Vignette-based Experiment Research Articles

Bias in the Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder Among Sexual- and Gender-Minority Persons: Results From a Vignette-Based Experiment

Sexual- and gender-minority (SGM) individuals are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) more than cisgender heterosexuals. Using a large sample of mental-health practitioners in the United States and Canada ( N = 426), we examined bias in the diagnosis of BPD. Mental-health practitioners were randomly assigned to receive one of three clinical vignettes (cisgender heterosexual man, cisgender gay man, or transgender woman) and asked to provide psychiatric diagnoses based on the vignette. Mental-health practitioners demonstrated a predilection to diagnose BPD when presented with the transgender vignette (odds ratio [ OR] = 1.99, p = .01) but not the cisgender-gay vignette ( OR = 1.34, p = .29) compared with practitioners presented the cisgender-heterosexual vignette. Psychiatrists, mental-health counselors, and clinical social workers were significantly more inclined to diagnose BPD than psychologists, although reasons for underdiagnosis differed across groups. These findings bear important implications for future training given the nature of the mental-health workforce in the United States.

Some for a Good Time, Some for a Long Time: Women’s Ratings of the Mate Value of Men with Different Addictions – An Experimental Study

Background: The present study aimed to explore women’s perception of men with different addictions in terms of their short- and long-term mate value. Objectives: 2,525 women (age range: 18–40, M = 28.35, SD = 6.39) were randomized to six conditions in a vignette-based experiment where a male of otherwise high mating value was described as suffering from either gambling, gaming, cannabis, anabolic androgenic steroid, and alcohol addiction or as not suffering from addiction (control). Results: Regarding long-term mate value of the target, the control target was rated higher than each of the targets. The gaming target was rated higher than the alcohol, cannabis, and gambling targets. Finally, the AAS target was rated as higher on long-term mate value than the alcohol and gambling addiction targets. Conclusions: Overall, women seem to perceive risk-taking in the face of uncertainty, reflected by gambling addiction, as an attractive behavioral tendency in men in terms of short-term mating. In contrast, potential long-term mates with gaming or chemical addictions are viewed more negatively, probably because it signals inadequate time and resources to be invested in a relationship.

Who Loses in Win-Win Investing? A Mixed Methods Study of Impact Risk

AbstractExisting scholarship grapples with how impact investors measure positive impacts, but little attention has been paid to negative impact or limitations to positive impact, indicating a need to study “impact risk.” Impact risk refers to the likelihood that impact will be different than expected. In this paper, we study how impact risk is considered in practice. First, through a yearlong data collection effort including interviews with 124 impact investors, we are the first, to our knowledge, to document the consideration of impact risk by practitioners. From this qualitative study, we develop two hypotheses about cognitive mechanisms related to impact risk. Second, we test these hypotheses through a vignette-based experiment with an online sample (N = 435). We find that win–win views of business, exemplified by the impact investing industry, can lead to inadequate consideration of impact risk. Inadequate consideration of impact risk matters for ethical reasons: with beneficiaries—people and planet—in urgent need of real solutions, investors and academics should take impact risk seriously.

God, witchcraft, and beliefs about illness in Mauritius

ABSTRACT Why do people use supernatural concepts to explain and treat illness? In a Mauritian sample, we examined how uncertainty around the cause of symptoms, illness severity, and knowledge about past moral behavior, influenced participants’ tendency to attribute illnesses to God and/or witchcraft. We employed a preregistered vignette-based experiment to manipulate these variables in four illnesses and a combination of scaled and open-ended freelist questions about the causes and cures for each illness. Participants (N = 530) gave supernatural causes and cures for all illnesses. High uncertainty around the cause of the symptoms increased participants’ claims that the illness was caused by God. When the sick person had a history of immoral behavior, participants were more willing to attribute their illness to God and witchcraft and offered up 4 times more supernatural causes in freelists compared with a person with no such history. We found no evidence that severity influenced participants’ likelihood of suggesting supernatural causes or cures. Finally, when participants gave a supernatural cause, they were more likely to also indicate that the illness needed a supernatural cure (e.g., consulting a spiritual healer), suggesting that supernatural causes increase the need for supernatural cures.

