IntroductionMass marketing scams threaten financial and personal well‐being. Grounded in fuzzy‐tr... more IntroductionMass marketing scams threaten financial and personal well‐being. Grounded in fuzzy‐trace theory, we examined whether verbatim and gist‐based risk processing predicts susceptibility to scams and whether such processing can be altered.MethodsSeven hundred and one participants read a solicitation letter online and indicated willingness to call an “activation number” to claim an alleged $500,000 sweepstakes prize. Participants focused on the solicitation's verbatim details (hypothesized to increase risk‐taking) or its broad gist (hypothesized to decrease risk‐taking).ResultsAs expected, measures of verbatim‐based processing positively predicted contact intentions, whereas measures of gist‐based processing negatively predicted contact intentions. Contrary to hypotheses, experimental conditions did not influence intentions (43% across conditions). Contact intentions were associated with perceptions of low risk, high benefit, and the offer's apparent genuineness, as wel...
Right-wing ideology and cognitive ability, including objective numeracy, have been found to relat... more Right-wing ideology and cognitive ability, including objective numeracy, have been found to relate negatively. Although objective and subjective numeracy correlate positively, it is unclear whether subjective numeracy relates to political ideology in the same way. Replicating and extending previous research, across two samples of American adults (ns= 455, 406), those who performed worse on objective numeracy tasks scored higher on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and they self-identified as more conservative on general, social, and economic continua. Controlling for objective numeracy, subjective numeracy related positively to measures of right-wing ideologies. In other words, those who strongly (vs. weakly) endorsed right-wing ideologies believed they are good with numbers yet performed worse on numeracy tasks. We discuss implications for the opposing direction of associations between ideology with objective versus subjective numeracy and si...
As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While C... more As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerability to COVID-19 scams and individual difference measures (such as impulsivity, ad skepticism, and past experiences with fraud) that might help explain them. A lifespan sample (M= 48.03,SD= 18.56) of sixty-eight younger (18–40 years,M= 25.67,SD= 5.93), 79 middle-aged (41–64 years,M= 49.86,SD= 7.20), and 63 older adults (65–84 years,M= 69.87,SD= 4.50) recruited through Prolific completed questions and questionnaires online. In a within-subjects design, each participant responded to five COVID-19 solicitations, psychological measures, and demographic questions. Age group comparisons revealed that older adults were marginally less likely to perceive COVID-19 solicitations as genuine than mid...
Financial exploitation (FE) perpetrators are usually seen in a position of trust, such as family ... more Financial exploitation (FE) perpetrators are usually seen in a position of trust, such as family members or friends, whereas perpetrators of scam tend to be unknown individuals. Few empirical studies have examined victim risk factors, and this study aimed to systematically compare risk factors of FE versus scam. One-hundred-and-ninety-five adults (ages 18-89) were recruited to complete a 60-minute survey and interview at Purdue University in Indiana (n1=97) and Scripps College in California (n2=98). Risk factors assessed included cognitive tasks (overall cognition, memory, and executive decision), socio-emotional questionnaires (depression, resilience, ostracism, and social integration), financial measures (numeracy, objective financial knowledge, retirement worries, and financial well-being), physical health and demographics (age, gender, education level, marital status, ethnicity). Additionally, participants reported experiences of FE and scam, including (1) the 11-item short-form...
Following the 1999 publication of the immensely popular and influential book by Richard H. Thaler... more Following the 1999 publication of the immensely popular and influential book by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein titled Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, the coalition government in the United Kingdom set up the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT; also known as the Nudge unit). Following the UK lead, a number of countries across the globe have initiated their own BIT-style groups, and many other countries have considered adopting behavioral economics insights into their policies and programs. The World Bank, United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and European Union have followed suit, establishing their own BIT-inspired units. Health behaviors, such as smoking, misusing prescription drugs, and purchasing health insurance, represent a domain that most, if not all, BIT-like units have been assigned to address. This is not surprising, because health behaviors are related to morbidity, mortality, and financial expenditure. As the influence of behavioral economics, and especially nudging, has grown, it has also attracted an increasing choir of foes. Indeed, a quick Google search will provide readers with a litany of critiques and concerns. Until recently, however, readers would be hard-pressed to locate a volume that provides a systematic and comprehensive discussion of these
Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped... more Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped relationship, initially established by Yerkes and Dodson, between emotional arousal and performance. The basic tenet of the theory assumes that high levels of arousal lead to restriction of the amount of information to which agents can pay attention. One fundamental derivative of the theory, as typically conceived in psychology, is the assumption that restriction of information or the ability to process a smaller set of data is fundamentally disadvantageous. To explore the merits of this point, we first argue that the relationship depicted by this collapsed version of the Yerkes-Dodson law is far too simplistic to account for the complex relationship between various cognitive functions and emotional arousal. Second, conceptualization of arousal as a unidimensional construct needs to be rejected. Finally, and most importantly, we challenge the notion that having more information availabl...
