim of the new editor which is for the journal to continue publishing studies that make strong theoretical advances while also having applied implications. The journal is expanding the scope of acceptable experimental research and will now accept correlational studies. This includes quasiexperimental designs as well as articles examining associations between variables. The article also details the journal's view on context and individual differences for different studies, the new open science category, and the preexternal review revisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Interactive crowdsourcing to fact-check politicians.
The discourse of political leaders often contains false information that can misguide the public. Fact-checking agencies around the world try to reduce the negative influence of politicians by verifying their words. However, these agencies face a problem of scalability and require innovative solutions to deal with their growing amount of work. While the previous studies have shown that crowdsourcing is a promising approach to fact-check news in a scalable manner, it remains unclear whether crowdsourced judgements are useful to verify the speech of politicians. This article fills that gap by studying the effect of social influence on the accuracy of collective judgements about the veracity of political speech. In this work, we performed two experiments (Study 1: N = 180; Study 2: N = 240) where participants judged the veracity of 20 politically balanced phrases. Then, they were exposed to social information from politically homogeneous or heterogeneous participants. Finally, they provided revised individual judgements. We found that only heterogeneous social influence increased the accuracy of participants compared to a control condition. Overall, our results uncover the effect of social influence on the accuracy of collective judgements about the veracity of political speech and show how interactive crowdsourcing strategies can help fact-checking agencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Scrolling through fake news: The effect of presentation order on misinformation retention.
Sharing information in real time leaves little room for double-checking. This leads to an abundance of low-quality information that might later need to be corrected and provides a foundation on which false beliefs can arise. Today, the general population often consults digital media platforms for news content. Because of the sheer amount of news articles and the various ways digital media platforms organize material, readers may encounter news articles with faulty content and their subsequent corrections in various orders. They might read the misinformation before the corrected version or vice versa. We conducted two studies in which participants were presented with two reports of a news event: one report that included a piece of misinformation and one report in which that misinformation was retracted. The order in which the two reports were encountered was manipulated. In Study 1, the retraction contained an explicit reminder of the misinformation; in Study 2, it did not. Neither Study 1 nor Study 2 found an effect of presentation order on misinformation reliance. These findings run counter to predictions by those accounts of the continued influence effect that suggest a better encoding of retractions and subsequent lesser reliance on misinformation when retractions are encountered first. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Us versus them: The role of national identity in the formation of false memories for fake news.
People are prone to forming false memories for fictitious events described in fake news stories. In this preregistered study, we hypothesized that the formation of false memories may be promoted when the fake news includes stereotypes that reflect positively on one’s own nationality or negatively on another nationality. We exposed German and Irish participants (N = 1,184) to fabricated news stories that were consistent with positive or negative stereotypes about Germany and Ireland. The predicted three-way interaction was not observed. Exploratory follow-up analyses revealed the expected pattern of results for German participants but not for Irish participants, who were more likely to remember positive stories and stories about Ireland. Individual differences in patriotism did not significantly affect false memory rates; however, higher levels of cognitive ability and analytical reasoning decreased false memories and increased participants’ ability to distinguish between true and false news stories. These results demonstrate that stereotypical information pertaining to national identity can influence the formation of false memories for fake news, but variations in cultural context may affect how misinformation is received and processed. We conclude by urging researchers to consider the sociopolitical and media landscape when predicting the consequences of fake news exposure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Morality in minimally deceptive environments.
Psychologists, economists, and philosophers have long argued that in environments where deception is normative, moral behavior is harmed. In this article, we show that individuals making decisions within minimally deceptive environments do not behave more dishonestly than in nondeceptive environments. We demonstrate the latter using an example of experimental deception within established institutions, such as laboratories and institutional review boards. We experimentally manipulated whether participants received information about their deception. Across three well-powered studies, we empirically demonstrate that minimally deceptive environments do not affect downstream dishonest behavior. Only when participants were in a minimally deceptive environment and aware of being observed, their dishonest behavior decreased. Our results show that the relationship between deception and dishonesty might be more complicated than previous interpretations have suggested and expand the understanding of how deception might affect (im)moral behavior. We discuss possible limitations and future directions as well as the applied nature of these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Gender equality eliminates gender gaps in engagement with female-stereotypic domains.
Although prior work reveals that gender bias against women produces gender gaps favoring men in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics engagement, research has yet to explore whether gender bias against men produces gender gaps favoring women in health care, early education, and domestic (HEED) engagement. Supporting preregistered predictions, results from an online study with MTurkers (N = 296) and a laboratory study with college students (N = 275) revealed that men expressed less sense of belonging, positivity toward, and aspirations to participate in HEED (and anticipated more discrimination) than did women when exposed to the reality of antimale gender biases in these domains. However, when told that HEED displays gender equality, men’s engagement matched women’s. Moderated mediation analyses revealed the importance of sense of belonging (and to a lesser extent, anticipated discrimination) in explaining why gender bias leads men to express less HEED positivity and aspirations than women. The current research thus provided novel evidence suggesting that gender bias contributes to men’s underrepresentation in HEED, with important implications for broader occupational gender segregation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The role of controllability, resources, and effort in reducing prejudice against “unmarried” mothers.