The effect of aggressive group norms on young adults’ conformity behavior in WhatsApp chats: a vignette-based experiment

Social networking and messaging applications, such as WhatsApp, have become an essential social environment for adolescents and young adults (AYA). While facilitating connectivity, they also bear hazards, including cyber-aggression. This study investigates the impact of (aggressive) group norms on AYA's propensity to expect cyberaggressive behaviors within different group chats. Based on a vignette scenario, realistically simulated WhatsApp group chats enabled scrutinizing, if and how exemplary reactions (funny, aggressive, friendly) of group members influence AYA's conformity to cyber-aggression (N = 500, aged 16 to 29). Additionally, we examined the effect of chat group type—close friends versus fellow students—on the anticipation of aggressive reactions. Sociodemographic, social, and developmental-psychological factors were evaluated for potential effects. Multilevel logistic regression analyses indicated that aggressive group norms significantly predict cyber-aggression anticipation, while no effect of chat group type was observed. Controlling for the size and vivacity of participant’s friend group, gender, age, and educational status were significant predictors: males, younger participants, and non-university students expected higher levels of cyber-aggression conformity. This study underlines the importance of group dynamics on perceptions of cyber-aggression and hints at individual risk factors for AYA's digital communication behavior.

Effect of supplier environmental damage on environmental concern and green purchase dynamic capabilities

Objective: Given the importance of sustainability in the supply chain, this study aims to analyze the effect of supplier environmental damage on managers' perception of the need to develop Green Purchasing Dynamic Capabilities (GPDC) and whether this effect is mediated by environmental concern. Method: A full-factorial vignette-based experiment was employed, involving 267 US professionals with management experience. Hypotheses were tested through multiple regression analysis. Results: The responsibility for supplier selection did not have a direct effect on the need to develop GPDC. Controllability of environmental damage did not moderate the effect of responsibility on GPDC development. However, environmental concern mediated the effect of responsibility on the need for GPDC development. Conclusions: This study provides novel insights into the role of management in decision-making related to GPDC and highlights the significant mediating role of environmental concern. These findings elucidate how external and internal company aspects regarding supplier environmental damages interact within the framework of Green Purchasing Dynamic Capabilities.

Double-Edged Sword: A Positive Brain Scan Result Heightens Confidence in an Alzheimer's Diagnosis But Also Leads to Higher Stigma Among Older Adults in a Vignette-Based Experiment.

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using brain scans and other biomarker tests will be essential to increasing the benefits of emerging disease-modifying therapies, but AD biomarkers may have unintended negative consequences on stigma. We examined how a brain scan result affects AD diagnosis confidence and AD stigma. The study used a vignette-based experiment with a 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design of main effects: a brain scan result as positive or negative, treatment availability and symptom stage. We sampled 1,283 adults ages 65 and older between June 11and July 3, 2019. Participants (1) rated their confidence in an AD diagnosis in each of four medical evaluations that varied in number and type of diagnostic tools and (2) read a vignette about a fictional patient with varied characteristics before completing the Modified Family Stigma in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (FS-ADS). We examined mean diagnosis confidence by medical evaluation type. We conducted between-group comparisons of diagnosis confidence and FS-ADS scores in the positive versus negative brain scan result conditions and, in the positive condition, by symptom stage and treatment availability. A positive versus negative test result corresponds with higher confidence in an AD diagnosis independent of medical evaluation type (all p < .001). A positive result correlates with stronger reactions on 6 of 7 FS-ADS domains (all p < .001). A positive biomarker result heightens AD diagnosis confidence but also correlates with more AD stigma. Our findings inform strategies to promote early diagnosis and clinical discussions with individuals undergoing AD biomarker testing.

Whether to share personal financial information through blockchain? – an intermediary perspective

ABSTRACT Information sharing is of great importance in the financial market. Most current electronic transaction systems do not encourage investors to freely share information such as risk assessment records. Blockchain, a decentralised technology with high security features, is expected to improve the current systems. However, little is known about whether blockchain-based electronic transaction systems contribute to investors’ willingness to share personal financial information. This study adopts a vignette-based experiment to enrich previous studies by explaining the relationship between blockchain and investors’ behaviour. This study introduced investor empowerment, trust belief, risk belief, and perceived uncertainty as mediating variables and considered how these mediating variables interact with each other. Independent sample t-test and structural equation modelling were used to examine the causal relationship between independent and dependent variables, and the role of mediating effect. For text analysis of interview dialogues, keyword extraction and sentiment analysis were used to understand the participants’ focus and sentiment attitude toward electronic transaction systems based on blockchain and non-blockchain. The results show that blockchain can build trust, reduce risk belief and perceived uncertainty by empowering investors, thus increasing investors’ information sharing intention and investment intention. Furthermore, investors have significantly more positive emotional attitudes toward blockchain-based systems.