IntroductionMass marketing scams threaten financial and personal well‐being. Grounded in fuzzy‐tr... more IntroductionMass marketing scams threaten financial and personal well‐being. Grounded in fuzzy‐trace theory, we examined whether verbatim and gist‐based risk processing predicts susceptibility to scams and whether such processing can be altered.MethodsSeven hundred and one participants read a solicitation letter online and indicated willingness to call an “activation number” to claim an alleged $500,000 sweepstakes prize. Participants focused on the solicitation's verbatim details (hypothesized to increase risk‐taking) or its broad gist (hypothesized to decrease risk‐taking).ResultsAs expected, measures of verbatim‐based processing positively predicted contact intentions, whereas measures of gist‐based processing negatively predicted contact intentions. Contrary to hypotheses, experimental conditions did not influence intentions (43% across conditions). Contact intentions were associated with perceptions of low risk, high benefit, and the offer's apparent genuineness, as wel...
Right-wing ideology and cognitive ability, including objective numeracy, have been found to relat... more Right-wing ideology and cognitive ability, including objective numeracy, have been found to relate negatively. Although objective and subjective numeracy correlate positively, it is unclear whether subjective numeracy relates to political ideology in the same way. Replicating and extending previous research, across two samples of American adults (ns= 455, 406), those who performed worse on objective numeracy tasks scored higher on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and they self-identified as more conservative on general, social, and economic continua. Controlling for objective numeracy, subjective numeracy related positively to measures of right-wing ideologies. In other words, those who strongly (vs. weakly) endorsed right-wing ideologies believed they are good with numbers yet performed worse on numeracy tasks. We discuss implications for the opposing direction of associations between ideology with objective versus subjective numeracy and si...
As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While C... more As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerability to COVID-19 scams and individual difference measures (such as impulsivity, ad skepticism, and past experiences with fraud) that might help explain them. A lifespan sample (M= 48.03,SD= 18.56) of sixty-eight younger (18–40 years,M= 25.67,SD= 5.93), 79 middle-aged (41–64 years,M= 49.86,SD= 7.20), and 63 older adults (65–84 years,M= 69.87,SD= 4.50) recruited through Prolific completed questions and questionnaires online. In a within-subjects design, each participant responded to five COVID-19 solicitations, psychological measures, and demographic questions. Age group comparisons revealed that older adults were marginally less likely to perceive COVID-19 solicitations as genuine than mid...
Financial exploitation (FE) perpetrators are usually seen in a position of trust, such as family ... more Financial exploitation (FE) perpetrators are usually seen in a position of trust, such as family members or friends, whereas perpetrators of scam tend to be unknown individuals. Few empirical studies have examined victim risk factors, and this study aimed to systematically compare risk factors of FE versus scam. One-hundred-and-ninety-five adults (ages 18-89) were recruited to complete a 60-minute survey and interview at Purdue University in Indiana (n1=97) and Scripps College in California (n2=98). Risk factors assessed included cognitive tasks (overall cognition, memory, and executive decision), socio-emotional questionnaires (depression, resilience, ostracism, and social integration), financial measures (numeracy, objective financial knowledge, retirement worries, and financial well-being), physical health and demographics (age, gender, education level, marital status, ethnicity). Additionally, participants reported experiences of FE and scam, including (1) the 11-item short-form...
Following the 1999 publication of the immensely popular and influential book by Richard H. Thaler... more Following the 1999 publication of the immensely popular and influential book by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein titled Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, the coalition government in the United Kingdom set up the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT; also known as the Nudge unit). Following the UK lead, a number of countries across the globe have initiated their own BIT-style groups, and many other countries have considered adopting behavioral economics insights into their policies and programs. The World Bank, United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and European Union have followed suit, establishing their own BIT-inspired units. Health behaviors, such as smoking, misusing prescription drugs, and purchasing health insurance, represent a domain that most, if not all, BIT-like units have been assigned to address. This is not surprising, because health behaviors are related to morbidity, mortality, and financial expenditure. As the influence of behavioral economics, and especially nudging, has grown, it has also attracted an increasing choir of foes. Indeed, a quick Google search will provide readers with a litany of critiques and concerns. Until recently, however, readers would be hard-pressed to locate a volume that provides a systematic and comprehensive discussion of these
Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped... more Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped relationship, initially established by Yerkes and Dodson, between emotional arousal and performance. The basic tenet of the theory assumes that high levels of arousal lead to restriction of the amount of information to which agents can pay attention. One fundamental derivative of the theory, as typically conceived in psychology, is the assumption that restriction of information or the ability to process a smaller set of data is fundamentally disadvantageous. To explore the merits of this point, we first argue that the relationship depicted by this collapsed version of the Yerkes-Dodson law is far too simplistic to account for the complex relationship between various cognitive functions and emotional arousal. Second, conceptualization of arousal as a unidimensional construct needs to be rejected. Finally, and most importantly, we challenge the notion that having more information availabl...
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Papers by Yaniv Hanoch