The term “unmarried” mothers is widely used in South Korea to indicate that carrying a baby without marriage is not culturally acceptable. A societal stigma, which single mothers experience, causes more abortion and doubles the burden of parenting alone. This study aimed to identify what type of information (onset/before pregnancy controllability, offset/after pregnancy ability and effort) contributes to reducing stigmatization toward unmarried mothers. The findings showed that offset effort information has a robust impact on participants’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses toward mothers of newborns out of wedlock across the three studies (n = 275; n = 266; n = 227, respectively) with different targets (a minor and an adult of 25 years old) and different participants (college students and adults above 30 years old). This pro-effort bias increased behavioral intentions of helping single mothers through the moderators of onset controllability and offset ability and the mediators of cognitive and affective responses. In particular, Study 2 found individual differences, such as type of interpersonal attitude, gender-role attitude, and family communication style moderated the relationship of offset effort with behavioral intentions. Mothers who made an effort to build a better future were ascribed fewer negative stereotypes, evoked more positive emotions, and were considered to deserve more help and support from the public. The findings have implications for communication interventions to lower prejudice against unwed mothers in South Korea. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Stereotypes and emotions as moderators of risk and race in judgments about juvenile probationers.
Little research has explored the psychological mechanisms underlying racial disparities in the juvenile justice system. In Phase 1, of our mock officer paradigm, participants completed a stereotype content model survey comparing ratings of warmth and competence between juvenile delinquents and other social categories. In Phase 2, participants reviewed a predisposition investigation and made predictions about offender dangerousness and adherence to probation. Randomly assigned to experience fear, anger, or a neutral emotion, participants reviewed either a Black or White juvenile with no risk information versus low-, moderate-, or high-risk information. Participants stereotyped juvenile delinquents as low in warmth and competence and found those individuals extreme on these dimensions more dangerous. However, in some situations, stereotypical warmth interacted with emotions, risk, and race to exert a protective influence; in other situations, it was neutral, and in still others it was detrimental to the youth. For example, fearful participants provided lower dangerousness ratings to a White, high-risk offender as stereotypic warmth increased but this protective effect disappeared for high-risk Black offenders. Furthermore, irrespective of race, increases in warmth predicted higher dangerousness for low- and moderate-risk youth supporting the activation of a less “cold” stereotype that makes youthful offenders appear more dangerous. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Less biased yet more defensive: The impact of control processes.
Educational and training programs designed to reduce racial bias often focus on increasing people’s awareness of psychological sources of their biases. However, when people learn about their biases, they often respond defensively, which can undermine the effectiveness of antibias interventions and the success of prejudice regulation. Using process (Quad) modeling, we provide one of the first investigations of the relationships between (a) controlled and automatic cognitive processes that underpin performance on the Implicit Association Test and (b) defensive reactions to unflattering implicit racial bias feedback. In two correlational samples (one preregistered; N = 8,000) and one experiment in which the provision of bias feedback was manipulated (N = 547), we find racially biased associations and some control over these associations among White people. Nonetheless, more defensiveness to bias feedback consistently predicted weaker ability to control biased associations. We also find correlational evidence that lower levels of biased associations predict more defensiveness, but did not replicate this observation in the experimental study. These results are critical for theories of implicit attitudes, models of prejudice regulation, and strategies for antibias interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Finding your roots: Do DNA ancestry tests increase racial (in)tolerance?
While it is often assumed that Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) ancestry results illuminate one’s true racial or ethnic lineage, the consequence of this inference remains largely unknown. This leaves two conflictual hypotheses largely untested: Do DNA ancestry tests increase racial tolerance or, alternatively, racial intolerance? Two multiwave experiments aimed to test these hypotheses using either real or bogus DNA ancestry results in combination with random assignment and a tightly controlled repeated-measurements experimental design. Bayesian and inferential analyses on both general and student populations of majority-group members in the United States (i.e., White/European Americans) indicated no support for either hypothesis on measures including multiculturalism, essentialism, and outgroup bias, even when moderating factors such as the degree of unexpected ancestry and genetic knowledge were considered. Despite wide societal optimism as well as concern, receiving DNA ancestry results appears not to impact feelings and attitudes about other racial and ethnic groups. Implications for prospective test-takers and education are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Racial bias in perceptions of children’s pain.
