Research Center for Psychological Science

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What's next? Disentangling availability from representativeness using binary decision tasks

Publication . Braga, João; Ferreira, Mário B.; Sherman, Steven J.; Mata, André; Jacinto, Sofia; Ferreira, Marina

People's intuitive predictions under uncertainty may rely on the representativeness or on the availability heuristics (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). However, the distinction between these two heuristics has never been clear, and both have been proposed to underlie the same judgment tasks. For instance, when judging what outcome is likely to be next in a coin flip after a streak, representativeness leads to predicting an alternation in the outcome, ending the streak (gambler's fallacy), whereas availability leads to predicting the streak's continuation. We propose that availability (direct use of accessibility) is computed earlier than representativeness (comparing to an abstract representation of the expected outcome). In five studies, we pit one heuristic against the other in binary prediction tasks, both in coin flip and athlete's performance contexts. We find that, although the streak outcome is cognitively more available, judgments are usually based on representativeness, leading more often to a prediction of an alternation after a streak. However, under time-pressure conditions, representativeness processes are constrained and participants are more prone to base their predictions on the most salient and cognitively available outcomes.

2018-05Journal article

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Laypeople's decision-making in reporting child maltreatment: Child and family characteristics as a source of bias

Publication . Calheros, M. M.; Garrido, M. V.; Ferreira, Mário B.; Duarte, Cátia

Objectives: The process of reporting child maltreatment may be vulnerable to judgment bias, which may, in turn, affect the various stages of the child protection system continuum. In this study, we examine the role of child (gender, race/ethnicity, and age) and family characteristics (family structure and socioeconomic status) in laypeople’s severity assessment and probability of referral of child maltreatment (abuse or neglect). Method: Participants responded to a questionnaire presenting vignettes of abuse or neglect (based on Portuguese legal standards) that varied in the characteristics of the child and the family and assessed either the severity of abuse or severity of neglect, and the probability of referral of each situation. Results: Results indicated pervasive bias. Despite acknowledging the severity of both abuse and neglect situations, the likelihood of reporting maltreatment was higher (a) for female, younger, White, and Black children compared with male, older children and children of Roma ethnicity; and (b) for families with economic difficulties, divorced, single parent, and stepfamilies compared with nuclear families. Conclusions: These results emphasize the importance of studying the referral process of child maltreatment at a community level. We suggest that public awareness may facilitate the referral of maltreatment, minimizing the overreporting and underreporting of cases and encouraging early and preventive intervention.

2020-08-06Journal article

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Trait transference from brands to individuals: The impact of brand-behavior congruency

Publication . JERÓNIMO, Rita; Ramos, Tania; Ferreira, Mário B.

Consumers' strategic use of brands as a way of influencing the impressions others have about them is buttressed by research showing that brand personality traits may carry over and affect perceptions about their users or endorsers. However more often than not brand users engage in all sorts of trait-implying behaviors that may sometimes be in conflict with the brand personality. In two studies we explored how perceivers integrate these two sources of information when creating first impressions of brand users. Results indicated that when traits associated with brands and the users' trait-implying behaviors were in conflict, brand trait transferences were inhibited, whereas traits inferred from the behaviors were enhanced. These findings concerning brand trait transference inhibition and trait inference enhancement may provide new insights on how brand personality influences perceptions about their users, with distinctive consequences for marketing strategy.

2018-07Journal article

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Inferential costs of trait centrality in impression formation: Organization in memory and misremembering

Publication . Nunes, Ludmila D.; Garcia-Marques, Leonel; Ferreira, Mário B.; Ramos, Tânia

An extension of the DRM paradigm was used to study the impact of central traits (Asch, 1946) in impression formation. Traits corresponding to the four clusters of the implicit theory of personality—intellectual, positive and negative; and social, positive and negative (Rosenberg et al., 1968)—were used to develop lists containing several traits of one cluster and one central trait prototypical of the opposite cluster. Participants engaging in impression formation relative to participants engaging in memorization not only produced higher levels of false memories corresponding to the same cluster of the list traits but, under response time pressure at retrieval, also produced more false memories of the cluster corresponding to the central trait. We argue that the importance of central traits stems from their ability to activate their corresponding semantic space within a specialized associative memory structure underlying the implicit theory of personality.

2017-08-22Journal article

Open access

How dependable are stereotypes from salient context?

Publication . Correia Dos Santos, Ana Sofia; Garcia-Marques, Leonel

2012Book part

Open access