George E Newman
Biographic Data
| ID | 101884 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George E Newman |
| GIVEN NAMES | George E |
| FAMILY NAME | Newman |
| SIGNATURE | NEWMAN G E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0498-6746 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 100 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Lost in digitization
The head, heart, and soul
Which mental process reveals one's authentic preference-deliberative reasoning or one's gut impulses? The existing literature offers conflicting answers to this question: Some research suggests that people generally see deliberation as more fundamental, while other work suggests that people see intuition as more fundamental. This article argues that belief in a true self provides a unifying framework to explain when participants will attribute on…
Sad Art Gives Voice to Our Own Sadness
People tend to show greater liking for expressions of sadness when these expressions are described as art. Why does this effect arise? One obvious hypothesis would be that describing something as art makes people more likely to regard it as fictional , and people prefer expressions of sadness that are not real. We contrast this obvious hypothesis with a hypothesis derived from the philosophical literature. In this alternative hypothesis, describi…
On the Value of Sad Music
Many people appear to attach great value to sad music. But why? One way to gain insight into this question is to turn away from music and look instead at why people value sad conversations. In the case of conversations, the answer seems to be that expressing sadness creates a sense of genuine connection. We propose that sad music can also have this type of value. Listening to a sad song can give one a sense of genuine connection. We then explore …
The Curse of the Original
Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand's original, flagship product-even if those changes objectively improve it. We demonstrate that when firms engage in heritage branding that emphasizes a brand's longevity, consumers …
Authenticity
The concept of authenticity informs a number of central topics in management studies. On the surface, it might seem that a consensus exists about its meaning; there is indeed widespread agreement that authenticity refers to that which is “real” or “genuine” or “true.” Below the surface, however, there is much less agreement; scholars use the same lexical term but often approach the concept from different perspectives and apply different meanings.…
Seeing Stars
Across many different contexts, individuals consult customer ratings to inform their purchase decisions. The present studies document a novel phenomenon, dubbed "the binary bias," which plays an important role in how individuals evaluate customer reviews. Our main proposal is that people tend to make a categorical distinction between positive ratings (e.g., 4s and 5s) and negative ratings (e.g., 1s and 2s). However, within those bins, people do n…
The True Self
A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the c…
An Essentialist Account of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity is central to how people value many different types of objects and yet there is considerable disagreement about how individuals evaluate authenticity or how the concept itself should be defined. This paper attempts to reconcile previous approaches by proposing a novel view of authenticity. Specifically, I draw upon past research on psychological essentialism and propose that when people evaluate the authenticity of obj…
Kinds of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity plays an important role in how people reason about objects, other people, and themselves. However, despite a great deal of academic interest in this concept, to date, the precise meaning of the term, authenticity, has remained somewhat elusive. This paper reviews the various definitions of authenticity that have been proposed in the literature and identifies areas of convergence. We then outline a novel framework that …
Closer to the Creator
Consumers demonstrate a robust preference for items with earlier serial numbers (e.g., No. 3/100) over otherwise identical items with later serial numbers (e.g., No. 97/100) in a limited edition set. This preference arises from the perception that items with earlier serial numbers are temporally closer to the origin (e.g., the designer or artist who produced it). In turn, beliefs in contagion (the notion that objects may acquire a special essence…
Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment
Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about (a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies …
Macho Nachos
The present studies examine how culturally held stereotypes about gender (that women eat more healthfully than men) implicitly influence food preferences. In Study 1, priming masculinity led both male and female participants to prefer unhealthy foods, while priming femininity led both male and female participants to prefer healthy foods. Study 2 extended these effects to gendered food packaging. When the packaging and healthiness of the food were…
Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation
Tainted Altruism
In four experiments, we found that the presence of self-interest in the charitable domain was seen as tainting: People evaluated efforts that realized both charitable and personal benefits as worse than analogous behaviors that produced no charitable benefit. This tainted-altruism effect was observed in a variety of contexts and extended to both moral evaluations of other agents and participants’ own behavioral intentions (e.g., reported willingn…
Value Judgments and the True Self
The belief that individuals have a “true self” plays an important role in many areas of psychology as well as everyday life. The present studies demonstrate that people have a general tendency to conclude that the true self is fundamentally good—that is, that deep inside every individual, there is something motivating him or her to behave in ways that are virtuous. Study 1 finds that observers are more likely to see a person’s true self reflected…
Social Context and the Dynamics of Cooperative Choice
Recent work using decontextualized economic games suggests that cooperation is a dynamic decision‐making process: Automatic responses typically support cooperation on average, while deliberation leads to increased selfishness. Here, we performed two studies examining how these temporal effects generalize to games with richer social context cues. Study 1 found that time pressure increased cooperation to a similar extent in games played with in‐gro…
When Going Green Backfires
Many companies offer products with social benefits that are orthogonal to performance (e.g., green products). The present studies demonstrate that information about a company's intentions in designing the product plays an import role in consumers' evaluations. In particular, consumers are less likely to purchase a green product when they perceive that the company intentionally made the product better for the environment compared to when the same …