The presence of ‘others’ increases prosociality: examining the role of dating Partner’s accompany on donation

ABSTRACT Research in the field of prosocial behavior has shown that the presence of others has a significant effect on individuals’ prosociality. However, no research has explored such an effect of romantic partner’s presence. Studies in evolutionary psychology have shown benevolence/prosociality as an important factor when choosing a romantic partner. Therefore, in the present study, we hypothesized that people will donate more in the presence of dating partners to maintain a positive impression on them. The research followed a mixed-method approach. The first study, a vignette-based experiment showed that people believed the presence of a dating partner significantly enhances the chances of donation. The second study was a between-subject experiment that confirmed the findings of study 1 from both donors’ and receivers’ perspectives. The third study was a qualitative investigation, where a semi-structured interview method was used to find out how and why the presence of a dating partner may influence donation. The interviews showed that the presence of dating partners increases prosociality mainly because donors want to make a good impression and project the right image of them in their partners’ eyes. The research overall suggests that the human need for self-presentation that projects them more socially likable shapes their willingness to extend a helping hand to others in the presence of their romantic partners.

Mindful Explanations: Prevalence and Impact of Mind Attribution in XAI Research

When users perceive AI systems as mindful, independent agents, they hold them responsible instead of the AI experts who created and designed these systems. So far, it has not been studied whether explanations support this shift in responsibility through the use of mind-attributing verbs like "to think". To better understand the prevalence of mind-attributing explanations we analyse AI explanations in 3,533 explainable AI (XAI) research articles from the Semantic Scholar Open Research Corpus (S2ORC). Using methods from semantic shift detection, we identify three dominant types of mind attribution: (1) metaphorical (e.g. "to learn" or "to predict"), (2) awareness (e.g. "to consider"), and (3) agency (e.g. "to make decisions"). We then analyse the impact of mind-attributing explanations on awareness and responsibility in a vignette-based experiment with 199 participants. We find that participants who were given a mind-attributing explanation were more likely to rate the AI system as aware of the harm it caused. Moreover, the mind-attributing explanation had a responsibility-concealing effect: Considering the AI experts' involvement lead to reduced ratings of AI responsibility for participants who were given a non-mind-attributing or no explanation. In contrast, participants who read the mind-attributing explanation still held the AI system responsible despite considering the AI experts' involvement. Taken together, our work underlines the need to carefully phrase explanations about AI systems in scientific writing to reduce mind attribution and clearly communicate human responsibility.

Can you have it both ways? Attribution and plausible deniability in unclaimed coercion

Abstract States and non-state actors conduct unclaimed coercive attacks, inflicting costs on adversaries to signal resolve to prevail in a dispute while refraining from claiming or denying responsibility. Analysts argue that targets often know who is responsible, which enables coercive communication, and that the lack of claims of responsibility grants coercers plausible deniability in the eyes of third parties. The puzzle of different audiences holding different beliefs about who is behind an unclaimed attack, even when they may have the same information, has been neglected. We address this puzzle by theorising that targets and third parties tend to reach different conclusions due to distinct emotional reactions: targets are more likely to experience anger, which induces certainty and a desire to blame someone, as well as heuristic and biased information processing, prompting confident attribution despite the limited evidence. A vignette-based experiment depicting a terrorist attack lends empirical plausibility to our argument.

Wise leaders fostering employees’ speaking up behaviors: developing and validating a measure of leader-expressed practical wisdom

AbstractPractical wisdom, an essential component of leadership, has been approached mainly from a theoretical perspective. While there are barely any empirical studies on leaders’ practical wisdom, quantitative ones are even rarer, and no valid measure of a leader’s practical wisdom exists. Thus, our understanding of whether and how wise leaders influence their followers is limited. Inspired by Thomas Aquinas’ ideas on practical wisdom, we operationalize it as a tridimensional capacity of inquiring, judging, and acting in an emotionally regulated way, and develop and validate a corresponding measure of leader-expressed practical wisdom. To support our operationalization, we test how leader-expressed practical wisdom predicts employees’ speaking up behaviors via their psychological safety. Our rationale is that to make better decisions, wise leaders are receptive to employees’ views that address matters of concern and challenge the status quo with the intention of improving the situation – such a receptiveness being enabled by fostering employees’ psychological safety. Through a two-wave field study, a three-wave field study, and a vignette-based experiment carried out in three countries we obtain empirical support for that three-dimensional construct and show that leader-expressed practical wisdom predicts employees’ speaking up behaviors via their psychological safety.

