This article is about social space and material objects for sale within that space. We draw primarily on Goffman’s (1971) concepts of use space and possession territories to predict that as the social density of a given space increases, inferences of the subjective social class and income of people in that space fall. Eight studies confirm that this is indeed the case, with the result holding even for stick figures, thus controlling for typical visual indicators of social class such as clothing or jewelry. Furthermore, these social class inferences mediate a relationship between social density and product valuation, with individuals assessing both higher prices and a greater willingness to pay for products presented in less crowded contexts. This effect of inferred class on product valuation is explained by status-motivated individuals’ desire to associate with higher-status people. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the link between social density, status inferences, and object valuations. As such, it makes a novel contribution to what has come to be known in sociology as the topological turn: a renewed focus on social space.
Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302(5649), 1338–1339.
“Defaults appear to make a large difference: the four option countries (gold) had the lower rates than the six Oaks out countries (blue). The two distributions have no overlap, and nearly 60 percentage points separate the two groups…
…One reason these results appear to be greater than those in our laboratory study is that the cost of changing from the default is higher; it involves filling out forms, making phone calls, and sending mail.” (pg. 1339)
We posit that the modern airplane is a social microcosm of classbased society, and that the increasing incidence of “air rage” can be understood through the lens of inequality. Research on inequality typically examines the effects of relatively fixed, macrostructural forms of inequality, such as socioeconomic status; we examine how temporary exposure to both physical and situational inequality, induced by the design of environments, can foster antisocial behavior. We use a complete set of all onboard air rage incidents over several years from a large, international airline to test our predictions. Physical inequality on airplanes—that is, the presence of a first class cabin—is associated with more frequent air rage incidents in economy class. Situational inequality—boarding from the front (requiring walking through the first class cabin) versus the middle of the plane—also significantly increases the odds of air rage in both economy and first class. We show that physical design that highlights inequality can trigger antisocial behavior on airplanes. More broadly, these results point to the importance of considering the design of environments—from airplanes to office layouts to stadium seating—in understanding both the form and emergence of antisocial behavior.
OTT 서비스를 구독하다 보면, 영화 드라마 등 컨텐츠는 많은데 막상 내가 볼만한 건 없다는 생각이 들 때도 있거든요? 이유가 무얼까요?
“우리는 구독 서비스를 가입할 때, 다양한 컨텐츠를 볼 것이라고 예상합니다. 하지만, 인간은 미래의 내가 추구하는 다양성을 과도하게 예측하는 경향이 있습니다 (variety seeking). 구독 서비스를 이용하다 보면, 점차 취향에 맞는 컨텐츠에만 집중하게 되고 결국 선호가 형성됩니다. 다양한 컨텐츠를 언젠가 볼 것이라고 예상하지만, 그 미래는 좀처럼 현실이 되지 않습니다.”
Two consumer strategies for the purchase of multiple items from a product class are contrasted. In one strategy (simultaneous choices/sequential consumption), the consumer buys several items on one shopping trip and consumes the items over several consumption occasions. In the other strategy (sequential choices/sequential consumption), the consumer buys one item at a time, just before each consumption occasion. The first strategy is posited to yield more variety seeking than the second. The greater variety seeking is attributed to forces operating in the simultaneous choices/sequential consumption strategy, including uncertainty about future preferences and a desire to simplify the decision. Evidence from three studies, two involving real products and choices, is consistent with these conjectures. The implications and limitations of the results are discussed.
“극도로 훈련된 전문 투자자들도 연말 평가에 비합리적으로 큰 의미를 부여합니다. 수십년 짜리 장기 금융상품에는 장기 수익률이 높은 주식만 들어있어야 하는데, 장기 수익률이 낮은 채권도 포함되어 있습니다. 이러한 이해할 수 없는 현상을 조사해보니, 투자자들이 근시안적 손실 회피 (Myopic loss aversion) 성향을 보이기 때문에 단기 수익률에는 차이가 없는 주식과 채권의 수익률을 해마다 확인하기 때문이라고 합니다. 전문 투자자도 인간이라서 1년이라는 단기적 관점에서 벗어나기 어렵나 봅니다”
The equity premium puzzle refers to the empirical fact that stocks have outperformed bonds over the last century by a surprisingly large margin. We offer a new explanation based on two behavioral concepts. First, investors are assumed to be “loss averse,” meaning that they are distinctly more sensitive to losses than to gains. Second, even long-term investors are assumed to evaluate their portfolios frequently. We dub this combination “myopic loss aversion.” Using simulations, we find that the size of the equity premium is consistent with the previously estimated parameters of prospect theory if investors evaluate their portfolios annually.
남의 취향을 눈으로 배우고, 나의 취향을 머리로 찾은 다음에, 그 취향을 경험으로 확정하는 거군요.
