Ryan Carlson
@carlsonr_
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Postdoc @ChicagoBooth studying motivation and morality. Previously: @Yale @Stanford @SFU. đšđŠ
Chicago, IL
Joined July 2015
Many of us measure altruism and selfishness in dollars and cents. If you want to know how selfless someone isâthe logic goesâadd up how much money they give to strangers or charity. New work w/ @mollycrockett complicates this picture: https://t.co/56D3nvBH2Z đ§”
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Are we âstrangers to ourselvesâ? Classic theories say people have limited insight into how they decide. Our new paper at @NatureComms challenges this view. With @carlsonr_, @hedykober, & @mollycrockett. https://t.co/Xy0hh0ny90 đ§”
nature.com
Nature Communications - People routinely choose between multi-attribute options, such as which movie to watch. Here, the authors show people often have accurate insight into their choices,...
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It's a privilege to engage with an expert like @JoHenrich on a question as important and foundational as the role of culture in perception. But @DorsaAmir and I think this thread gets several key details wrong, both bigger-picture and finer-grained. Here's how (đ§”):
Let's review. Game on. The question: Is there evidence that population-level variation exists in susceptibility to visual illusions? @DorsaAmir & @chazfirestone wrote a fascinating paper to which I will reply in two storm tweets. I see major problems. Storm 1 coming...
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If you are heading to APS in May and/or study motivation, you should check out SSM (5/22 in DC). The lineup is *stacked* this year, and super interdisciplinary. Submissions are due tomorrow (Feb 1)! https://t.co/Q8BG4mYHyz
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In our new @PNASNews paper, across 21 experiments with 23,000+ participants, we identify a critical distortion that shapes decisions involving tradeoffs: we find that people systematically overweight quantified information in such decisions. Paper: https://t.co/q6bgaJpEPq đ§”
pnas.org
People often rely on numeric metrics to make decisions and form judgments. Numbers can be difficult to process, leading to their underutilization, ...
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Excited to announce that Columbia's Department of Psychology is hiring a tenure-track faculty member! Emphasis on multi-method expertise and research programs that complement current strengths in the Department. Come join us! Review begins Nov. 1: https://t.co/UdpKziXiRN
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New research in Motivation Science discusses interventions that promote learning from #failure to overcome emotional and cognitive psychological barriers at each stage of goal pursuit. Read the open access article from @carlsonr_ & @ayeletfishbach: https://t.co/y0dh0o4Q5U
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Just to put this in perspective, the cost of running Open Mind for a year is roughly the total APCs collected by Nature Communications in a single day. Journals can be run inexpensively, without gouging authors (and by extension taxpayers).
The fundamental question facing open access publishing is how it will be funded. Harvard and MIT libraries are taking the lead (in partnership with MIT Press) to directly fund open access journals. This will hopefully expand to more libraries so more journals can be supported.
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Many of us measure altruism and selfishness in dollars and cents. If you want to know how selfless someone isâthe logic goesâadd up how much money they give to strangers or charity. New work w/ @mollycrockett complicates this picture: https://t.co/56D3nvBH2Z đ§”
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Itâs that time of year, and the Dispute Resolution Research Center @DRRC_Kellogg at @KelloggSchool is inviting applications for our prestigious postdoctoral 2024 fellowship. We seek research excellence in areas broadly related to conflict or cooperation.
kellogg.northwestern.edu
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Grateful to @mollycrockett for being a continued source of support on a project that challenges our own assumptions and methods. Weâre excited for feedback. Lastly: I am on the academic job market this year! Thanks for reading đ 12/12
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Implication: Testing prosocial interventions with online workers (often a precursor to field studies) may not only be applying moral pressure in the wrong place, but could lead us to *miss* the effect our interventions could have on people who have the means to donate. 11/12
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The goal for many of us studying prosociality is not merely to describe human altruism, but to boost it. Subjective motives are crucial here too: People in financial need show no change at all in generosity following a nudge intervention that typically boosts donating. 10/12
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Many of us (including myself & @mollycrockett) have long adopted a pay-to-play model of morality, where we ask participants to give away money to prove their moral worth. These findings raise questions about this model. Hereâs a more practical consideration: 9/12
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We got a second opinion: We asked a new group of third-party âjudgesâ to evaluate these motive reports. 88% of judges believed they were witnessing genuine financial need. Even more, most agreed that it wasnât selfish at all for these folks to be keeping the money. 8/12
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Yet it is harder to doubt the content of their free responses. Online workers claim to need the money for groceries, rent, or medication. Some even say theyâre at risk of becoming unhoused. Our participants see the money in these âgamesâ as a way to stay afloat. 7/12
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When we look at reported incomes: those reporting financial need have much lower incomes than other participantsâoften incomes bordering the US poverty line. But can we trust self-reported income? Perhaps theyâre fudging those numbers as well to justify their selfishness. 6/12
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Half of our online sample said they wanted to keep the money out of financial need, and these were the same folks who deemed it morally acceptable to do so. The first time I shared these findings outside my lab, an audience member quickly asked: what if theyâre lying? 5/12
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In coding these reports, we see a wide variety of motives for keeping the money (e.g., to donate elsewhere, to reach a saving goal, or simply out of self-interest). But one type of motive dominates all others: financial need. 4/12
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Yet in some recent online studies, we posed a simple question to our participants that we seldom ask: Why? We let our participants explain in their own words why they wanted to keep the money rather than give it to charity. 3/12
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When we ask online workers whatâs fair in a dictator game with a charity, their views often directly clash with how we define selfishness as experimenters: Many of them deem it fair to keep all the money for themselves. We often dismiss this as motivated reasoning. 2/12
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