The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle: The Extent of Overhead Ratios’ Manipulation, Distrust, and Ramifications

While little evidence supports the notion that financially responsible nonprofits must maintain low overhead ratios, the persistent preference for reduced overhead costs endures. Our study explores (a) the extent of underreporting behaviors, (b) the level of trust (or distrust) that nonprofit leaders have in overhead ratio reports, and (c) the motivations perceived by managers that drive nonprofits to adjust their overhead ratios and the resulting consequences. Experiment results from the “item sum double-list technique” (ISDLT) reveal that nonprofit managers may artificially lower their overhead ratios by approximately 10 percentage points, a range spanning from 7 to 16 percentage points. This adjustment aims to enhance their competitiveness in the funding market. Our vignette-based experiment uncovers significant trust issues related to reported low overhead ratios, potentially indicating accounting manipulation within the field. Complemented by open-ended survey responses from nonprofit managers, our research offers valuable insights into this domain.

Dissolve It or Resolve It: An Exploration into ‘When’ and ‘Why’ Divorce is Justified by the Unmarried Youth

ABSTRACT The present research delves into the divorce process and its justification through young Indian unmarried youth. Building on the results obtained from the pilot study, a vignette-based experiment was then conducted on 80 students (40 males, 40 females; Mage = 22.30). The experiment followed a between-subject design where each vignette presented a narrative of a deteriorating marriage, conveyed from a woman’s standpoint, followed by questions addressing the justification for divorce. Results showed a preference for divorce in cases of infidelity over incompatibility. The participants held the belief that instances of infidelity impacted the mental and physical well-being of females more profoundly than cases of incompatibility. It is noteworthy that both male and female participants supported divorce in a similar manner, highlighting the lack of substantial gender-based differences in this matter. Additionally, the presence of a child did not significantly affect divorce-related decisions, suggesting that having a child did not salvage failing marriages.

Does harm or disrespect make discrimination wrong? An experimental approach

ABSTRACTWhile standard forms of discrimination are widely considered morally wrong, philosophers disagree about what makes them so. Two accounts have risen to prominence in this debate: One stressing how wrongful discrimination disrespects the discriminatee, the other how the harms involved make discrimination wrong. While these accounts are based on carefully constructed thought experiments, proponents of both sides see their positions as in line with and, in part, supported by the folk theory of the moral wrongness of discrimination. This article presents a vignette-based experiment to test empirically what, in the eyes of “folks”, makes discrimination wrong. Interestingly, we find that, according to folks, both disrespect and harm make discrimination wrong. Our findings offer some support for a pluralistic account of the wrongness of discrimination over both monist respect-based and monist harm-based accounts.

Social presence and psychological distance: A construal level account for online distance learning

Online distance learning presents unique psychosocial characteristics due to the inherent distance between learners. Social presence –the sense of being with others– is key to mitigating this distance. However, our understanding of social presence remains limited, despite its potential to reduce social isolation and cultivate a conducive social space in online education. A gap in our understanding relates to how social presence aligns with more general accounts of interpersonal representations under conditions of psychological distance, as presented in Construal Level Theory. We conducted a vignette-based experiment (N = 194) to examine how psychological distance in online learning affects the mental construal level of a hypothetical partner and, thus, social presence perceptions. Findings suggest that increased psychological distance leads to higher-level construals, resulting in a perception of conversation partners as non-descript and homogenous. Importantly, this affects social presence perceptions, with certain nuances. These findings can inform novel approaches to enhance social presence in online learning.