– 그런데, 경험은 주어진 가설을 지지하는 방향으로 해석됩니다. 즉, 광고를 가설로 먼저 접한 뒤에 제품을 경험하면, 광고에 맞게 경험을 해석합니다. 최근 많은 팝업스토어가 열리는 이유도, 회사의 가설에 맞추어 방문객이 경험을 해석하기를 기대하는 것이라고 볼 수 있습니다.
This paper examines the influence of advertising on how and what consumers learn from product experience. A hypothesis-testing framework is adopted where consumers treat advertisements as tentative hypotheses that can be tested through product experience. Two experiments were conducted using product categories that provided either ambiguous or unambiguous evidence about product quality. The first experiment showed that when consumers have access to unambiguous evidence, judgments of product quality are dependent only on the objective physical evidence and unaffected by advertising. However, advertising had dramatic effects on perceptions of quality when consumers saw ambiguous evidence; judgments and product inspection behavior protocols showed that advertising induced consumers to engage in confirmatory hypothesis testing and search. The second experiment showed that advertising influenced quality judgments by affecting the encoding of the physical evidence; retrieval of ad-consistent evidence also appeared to occur, though to a lesser degree.
– 만약 신맛이 나는 커피를 좋아하고, 신맛이 나는 커피를 왜 좋아하는지 말할 수 있다면, 취향이 정교화되었다라고 말할 수 있습니다. 즉 취향이 정교화되면 무엇을 좋아하는지, 왜 좋아하는지, 두 가지를 말할 수 있게 됩니다.
어릴 적에 거실에 깔려져있던 카페트를 보면서 “뭐 이렇게 복잡한 그림을 그려놓았나” 생각했는데 관심을 갖게 되면 달라보이는군요.
– 카페트뿐만 아니라, 안경, 신발, 넥타이 등 세상의 모든 제품과 서비스에 관심을 갖기 시작하면, 취향을 가진 사람과 그렇지 않은 사람 사이의 차이가 확연하게 드러납니다. 특히 최근에는 사람들이 자신의 취향을 찾아가는 걸 너무 재미있어해요. 대학생들이 스스로의 취향을 정교화하기 위해서 운동화, 향수, 음악에 많은 비용을 쓰는 것처럼, 소비자들이 찾아와서 스스로의 취향을 찾는 놀이터가 다른 제품에서도 만들어질 것 같습니다.
Consumers’ understanding of their own preferences can be aided by a “consumption vocabulary”-a taxonomy or framework that facilitates identifying the relation between a product’s features and one’s evaluation of the product. In the absence of such a vocabulary, consumers’ understanding of their own preferences will require more extensive experience and may never fully develop. The effect of such a vocabulary is tested in two experiments in which subjects provided with a vocabulary (1) exhibit better-defined and more consistent preferences than control subjects, (2) show improved cue discovery, and (3) show learning (i.e., increases in consistency over time). All results hold regardless of the functional form of the model used to assess subjects’ preference formation.
처음에는 따라하기로 시작하는 거네요. 그런데 남의 걸 보고 배우는게 나만의 온전한 취향이 될 수 있을까요?
– 사람들은 취향에 대해서 이중적인 생각을 갖고 있습니다. 처음에는 다른 사람들을 막 쫓아가지만, 나중에는 모든 사람들이 가는 곳에는 가고 싶어하지 않습니다. 결국, 대중을 따라가지 않고 나만의 독특한 취향을 찾아보고 싶다는 생각이 듭니다. 이 때, 취향이 개발된 전문가를 찾게 되고 책을 읽거나 전문가 모임을 찾게 됩니다.
People often diverge from members of other social groups: They select cultural tastes (e.g., possessions, attitudes, or behaviors) that distinguish them from outsiders and abandon tastes when outsiders adopt them. But while divergence is pervasive, most research on the propagation of culture is based on conformity. Consequently, it is less useful in explaining why people might abandon tastes when others adopt them. The 7 studies described in this article showed that people diverge to avoid signaling undesired identities. A field study, for example, found that undergraduates stopped wearing a particular wristband when members of the “geeky” academically focused dormitory next door started wearing them. Consistent with an identity-signaling perspective, the studies further showed that people often diverge from dissimilar outgroups to avoid the costs of misidentification. Implications for social influence, identity signaling, and the popularity and diffusion of culture are discussed.
Members of the Target Dorm viewed the members of the Academic Dorm as dissimilar, but would they abandon a previously held taste when the geeks adopted it? Results suggested that they did; in the week after the wristbands were adopted by the geeks, there was a 32% drop in the number of Target Dorm members who reported wearing the wristband. This drop was not accounted for by simple boredom. During the same period of time, there was only a 6% drop in wristband wearing in the control condition, X2(1, N=36)=3.78, p=.05.
– 초기에 경험이 부족해서 열쇠를 잘 열지 못할 때에는, 잠긴 열쇠를 열어달라는 요청에 30분동안 끙끙거려서 문을 열어주면 지켜보던 집주인이 고생했다면서 수고비와 팁을 주었습니다. 그런데 경험이 많이 쌓인 후에는, 잠긴 열쇠를 금방 열어주면 지켜보던 집주인이 팁도 주지 않고 수고비도 적게 주려고 합니다.
