Cognitive Misers Research Articles

People who believe implausible claims are not cognitive misers: Evidence from evaluation tasks.

People who believe implausible claims are not cognitive misers: Evidence from evaluation tasks.

Unilateral decision-making powers in contract to be used by good boys or cognitive misers?

Unilateral decision-making powers in contract to be used by good boys or cognitive misers?

Tourism e-commerce marketing following live-streaming: consumer behavior and verification psychology

Purpose Based on social cognitive theory, this study aims to explore the psychological mechanism behind consumer verification behavior following tourism e-commerce live-streaming. Design/methodology/approach Based on grounded theory, data were collected through 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed. Findings This study identified that companies commonly use reminder messages and secondary promotions to facilitate the verification of tourism live-streaming products. Throughout this process, consumers undergo various psychologies related to verification. Specifically, they experience four positive verification psychologies: fear of missing out, anticipated emotions, status self-esteem and promotional perception. They also encounter two negative verification psychologies: psychological reactance and invasiveness. In addition, environmental factors such as the type of tourism live-streaming products and tourism destinations, along with individual trait factors like cognitive miserliness, tourism experience, autonomy, regulatory mode and impulsiveness, play significant roles in shaping verification behavior. These factors collectively influence the formation of verification behavior. Originality/value This study can provide recommendations for tourism companies to conduct marketing events following live-streaming. It is one of the earlier comprehensive studies discussing how to promote verification behavior following tourism e-commerce live-streaming. It helps to understand the psychological mechanism underlying the formation of verification behavior.

The Contingent Effects of IS Certifications on the Trustworthiness of Websites

Information systems (IS) research has largely treated IS certifications (i.e., graphical cues that prove the endorsement of independent third parties) as universally effective at improving website visitors’ perceptions of trustworthiness. However, inconclusive findings on the effectiveness of IS certifications on websites have emerged, critically challenging their usefulness. We seek to reconcile these inconclusive findings by drawing on swift trust theory and the notion of humans as cognitive misers. Specifically, we investigate whether the effects of IS certifications are contingent on visitors’ expectations and the website’s baseline trustworthiness (i.e., the original website before adding and visitors’ processing of IS certifications). Through a multistudy investigation combining an online (N = 191) and a follow-up field experiment with up to €4 million in sales volume (N = 306), we reveal the contingent effects of IS certifications on the trustworthiness of websites: Below (but not above) a certain level of a website’s baseline trustworthiness (i.e., the trust tipping point), IS certifications significantly increase trustworthiness. We also show that IS certifications do not increase the likelihood of user registrations (i.e., trust-related behavior) when a website’s baseline trustworthiness surpasses this trustworthiness threshold. Overall, we provide an important new perspective that explains and resolves previous inconsistent findings on the (in)effectiveness of IS certifications for trustworthiness and subsequent trust-related behaviors. We equip practitioners with valuable and actionable guidance on the usefulness of IS certifications to strengthen their digital businesses.

Easily accessible but easily forgettable: How ease of access to information online affects cognitive miserliness.

Ubiquitous Internet access has provided easy access to information and has influenced users' attention and knowledge management. In an online information service context, this research examines how the perception of easy access to information affects strategies to learn two types of information: "what it is" and "how to access it." This study also examines how the learning process is moderated by individual differences in working memory capacity, which can determine efficient management of attentional resources. The results show that individuals, especially those who rank high in working memory capacity, are less likely to remember the details but are more likely to remember how to access the information (e.g., a keyword for a search engine query). Those with higher working memory capacity are also more likely to ensure easy access to information by subscribing to information sources. The findings suggest that cognitive miserliness is not due to users' lack of cognitive capacity but to the accessibility of online information and efficient execution of attentional resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Thinking false and slow: Implausible beliefs and the Cognitive Reflection Test

Why do people believe implausible claims like conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and fake news? Past studies using the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) suggest that implausible beliefs may result from an unwillingness to effortfully process information (i.e., cognitive miserliness). Our analysis (N = 664) tests this account by comparing CRT performance (total score, number and proportion of incorrect intuitive responses, and completion time) for endorsers and non-endorsers of implausible claims. Our results show that endorsers performed worse than non-endorsers on the CRT, but they took significantly longer to answer the questions and did not make proportionally more intuitive mistakes. Endorsers therefore appear to process information effortfully but nonetheless score lower on the CRT. Poorer overall CRT performance may not necessarily indicate that those who endorse implausible beliefs have a more reflexive, intuitive, or non-analytical cognitive style than non-endorsers.

