George Loewenstein
Carnegie Mellon University
H-index: 163
North America-United States
Description
George Loewenstein, With an exceptional h-index of 163 and a recent h-index of 111 (since 2020), a distinguished researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, specializes in the field of Economics, Psychology, Behavioral Economics, Medicine, Law.
His recent articles reflect a diverse array of research interests and contributions to the field:
Conversational technology and reactions to withheld information
Adaptation, COVID-19, and Climate Change
Offering, Asking, Consenting, and Rejecting: The Psychology of Helping Interactions
An S-Frame Agenda for Behavioral Public Policy Research
He said, she said: Gender differences in the disclosure of positive and negative information
Costly distractions: Focusing on individual behavior undermines support for systemic reforms
Investor Logins and the Disposition Effect
Where next for behavioral public policy?
Professor Information
University | Carnegie Mellon University |
---|---|
Position | Professor |
Citations(all) | 156768 |
Citations(since 2020) | 51082 |
Cited By | 120672 |
hIndex(all) | 163 |
hIndex(since 2020) | 111 |
i10Index(all) | 356 |
i10Index(since 2020) | 302 |
University Profile Page | Carnegie Mellon University |
Research & Interests List
Economics
Psychology
Behavioral Economics
Medicine
Law
Top articles of George Loewenstein
Conversational technology and reactions to withheld information
People frequently face decisions that require making inferences about withheld information. The advent of large language models coupled with conversational technology, e.g., Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and the Google Assistant, is changing the mode in which people make these inferences. We demonstrate that conversational modes of information provision, relative to traditional digital media, result in more critical responses to withheld information, including: (1) a reduction in evaluations of a product or service for which information is withheld and (2) an increased likelihood of recalling that information was withheld. These effects are robust across multiple conversational modes: a recorded phone conversation, an unfolding chat conversation, and a conversation script. We provide further evidence that these effects hold for conversations with the Google Assistant, a prominent conversational technology. The experimental results point to participants’ intuitions about why the information was withheld as the driver of the effect.
Authors
Nikolos M Gurney,George Loewenstein,Nick Chater
Journal
PLOS-ONE
Published Date
2024
Adaptation, COVID-19, and Climate Change
In this chapter, we examine connections between COVID-19 and climate, the two major crises we have been living through over the past few years. How has the former affected the world's collective. response to the latter? What lessons have people learned about climate change from COVID-19, and what lessons should we (and policymakers) learn?
Authors
George Loewenstein,Archie Kinnane
Published Date
2024/5/31
Offering, Asking, Consenting, and Rejecting: The Psychology of Helping Interactions
Two distinct literatures have shown that people are averse to being rejected when requesting help, and to rejecting others’ requests for help; both parties prefer situations in which no ask was made to those in which an ask was made but rejected. We propose a game-theoretic framework that offers a parsimonious explanation for both phenomena and further extends them. In this framework, people who need help make inferences and care about what an offer of help, compliance with a help request, or rejection of a request signals about the potential help-giver’s concern for them or the relationship. Likewise, potential help-givers care about the inferences potential help-receivers make, as they want to appear caring. We propose that both the aversion to being rejected after an ask and the aversion to rejecting others after an ask can be explained by the fact that rejection provides a negative signal about how much the would-be helper cares about or values the person in need. The framework further predicts that the same mechanism leads to an aversion to asks even when help is provided. That is, holding constant whether help is provided, both parties incur a psychological cost whenever there is an ask. Two studies, one involving recollections of help-related experiences, provide empirical support for the framework. By bringing together disparate literatures in help-seeking and-giving, we uncover common psychological features underlying these economically and socially important behaviors, generate novel insights into how they can be encouraged, and draw connections to behaviors in related domains.Abstract: 250 words
Authors
Ania Jaroszewicz,George Loewenstein,Roland Benabou
Published Date
2024/4/16
An S-Frame Agenda for Behavioral Public Policy Research
In a recent paper, Chater and Loewenstein (2022) argue that behavioral scientists have been testing and advocating individualistic (i-frame) solutions to policy problems that have systemic (s-frame) causes and require systemic solutions. Here, we consider the implications of adopting an s-frame approach for research. We argue that an s-frame approach will involve addressing different types of questions, which will, in turn, require a different toolbox of research methods.