– 노력 휴리스틱은 벗어나기 어렵고, 특히 한국에서 강하게 작동합니다. 결과가 얼마나 좋은가 만큼이나 과정상 얼마나 노력했는가를 중요하게 생각하는 것인데, 문제는 과정상의 노력이 눈에 보여야 한다는 점입니다. 재택근무를 하거나 업무를 효율적으로 마무리 짓고 일찍 퇴근하면 눈에 보이는 노력이 부족해서 나쁘게 평가를 받고, 똑같은 시간을 일해도 아침 일찍 나와서 하는 대신 저녁 늦게까지 남아 있으면 노력하는 모습이 보여서 평가를 좋게 받습니다.
Kruger, J., Wirtz, D., Van Boven, L., & Altermatt, T. W. (2004). The effort heuristic. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(1), 91–98.
The research presented here suggests that effort is used as a heuristic for quality. Participants rating a poem (Experiment 1), a painting (Experiment 2), or a suit of armor (Experiment 3) provided higher ratings of quality, value, and liking for the work the more time and effort they thought it took to produce. Experiment 3 showed that the use of the effort heuristic, as with all heuristics, is moderated by ambiguity: Participants were more influenced by effort when the quality of the object being evaluated was difficult to ascertain. Discussion centers on the implications of the effort heuristic for everyday judgment and decision-making.
뭔가 많이 알고 있는 사람, 학식이 높은 사람, 전문 지식이 많은 사람이 지식의 저주에 빠지는 경우가 많겠네요.
– 지식이 깊어지면 지식을 모르는 상태가 어떤지 상상하기 어렵다는 개념은 굉장히 흥미로워요. 왜냐하면 일반적으로 지식이 많아지는 건 좋은 일인데, 잘 모르는 사람과 의사소통 할 때에는 나쁜 일이 됩니다. 학생을 가르치는 교수나 직원과 일하는 기업의 임원이 지식의 저주에 빠지기 쉽습니다.
– 한 기업의 직원분이 흥미로운 사례를 알려주셨어요. 사장님 보고 자료를 만들 때, 팀장님이 ‘수묵화’ 풍으로 만들어 달라고 하셨답니다. 자료가 수묵화풍이라는 게 색감인지 의미인지, 색감이면 흑백인지 여백의 미인지, 의미라면 큰 그림 속에 디테일을 의미하는 건지… 설명해주지 않으셨다고 합니다.
In economic analyses of asymmetric information, better-informed agents are assumed capable of reproducing the judgments of less-informed agents. We discuss a systematic violation of this assumption that we call the “curse of knowledge.” Better-informed agents are unable to ignore private information even when it is in their interest to do so; more information is not always better. Comparing judgments made in individual-level and market experiments, we find that market forces reduce the curse by approximately 50 percent but do not eliminate it. Implications for bargaining, strategic behavior by firms, principal-agent problems, and choice under uncertainty are discussed.
… In a clever study, economists wanted to find out whether students really learn more from experts. They collected data on every freshman at Northwestern University from 2001 to 2008. They investigated whether freshmen did better in their second course in a subject if their introductory class was taught by more qualified instructors.
You might assume that students would be better off learning the basics from an expert (a tenure‑track or tenured professor) than a nonexpert (a lecturer with less specialized knowledge). But the data showed the opposite: students who took their initial class with an expert ended up with poorer grades in the next class.
The pattern was robust across fields: students learned less from introductory classes taught by experts in every subject. It held across years—with over 15,000 students—and in courses with tougher as well as easier grading. And the experts were especially bad at teaching students who were less academically prepared.
It turns out that if you’re taking a new road, the best experts are often the worst guides. There are at least two reasons why experts struggle to give good directions to beginners. One is the distance they’ve traveled—they’ve come too far to remember what it’s like being in your shoes. It’s called the curse of knowledge: the more you know, the harder it is for you to fathom what it’s like to not know. As cognitive scientist Sian Beilock summarizes it, “As you get better and better at what you do, your ability to communicate your understanding or to help others learn that skill often gets worse and worse.” …
… It’s often said that those who can’t do, teach. It would be more accurate to say that those who can do, can’t teach the basics. A great deal of expert knowledge is tacit—it’s implicit, not explicit. The further you progress toward mastery, the less conscious awareness you often have of the fundamentals. Experiments show that skilled golfers and wine aficionados have a hard time describing their putting and tasting techniques—even asking them to explain their approaches is enough to interfere with their performance, so they often stay on autopilot. When I first saw an elite diver do four and a half somersaults, I asked how he managed to spin so fast. His answer: “Just go up in a ball.” Experts often have an intuitive understanding of a route, but they struggle to articulate all the steps to take. Their brain dump is partially filled with garbage….