Halal or not? Exploring Muslim perceptions of cultured meat in Singapore

Singapore was the first country to approve cultured meat for public consumption. However, it remains unclear whether Muslims, who adhere to religious dietary restrictions and constitute a significant proportion of Singapore's population, are willing to consume cultured meat. Informed by the cognitive miser model, this study explores how Muslims make sense of cultured meat through their religious beliefs, trust in different stakeholders, as well as their risk or benefit perceptions of cultured meat. The findings from online focus group discussions showed that Muslim participants would only consider consuming cultured meat if it is certified halal (i.e., compliant with Islamic laws) and they also voiced religious concerns about cultured meat. Muslims have strong trust in food regulatory authorities in providing information about the safety and halal status of cultured meat. In addition to religious concerns, Muslims had similar risk and benefit perceptions of cultured meat compared to those of the non-Muslims. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Is all mental effort equal? The role of cognitive demand-type on effort avoidance

Humans are often termed “cognitive misers” for their aversion to mental effort. Both in and outside the laboratory people often show preferences for low-effort tasks and are willing to forgo financial reward to avoid more demanding alternatives. Mental effort, however, does not seem to be ubiquitously avoided: people play crosswords, board games, and read novels, all as forms of leisure. While such activities undoubtedly require effort, the type of cognitive demands they impose appear markedly different from the tasks typically used in psychological research on mental effort (e.g., N-Back, Stroop Task, vigilance tasks). We investigate the effect disparate demands, such as tasks which require problem solving (e.g., solve the missing number: 1, 3, 7, 15, 31,?) compared to those which require rule-implementation (e.g., N-Back task), have on people's aversion to or preference for increased mental effort. Across four experiments using three different tasks, and a mixture of online and lab-based settings, we find that aversion to effort remains largely stable regardless of the types of cognitive demands a task imposes. The results are discussed in terms of other factors that might induce the pursuit of mental effort over and above the type of cognitive demands imposed by a task.

The role of objective and introspective switch costs in voluntary task choice.

Human beings are cognitive misers. One facet of this effort avoidance is the reluctance to voluntarily switch tasks when repeating the same task is allowed. Yet participants voluntarily switch despite the resulting costs. This paradox might be resolved if the individual switching ability or sensitivity is considered. Here, we investigated whether the voluntary switch rate (VSR) is governed by the objective or the subjective (introspective) switch costs. Three experiments were conducted utilizing voluntary task switching with forced and free task choices intermixed. In Experiments 1 and 3, objective switch costs were measured on forced tasks, and subjective switch costs were calculated from (introspectively) estimated reaction times in a separate phase. In Experiment 2, objective and subjective costs were measured in the same phase. In Experiments 2 and 3, we additionally manipulated the forced switch rate. Results show that objective and subjective switch costs were lower in blocks with higher forced switch rates. The objective switch costs predicted VSR in Experiments 1 and (partially) 3. The subjective switch costs predicted the VSR only in Experiment 3 (the lower the costs, the higher the VSR). Hence, the present study offers first insight into under which circumstances introspection guides decision-making during voluntary task switching. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Upon Reflection

Upon Reflection

WE-219. The somatosensory event-related P40 is taking part to the cognitive miser property of the human brain

WE-219. The somatosensory event-related P40 is taking part to the cognitive miser property of the human brain

Feed for Thought: Factors Predicting Public Support for Funding and Labeling Preferences of Alternative Aquafeed

ABSTRACT Alternative aquafeed is currently being researched as a sustainable and environmentally friendly way to bolster aquaculture production, which plays an integral role in supplying global seafood demand. Guided by the cognitive miser model, this study aims to examine factors predicting public support for funding the development of alternative aquafeed and public preference for labeling fish fed with alternative aquafeed. This study found that heuristics were more influential than knowledge in shaping the dependent variables. This study also investigated how heuristics serve as perceptual filters, interacting with knowledge when influencing public support for funding and preference for labeling. This indicates that dependent on their predispositions and available heuristic cues, individuals might interpret the same information differently. Most importantly, the findings suggest that labels may serve varying roles and can be an effective way for actors in the food industry to communicate to the public.

Cognitive miserliness in argument literacy? Effects of intuitive and analytic thinking on recognizing fallacies

Abstract Fallacies are a particular type of informal argument that are psychologically compelling and often used for rhetorical purposes. Fallacies are unreasonable because the reasons they provide for their claims are irrelevant or insufficient. Ability to recognize the weakness of fallacies is part of what we call argument literacy and imporatant in rational thinking. Here we examine classic fallacies of types found in textbooks. In an experiment, participants evaluated the quality of fallacies and reasonable arguments. We instructed participants to think either intuitively, using their first impressions, or analytically, using rational deliberation. We analyzed responses, response times, and cursor trajectories (captured using mouse tracking). The results indicate that instructions to think analytically made people spend more time on the task but did not make them change their minds more often. When participants made errors, they were drawn towards the correct response, while responding correctly was more straightforward. The results are compatible with “smart intuition” accounts of dual-process theories of reasoning, rather than with corrective default-interventionist accounts. The findings are discussed in relation to whether theories developed to account for formal reasoning can help to explain the processing of everyday arguments.

Supplemental Material for Easily Accessible but Easily Forgettable: How Ease of Access to Information Online Affects Cognitive Miserliness

Supplemental Material for Easily Accessible but Easily Forgettable: How Ease of Access to Information Online Affects Cognitive Miserliness

Habits of collective memory.