Authors
Daniel Connolly,George Loewenstein,Nick Chater
Journal
Available at SSRN 4759434
Published Date
2024/3/15
He said, she said: Gender differences in the disclosure of positive and negative information
Research on gender differences in (self-)disclosure has produced mixed results, and, where differences have emerged, they may be an artifact of the measures employed. The present paper explores whether gender – defined as self-identified membership in one's sociocultural group – can indeed account for differences in the desire and propensity to divulge information to others. We additionally identify a possible moderator for such differences. In three studies employing two distinct research approaches – a free recall task for the extreme desire to disclose (Study 1, N = 195) and scaled responses to scenarios that manipulate valence experimentally in an exploratory study (Study 2, N = 547) and a preregistered replication (Study 3, N = 405) – we provide evidence of a robust interaction between gender and information valence. Male participants appear similar to female participants in their desire and likelihood to …
Authors
Erin Carbone,George Loewenstein,Irene Scopelliti,Joachim Vosgerau
Journal
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Published Date
2024/1/1
Costly distractions: Focusing on individual behavior undermines support for systemic reforms
Policy challenges can typically be addressed both through systemic changes (eg, taxes and mandates) and by encouraging individual behavior change. In this paper, we propose that, while in principle complementary, systemic and individual perspectives can compete for the limited attention of people and policymakers. Thus, directing policies in one of these two ways can distract the public’s attention from the other—an “attentional opportunity cost.” In two pre-registered experiments (n= 1,800) covering three high-stakes domains (climate change, retirement savings, and public health), we show that when people learn about policies targeting individual behavior (such as awareness campaigns), they are more likely to themselves propose policies that target individual behavior, and to hold individuals rather than organizational actors responsible for solving the problem, than are people who learned about systemic policies (such as taxes and mandates, Study 1). This shift in attribution of responsibility has behavioral consequences: people exposed to individual interventions are more likely to donate to an organization that educates individuals rather than one seeking to effect systemic reforms (Study 2). Policies targeting individual behavior may, therefore, have the unintended consequence of redirecting attention and attributions of responsibility away from systemic change to individual behavior.
Authors
David Hagmann,Yi-tsen Liao,Nick Chater,George Loewenstein
Journal
Available at SSRN
Published Date
2023/4/21
Investor Logins and the Disposition Effect
Using data from an online brokerage, we examine the role of investor logins in trading behavior. We find that a new reference point is created when an investor logs in and views the investor’s portfolio. We observe this as a disposition effect on returns since last login in addition to the traditional disposition effect on returns since purchase. Further, these reference points produce a strong interaction such that even a small loss since last login nullifies the positive effect of a gain since purchase. This interaction follows if investors select the higher, more aspirational price as a reference point.This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, behavioral economics and decision analysis.Funding: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [Grants ES/K002201/1, ES/N018192/1, ES/P008976/1, and ES/V004867/1] and the Leverhulme Trust [Grant RP2012-V-022].Supplemental Material: The …
Authors
Edika Quispe-Torreblanca,John Gathergood,George Loewenstein,Neil Stewart
Journal
Management Science
Published Date
2023
Where next for behavioral public policy?
Our target article distinguishes between policy approaches that seek to address societal problems through intervention at the level of the individual (adopting the" i-frame") and those that seek to change the system within which those individuals live (adopting the" s-frame"). We stress also that a long-standing tactic of corporations opposing systemic change is to promote the i-frame perspective, presumably hoping that i-frame interventions will be largely ineffective and more importantly will be seen by the public and some policy makers as a genuine alternative to systemic change. We worry that the i-frame focus of much of behavioral science has inadvertently reinforced this unhelpful focus on the individual. In this response to commentators, we identify common themes, build on the many constructive suggestions to extend our approach, and reply to concerns. We argue, along with several commentators, that a key …
Authors
Nick Chater,George Loewenstein
Journal
Behavioral & Brain Sciences
Published Date
2023/1/1
Professor FAQs
What is George Loewenstein's h-index at Carnegie Mellon University?
The h-index of George Loewenstein has been 111 since 2020 and 163 in total.
What are George Loewenstein's top articles?
The articles with the titles of
Conversational technology and reactions to withheld information
Adaptation, COVID-19, and Climate Change
Offering, Asking, Consenting, and Rejecting: The Psychology of Helping Interactions
An S-Frame Agenda for Behavioral Public Policy Research
He said, she said: Gender differences in the disclosure of positive and negative information
Costly distractions: Focusing on individual behavior undermines support for systemic reforms
Investor Logins and the Disposition Effect
Where next for behavioral public policy?
...
are the top articles of George Loewenstein at Carnegie Mellon University.
What are George Loewenstein's research interests?
The research interests of George Loewenstein are: Economics, Psychology, Behavioral Economics, Medicine, Law
What is George Loewenstein's total number of citations?
George Loewenstein has 156,768 citations in total.
What are the co-authors of George Loewenstein?
The co-authors of George Loewenstein are Max Bazerman, Peter Ubel, Kevin Volpp, Alessandro Acquisti, Leaf Van Boven, Roberto Weber.