Dual character concepts and the normative dimension of conceptual representation
The effects of system-justifying motives on endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences
People have a fundamental motive to view their social system as just, fair, and good and will engage in a number of strategies to rationalize the status quo (Jost & Banaji, 1994). We propose that one way in which individuals may "justify the system" is through endorsement of essentialist explanations, which attribute group differences to deep, essential causes. We suggest that system-justifying motives lead to greater endorsement of essentialist …
The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving
Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
Eight‐Month‐Old Infants Infer Unfulfilled Goals, Despite Ambiguous Physical Evidence
In this study, we tested whether 8‐month‐old infants could infer an actor's unfulfilled goal, despite some physical information present in the displays being inconsistent with the attempted goal. Infants saw a human hand holding a ring repeatedly approach the top of a plastic cone in an apparent failed attempt to place the ring on the cone. The hand and ring then bounced away from the top of the cone toward the floor. Thus, some information prese…
Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
When Going Green Backfires
Many companies offer products with social benefits that are orthogonal to performance (e.g., green products). The present studies demonstrate that information about a company's intentions in designing the product plays an import role in consumers' evaluations. In particular, consumers are less likely to purchase a green product when they perceive that the company intentionally made the product better for the environment compared to when the same …
The effects of system-justifying motives on endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences
People have a fundamental motive to view their social system as just, fair, and good and will engage in a number of strategies to rationalize the status quo (Jost & Banaji, 1994). We propose that one way in which individuals may "justify the system" is through endorsement of essentialist explanations, which attribute group differences to deep, essential causes. We suggest that system-justifying motives lead to greater endorsement of essentialist …
Seeing Stars
Across many different contexts, individuals consult customer ratings to inform their purchase decisions. The present studies document a novel phenomenon, dubbed "the binary bias," which plays an important role in how individuals evaluate customer reviews. Our main proposal is that people tend to make a categorical distinction between positive ratings (e.g., 4s and 5s) and negative ratings (e.g., 1s and 2s). However, within those bins, people do n…
Closer to the Creator
Consumers demonstrate a robust preference for items with earlier serial numbers (e.g., No. 3/100) over otherwise identical items with later serial numbers (e.g., No. 97/100) in a limited edition set. This preference arises from the perception that items with earlier serial numbers are temporally closer to the origin (e.g., the designer or artist who produced it). In turn, beliefs in contagion (the notion that objects may acquire a special essence…
The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving
Kinds of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity plays an important role in how people reason about objects, other people, and themselves. However, despite a great deal of academic interest in this concept, to date, the precise meaning of the term, authenticity, has remained somewhat elusive. This paper reviews the various definitions of authenticity that have been proposed in the literature and identifies areas of convergence. We then outline a novel framework that …
Macho Nachos
The present studies examine how culturally held stereotypes about gender (that women eat more healthfully than men) implicitly influence food preferences. In Study 1, priming masculinity led both male and female participants to prefer unhealthy foods, while priming femininity led both male and female participants to prefer healthy foods. Study 2 extended these effects to gendered food packaging. When the packaging and healthiness of the food were…
An Essentialist Account of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity is central to how people value many different types of objects and yet there is considerable disagreement about how individuals evaluate authenticity or how the concept itself should be defined. This paper attempts to reconcile previous approaches by proposing a novel view of authenticity. Specifically, I draw upon past research on psychological essentialism and propose that when people evaluate the authenticity of obj…
Social Context and the Dynamics of Cooperative Choice
Recent work using decontextualized economic games suggests that cooperation is a dynamic decision‐making process: Automatic responses typically support cooperation on average, while deliberation leads to increased selfishness. Here, we performed two studies examining how these temporal effects generalize to games with richer social context cues. Study 1 found that time pressure increased cooperation to a similar extent in games played with in‐gro…
The Curse of the Original
Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand's original, flagship product-even if those changes objectively improve it. We demonstrate that when firms engage in heritage branding that emphasizes a brand's longevity, consumers …
Eight‐Month‐Old Infants Infer Unfulfilled Goals, Despite Ambiguous Physical Evidence
In this study, we tested whether 8‐month‐old infants could infer an actor's unfulfilled goal, despite some physical information present in the displays being inconsistent with the attempted goal. Infants saw a human hand holding a ring repeatedly approach the top of a plastic cone in an apparent failed attempt to place the ring on the cone. The hand and ring then bounced away from the top of the cone toward the floor. Thus, some information prese…
Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving
Dual character concepts and the normative dimension of conceptual representation
The effects of system-justifying motives on endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences
People have a fundamental motive to view their social system as just, fair, and good and will engage in a number of strategies to rationalize the status quo (Jost & Banaji, 1994). We propose that one way in which individuals may "justify the system" is through endorsement of essentialist explanations, which attribute group differences to deep, essential causes. We suggest that system-justifying motives lead to greater endorsement of essentialist …
Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation
Tainted Altruism
In four experiments, we found that the presence of self-interest in the charitable domain was seen as tainting: People evaluated efforts that realized both charitable and personal benefits as worse than analogous behaviors that produced no charitable benefit. This tainted-altruism effect was observed in a variety of contexts and extended to both moral evaluations of other agents and participants’ own behavioral intentions (e.g., reported willingn…
Value Judgments and the True Self
The belief that individuals have a “true self” plays an important role in many areas of psychology as well as everyday life. The present studies demonstrate that people have a general tendency to conclude that the true self is fundamentally good—that is, that deep inside every individual, there is something motivating him or her to behave in ways that are virtuous. Study 1 finds that observers are more likely to see a person’s true self reflected…
Social Context and the Dynamics of Cooperative Choice
Recent work using decontextualized economic games suggests that cooperation is a dynamic decision‐making process: Automatic responses typically support cooperation on average, while deliberation leads to increased selfishness. Here, we performed two studies examining how these temporal effects generalize to games with richer social context cues. Study 1 found that time pressure increased cooperation to a similar extent in games played with in‐gro…
When Going Green Backfires
Many companies offer products with social benefits that are orthogonal to performance (e.g., green products). The present studies demonstrate that information about a company's intentions in designing the product plays an import role in consumers' evaluations. In particular, consumers are less likely to purchase a green product when they perceive that the company intentionally made the product better for the environment compared to when the same …
Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment
Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about (a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies …
Macho Nachos
The present studies examine how culturally held stereotypes about gender (that women eat more healthfully than men) implicitly influence food preferences. In Study 1, priming masculinity led both male and female participants to prefer unhealthy foods, while priming femininity led both male and female participants to prefer healthy foods. Study 2 extended these effects to gendered food packaging. When the packaging and healthiness of the food were…
An Essentialist Account of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity is central to how people value many different types of objects and yet there is considerable disagreement about how individuals evaluate authenticity or how the concept itself should be defined. This paper attempts to reconcile previous approaches by proposing a novel view of authenticity. Specifically, I draw upon past research on psychological essentialism and propose that when people evaluate the authenticity of obj…
Kinds of Authenticity
The concept of authenticity plays an important role in how people reason about objects, other people, and themselves. However, despite a great deal of academic interest in this concept, to date, the precise meaning of the term, authenticity, has remained somewhat elusive. This paper reviews the various definitions of authenticity that have been proposed in the literature and identifies areas of convergence. We then outline a novel framework that …
Closer to the Creator
Consumers demonstrate a robust preference for items with earlier serial numbers (e.g., No. 3/100) over otherwise identical items with later serial numbers (e.g., No. 97/100) in a limited edition set. This preference arises from the perception that items with earlier serial numbers are temporally closer to the origin (e.g., the designer or artist who produced it). In turn, beliefs in contagion (the notion that objects may acquire a special essence…
The True Self
A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the c…
Seeing Stars
Across many different contexts, individuals consult customer ratings to inform their purchase decisions. The present studies document a novel phenomenon, dubbed "the binary bias," which plays an important role in how individuals evaluate customer reviews. Our main proposal is that people tend to make a categorical distinction between positive ratings (e.g., 4s and 5s) and negative ratings (e.g., 1s and 2s). However, within those bins, people do n…
Authenticity
The concept of authenticity informs a number of central topics in management studies. On the surface, it might seem that a consensus exists about its meaning; there is indeed widespread agreement that authenticity refers to that which is “real” or “genuine” or “true.” Below the surface, however, there is much less agreement; scholars use the same lexical term but often approach the concept from different perspectives and apply different meanings.…
The Curse of the Original
Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand's original, flagship product-even if those changes objectively improve it. We demonstrate that when firms engage in heritage branding that emphasizes a brand's longevity, consumers …
On the Value of Sad Music
Many people appear to attach great value to sad music. But why? One way to gain insight into this question is to turn away from music and look instead at why people value sad conversations. In the case of conversations, the answer seems to be that expressing sadness creates a sense of genuine connection. We propose that sad music can also have this type of value. Listening to a sad song can give one a sense of genuine connection. We then explore …
Lost in digitization
The head, heart, and soul
Which mental process reveals one's authentic preference-deliberative reasoning or one's gut impulses? The existing literature offers conflicting answers to this question: Some research suggests that people generally see deliberation as more fundamental, while other work suggests that people see intuition as more fundamental. This article argues that belief in a true self provides a unifying framework to explain when participants will attribute on…
Sad Art Gives Voice to Our Own Sadness
People tend to show greater liking for expressions of sadness when these expressions are described as art. Why does this effect arise? One obvious hypothesis would be that describing something as art makes people more likely to regard it as fictional , and people prefer expressions of sadness that are not real. We contrast this obvious hypothesis with a hypothesis derived from the philosophical literature. In this alternative hypothesis, describi…
Psychology (21 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (10 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (7 works) · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification (6 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works) · Cognitive psychology (5 works)