Collective memory can generally be defined as an account of the past that is shared by members of a group and is part of their identity project. In this paper, we attempt to discuss collective memory in terms of narrative, schema, and habit, three constructs that reflect an underlying assumption that humans are "cognitive misers" who gravitate toward ways to handle large amounts of information in efficient ways. Narrative makes it possible to grasp together a series of events into a meaningful whole, and collective memory emerges when members of a group share the same narrative tools. Schemata in the form of "narrative templates" are posited underlying codes that provide insight into patterns of narratives in collective memory. Lastly, habit is what drives much of human behavior: it allows us to perform a behavior unconsciously and automatically upon mere exposure to a context cue, which in turn allows for increased ease and efficiency in everything we do. Together, narrative, schema and habit provide insight into the building blocks of collective memory and why it can be so notoriously resistant to change. While our account may raise more questions than answers, we believe that this could be a fruitful and novel approach to the study of collective memory and hope it can contribute to both theoretical discussion and practical efforts to address one of today's most vexing issues.

Exploring the relationship between response time, studying STEM and substitution bias

As ‘cognitive misers’, humans often fall prey to substitution bias, whereby a difficult problem is mentally substituted for an easier one. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore individual differences in vulnerability to substitution bias. Results demonstrate that studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, and spending more time on the problem correlates to a reduced likelihood of substitution bias. However, there was no interaction between studying STEM and time spent solving the problem on the likelihood of substitution bias. We discuss the possibility that education-related increases in mathematical or logical thinking skills engage the effortful and slow aspects of dual-process systems of human cognition.

Appealing to the cognitive miser: Using demand avoidance to modulate cognitive flexibility in cued and voluntary task switching.

Current cognitive control accounts view goal-directed behavior as striking a balance between two antagonistic control demands: Stability, on the one hand, reflects a rigid, focused state of control and flexibility, while on the other, reflects a relaxed, distractible state, whereby goals can be rapidly updated to meet unexpected changes in demands. In the current study, we sought to test whether the avoidance of cognitive demand could motivate people to dynamically regulate control along the stability-flexibility continuum. In both cued (Experiment 1) and voluntary (Experiment 2) task-switching paradigms, we selectively associated either task-switches or task-repetitions with high cognitive demand (independent of task identity), and measured changes in performance in a following phase after the demand manipulation was removed. Contrasting performance with a control group, across both experiments, we found that selectively associating cognitive demand with task repetitions increased flexibility, but selectively associating cognitive demand with task switches failed to increase stability. The results of the current study provide novel evidence for avoidance-driven modulations of control regulation along the stability-flexibility continuum, while also highlighting some limitations in using task-switching paradigms to examine motivational influences on control adaptation. Data, analysis code, experiment code, and preprint available at osf.io/7rct9/. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive misers on the web: An online-experiment of incentives, cheating, and cognitive reflection

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) has become one of the most widely used psychological tests in decision research. It also acquired considerable fame in the news, social media, and classrooms around the globe. Given its popularity, it comes as no surprise that correct answers on the CRT questions can be easily found online. How does the availability of information about the test influence its validity as a measure of cognitive reflection, particularly, if it is deployed in an online study? We present evidence that participants searched for answers on the internet. We compared two CRT versions. The crucial difference was that correct responses could be easily found online for the standard CRT, but not its modified variant. In addition, we examined if performance-based payment affected test performance and participants’ propensity to cheat. The latter was operationalized as the online search for correct answers on the CRT questions. Our results suggested that cheating occurred during the experiment, and that doing so improved performance if correct responses were easily found on the web. When the CRT items were re-phrased so that they could not be found online, performance was not improved by incentives. Hence, incentives boosted cheating rather than cognitive reflection.

Who is susceptible to online health misinformation? A test of four psychosocial hypotheses.

Objective: Health misinformation on social media threatens public health. One question that could lend insight into how and through whom misinformation spreads is whether certain people are susceptible to many types of health misinformation, regardless of the health topic at hand. This study provided an initial answer to this question and also tested four hypotheses concerning the psychosocial attributes of people who are susceptible to health misinformation: (1) deficits in knowledge or skill, (2) preexisting attitudes, (3) trust in health care and/or science, and (4) cognitive miserliness. Method: Participants in a national U.S. survey (N = 923) rated the perceived accuracy and influence of true and false social media posts about statin medications, cancer treatment, and the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine and then responded to individual difference and demographic questions. Results: Perceived accuracy of health misinformation was strongly correlated across statins, cancer, and the HPV vaccine (rs ≥ .70), indicating that individuals who are susceptible to misinformation about one of these topics are very likely to believe misinformation about the other topics as well. Misinformation susceptibility across all three topics was most strongly predicted by lower educational attainment and health literacy, distrust in the health care system, and positive attitudes toward alternative medicine. Conclusions: A person who is susceptible to online misinformation about one health topic may be susceptible to many types of health misinformation. Individuals who were more susceptible to health misinformation had less education and health literacy, less health care trust, and more positive attitudes toward alternative medicine. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Are consumers cognitive misers? An event-related potential study on decision-making in online purchasing.

Are consumers cognitive misers? An event-related potential study on decision-making in online purchasing.