Person: Norton, Michael
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Norton
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Norton, Michael
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Publication Paying It Forward: Generalized Reciprocity and the Limits of Generosity(2013-04-18) Gray, Kurt; Ward, Adrian Frank; Norton, MichaelWhen people are the victims of greed or recipients of generosity, their first impulse is often to pay back that behavior in kind. What happens when people cannot reciprocate, but instead have the chance to be cruel or kind to someone entirely different—to pay it forward? In five experiments, participants received greedy, equal, or generous divisions of money or labor from an anonymous person, and then divided additional resources with a new anonymous person. While equal treatment was paid forward in kind, greed was paid forward more than generosity. This asymmetry was driven by negative affect, such that a positive affect intervention disrupted the tendency to pay greed forward. Implications for models of generalized reciprocity are discussed.Publication The Amount and Source of Millionaires’ Wealth (Moderately) Predict Their Happiness(SAGE Publications, 2018) Donnelly, Grant; Zheng, Tianyi; Haisley, Emily; Norton, MichaelTwo samples of more than 4,000 millionaires reveal two primary findings. First, only at high levels of wealth—in excess of 8 million USD (Study 1) and 10 million USD (Study 2)—are wealthier millionaires happier than millionaires with lower levels of wealth, though these differences are modest in magnitude. Second, controlling for total wealth, millionaires who have earned their wealth are moderately happier than those who inherited it. Taken together, these results suggest that, among millionaires, wealth may be likely to pay off in greater happiness only at very high levels of wealth, and when that wealth was earned rather than inherited.Publication Publication Give What You Get: Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella) and 4-Year-Old Children Pay Forward Positive and Negative Outcomes to Conspecifics(Public Library of Science, 2014) Leimgruber, Kristin L.; Ward, Adrian F.; Widness, Jane; Norton, Michael; Olson, Kristina R.; Gray, Kurt; Santos, Laurie R.The breadth of human generosity is unparalleled in the natural world, and much research has explored the mechanisms underlying and motivating human prosocial behavior. Recent work has focused on the spread of prosocial behavior within groups through paying-it-forward, a case of human prosociality in which a recipient of generosity pays a good deed forward to a third individual, rather than back to the original source of generosity. While research shows that human adults do indeed pay forward generosity, little is known about the origins of this behavior. Here, we show that both capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) and 4-year-old children pay forward positive and negative outcomes in an identical testing paradigm. These results suggest that a cognitively simple mechanism present early in phylogeny and ontogeny leads to paying forward positive, as well as negative, outcomes.Publication Unexpected benefits of deciding by mind wandering(Frontiers Media S.A., 2013) Giblin, Colleen E.; Morewedge, Carey K.; Norton, MichaelThe mind wanders, even when people are attempting to make complex decisions. We suggest that mind wandering—allowing one's thoughts to wander until the “correct” choice comes to mind—can positively impact people's feelings about their decisions. We compare post-choice satisfaction from choices made by mind wandering to reason-based choices and randomly assigned outcomes. Participants chose a poster by mind wandering or deliberating, or were randomly assigned a poster. Whereas forecasters predicted that participants who chose by mind wandering would evaluate their outcome as inferior to participants who deliberated (Experiment 1), participants who used mind wandering as a decision strategy evaluated their choice just as positively as did participants who used deliberation (Experiment 2). In some cases, it appears that people can spare themselves the effort of deliberation and instead “decide by wind wandering,” yet experience no decrease in satisfaction.Publication Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal(American Psychological Association, 2013) Aknin, Lara B.; Barrington-Leigh, Christopher P.; Dunn, Elizabeth W.; Helliwell, John F.; Burns, Justine; Biswas-Diener, Robert; Kemeza, Imelda; Nyende, Paul; Ashton-James, Claire; Norton, MichaelThis research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: Human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). In Study 1, survey data from 136 countries were examined and showed that prosocial spending is associated with greater happiness around the world, in poor and rich countries alike. To test for causality, in Studies 2a and 2b, we used experimental methodology, demonstrating that recalling a past instance of prosocial spending has a causal impact on happiness across countries that differ greatly in terms of wealth(Canada, Uganda, and India). Finally, in Study 3, participants in Canada and South Africa randomly assigned to buy items for charity reported higher levels of positive affect than participants assigned to buy the same items for themselves, even when this prosocial spending did not provide an opportunity to build or strengthen social ties. Our findings suggest that the reward experienced from helping others may be deeply ingrained in human nature, emerging in diverse cultural and economic contexts.Publication The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love(Elsevier BV, 2012) Norton, Michael; Mochon, Daniel; Ariely, DanIn four studies in which consumers assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built sets of Legos, we demonstrate and investigate boundary conditions for the IKEA effect—the increase in valuation of self-made products. Participants saw their amateurish creations as similar in value to experts' creations, and expected others to share their opinions. We show that labor leads to love only when labor results in successful completion of tasks; when participants built and then destroyed their creations, or failed to complete them, the IKEA effect dissipated. Finally, we show that labor increases valuation for both “do-it-yourselfers” and novices.Publication Botsourcing and Outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German Workers Are for Thinking—Not Feeling—Jobs(American Psychological Association, 2014-05-13) Waytz, Adam; Norton, MichaelTechnological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of "botsourcing"—the replacement of human jobs by robots—while examining how understanding botsourcing can inform the psychology of outsourcing—the replacement of jobs in one country by humans from other countries. We test four related hypotheses across six experiments: (1) Given people's lay theories about the capacities for cognition and emotion for robots and humans, workers will express more discomfort with botsourcing when they consider losing jobs that require emotion versus cognition; (2) people will express more comfort with botsourcing when jobs are framed as requiring cognition versus emotion; (3) people will express more comfort with botsourcing for jobs that do require emotion if robots appear to convey more emotion; and (4) people prefer to outsource cognition-oriented versus emotion-oriented jobs to other humans who are perceived as more versus less robotic. These results have theoretical implications for understanding social cognition about both humans and nonhumans and practical implications for the increasingly botsourced and outsourced economy.Publication Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance(Public Library of Science, 2013-10-21) Anik, Lalin; Aknin, Lara B.; Dunn, Elizabeth W.; Norton, Michael; Quoidbach, JordiIn three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier and more satisfied employees at an Australian bank. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of expenditures on teammates lead to better performance in both sports teams in Canada and pharmaceutical sales teams in Belgium. These results suggest that a minor adjustment to employee bonuses—shifting the focus from the self to others—can produce measurable benefits for employees and organizations.Publication 'Last-place Aversion': Evidence and Redistributive Implications(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2014) Kuziemko, Ilyana; Buell, Ryan; Reich, Taly; Norton, MichaelWe present evidence from laboratory experiments showing that individuals are "last-place averse." Participants choose gambles with the potential to move them out of last place that they reject when randomly placed in other parts of the distribution. In modified-dictator games, participants randomly placed in second-to-last place are the most likely to give money to the person one rank above them instead of the person one rank below. Last-place aversion suggests that low-income individuals might oppose redistribution because it could differentially help the group just beneath them. Using survey data, we show that individuals making just above the minimum wage are the most likely to oppose its increase. Similarly, in the General Social Survey, those above poverty but below median income support redistribution significantly less than their background characteristics would predict.