Across eight experiments, we investigated whether adult perceivers (both lay perceivers and elementary school teachers) evaluate children’s pain differently depending on the child’s race. We found evidence that adults varying in racial and ethnic identities (but primarily White) believed 4- to 6-year-old Black children felt less pain than 4- to 6-year-old White children (Experiments 1–7), and this effect was not moderated by child sex (Experiments 6–7). We also examined perceptions of life hardship as a mediator of this race-to-pain effect, finding that adults evaluated Black children as having lived harder lives and thus as feeling less pain than White children (Experiments 1–3). Finally, we examined downstream consequences for hypothetical treatment recommendations among samples of both lay perceivers and elementary school teachers. We found that adults’ perceptions of pain sensitivity were linked with hypothetical pain treatment decisions (Experiments 5a–7). Thus, we consistently observed that adults’ race-based pain stereotypes biased evaluations of 4- to 6-year-old children’s pain and may influence pain care. This racial bias in evaluations of young children’s pain has implications for psychological theory and equitable treatment of children’s pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Choose as much as you wish: Freedom cues in the marketplace help consumers feel more satisfied with what they choose and improve customer experience.
Consumer satisfaction and customer experience are key predictors of an organization’s future market growth, long-term customer loyalty, and profitability but are hard to maintain in marketplaces with abundance of choice. Building on self-determination theory, we experimentally test a novel intervention that leverages consumer need for autonomy. The intervention is a message called a “freedom cue” (FC) which makes it salient that consumers can “choose as much as they wish.” A 4-week field experiment in a sporting gear store establishes that FCs lead to greater consumer satisfaction compared to when the store displays no FC. A large (N = 669) preregistered process-tracing experiment run with a consumer panel and a global e-commerce company shows that FCs at point-of-sale improve consumer satisfaction and customer experience compared to an equivalent message that does not make freedom to choose any amount salient. Perceived freedom mediates the effect. FCs do not change the time spent or clicks on the website overall but do change the focus of the choice process. FCs lead to greater focus on what is chosen than on what is not chosen. We discuss practical implications for organizations and future research in consumer choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Planning-to-binge: Time allocation for future media consumption.
The prevalence of streaming media has led firms to embrace the phenomenon of “binge-watching” by offering entire multipart series simultaneously. Such “on-demand” availability allows consumers to choose how to allocate future viewing time, but such decisions have received little attention in the literature. Across several studies, we show that individuals can plan binging in advance by allocating time in ways that aggregate episode consumption. Thus, we expand our understanding of media consumption to a new timepoint, distinct from “in-the-moment” viewing. We demonstrate that planning-to-binge preferences are flexible and shaped by perceptions of the media of interest. In particular, they are greater for content whose episodes are perceived as more sequential and connected, as opposed to independent. Since our framework focuses on the media’s structural continuity, it applies across hedonic and utilitarian time use, motivations, and content, including “binge-learning” plans for online education. Furthermore, increased plans-to-binge can be triggered by merely framing content as more sequential versus independent. Finally, consumers are willing to spend both money and time for the future opportunity to binge, and more so for sequential content. These findings suggest ways media companies may strategically emphasize content structure to influence consumer decisions and media viewing styles. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The commission effect: Framing affects perceived magnitude of identical payouts.
In addition to their salaries, employees often receive additional variable compensation (i.e., payouts) based on the sales they generate or manage. For any single transaction, the same payout (e.g., $1,000) may be earned by a relatively high commission rate and a low sales amount (e.g., 10% commission rate on a $10,000 sale) or a relatively low commission rate and a high sales amount (e.g., 1% commission rate on a $100,000 sale). In this research, we show that individuals—including those working in sales roles and familiar with commission plans—perceive the magnitude of the same payout as larger (smaller) if it stems from a high (low) commission rate and a low (high) sales amount. Across 10 experiments with 3,484 participants, we demonstrate the robustness of this “commission effect” in a varied set of employee and consumer contexts, and we identify behavioral consequences of this bias. We also provide evidence that the effect occurs because commission rates are expressed in percentages and are therefore relatively more evaluable than sales amounts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The impact of probabilistic tornado warnings on risk perceptions and responses.
Many warnings issued to members of the public are deterministic in that they do not include event likelihood information. This is true of the current polygon-based tornado warning used by the American National Weather Service, although the likelihood of a tornado varies within the boundaries of the polygon. To test whether adding likelihood information benefits end users, two experimental studies and one in-person interview study were conducted. The experimental studies compared five probabilistic formats, two with color and three with numeric probabilities alone, to the deterministic polygon. In both experiments, probabilistic formats led to better understanding of tornado likelihood and higher trust than the polygon alone, although color-coding led to several misunderstandings. When the polygon boundary was drawn at 10% chance, those using probabilistic formats made fewer correct shelter decisions at low probabilities and more correct shelter decisions at high probabilities compared to those using the deterministic warning, although overall decision quality, operationalized as expected value, did not differ. However, when the polygon boundary was drawn around 30%, participants with probabilistic forecasts had higher expected value. The interview study revealed that, although tornado-experienced individuals would not shelter at 10% chance, they would take intermediate actions, such as information-seeking and sharing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied - Vol 30, Iss 1