Are (pre)adolescents differentially susceptible to experimentally manipulated peer acceptance and rejection? A vignette-based experiment

The differential susceptibility model proposes that some children are more susceptible to both positive and negative peer relationships than others. However, experimental evidence supporting such a proposition is relatively scarce. The current experiment aimed to help address this gap, investigating whether Chinese (pre)adolescents who have higher levels of general sensitivity to the environment (i.e., higher levels of sensory processing sensitivity [SPS]) would be more strongly affected by peer acceptance and rejection. (Pre)adolescents aged 8.75–15.17 ( N = 1,207, Mage = 11.19 years, 59.7% boys) randomly received four hypothetical vignettes describing either peer acceptance or peer rejection. Before and after this manipulation, they reported on their positive and negative mood. We assessed (pre)adolescents’ SPS using (pre)adolescent self-reports, as well as caregiver reports for a subset of (pre)adolescents ( n = 480). Results supported differential susceptibility to peer rejection and acceptance for self-reported SPS, but not caregiver-reported SPS. (Pre)adolescents with higher levels of self-reported SPS not only had stronger increases in positive mood upon peer acceptance (susceptible “for better”; β = .09, p = .001) but also stronger increases in negative mood upon peer rejection (susceptible “for worse”; β = .09, p = .023). These findings illustrate the short-term dynamics that may underlie differences in children’s long-term susceptibility to acceptance or rejection by peers.

Managing supplier sustainability risk: an experimental study

PurposeBuying firms are increasingly exposed to sustainability risk arising from negative conditions or potential events in their supply base that might provoke adverse stakeholder reactions. Procurement managers at these firms can pursue multiple strategies to address this risk with suppliers, including acceptance, monitoring-based mitigation, avoidance and collaboration-based mitigation. This study aims to investigate how perceived risk, supplier dependence and financial slack resources contribute to the strategic preferences of these managers.Design/methodology/approachA vignette-based experiment with procurement managers is used to examine the factors affecting the managers’ strategic preferences in managing supplier sustainability risk.FindingsThe empirical results revealed that the procurement managers’ preference for avoidance or collaboration strategies was stronger when they perceived higher risk, but their preference varied based on the degree of supplier dependence. Specifically, when they perceived a high level of risk, procurement managers were more inclined toward a monitoring strategy with dependent suppliers and preferred an avoidance strategy when they dealt with independent ones. Financial slack was also an influential factor: managers with more slack at their disposal preferred to collaborate with suppliers to address the risk; on the other hand, limited slack shifted their preference toward an acceptance strategy, regardless of the level of risk.Originality/valueThis study helps to develop a more nuanced picture of how procurement managers make challenging and complex trade-offs when responding to supplier sustainability risk.

The Reconnection Process: Mobilizing the Social Capital of Dormant Ties

Prior research has identified the value of reconnecting dormant ties (i.e., people you used to know), allowing individuals to refresh relationships and mobilize the value inherent in a tie (i.e., its social capital). However, less well understood is how this reconnection process occurs, including how it can be done well or poorly. To address this lack of knowledge, we conducted multi-organizational research combining an inductive, qualitative field study of professional reconnections by individuals in the North Italian textile district (Study 1) and, to validate our findings, a vignette-based experiment with U.S. workers (Study 2). We find that the process of reconnecting dormant ties can and does fail, sometimes dramatically, when people do not refresh the tie and, as a result, do not trust where they stand with each other. Specifically, we find that three elements—remembering, catching up, and perceiving the tie similarly—are key to successfully mobilizing the value of a dormant tie.

What's risk got to do with it: Judges' and probation officers' understanding and use of juvenile risk assessments in making residential placement decisions.

This hypothetical vignette-based experiment was designed to better understand judges' and probation officers' interpretations and use of juvenile risk assessment tools in their decision-making around restrictive sanctions and confinement of youths on the basis of the youths' risk level and race. We expected that estimates of the probability of juvenile recidivism would significantly mediate the relationship between a categorical risk descriptor and decisions regarding the ordering confinement of youths. We also hypothesized that youths' race would serve as a significant moderator in the model. Judicial and probation staff (N = 309) read a two-part vignette about a youth who was arrested for the first time; in this vignette, race (Black, White) and risk level (low, moderate, high, very high) of the youth were varied. Participants were asked to estimate the likelihood that the youth would recidivate in the following year and their likelihood of ordering or recommending residential placement. Although we found no simple, significant relationship between risk level and confinement decisions, judicial and probation staff estimated higher likelihoods of recidivism as risk-level categories increased and ordered out-of-home placements at increased rates as their estimations of the youth's likelihood of recidivation increased. The youth's race did not moderate the model. The greater the probability of recidivism, the more likely each judge or probation officer was to order or recommend out-of-home placement. However, importantly, legal decisionmakers appeared to apply categorical risk assessment data to their confinement decisions using their own interpretations of risk category rather than being guided empirically on the basis of risk-level categories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).