Brian J Lucas
Biographic Data
| ID | 1798730 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian J Lucas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian J |
| FAMILY NAME | Lucas |
| SIGNATURE | LUCAS B J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3569-3030 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Intergenerational Hypocrisy: When an Organization’s Distant Past Limits Its Legitimacy to Practice or Preach in the Present
Organizations often endure across multiple generations of members—and what one generation preaches may not always align with what another generation practices. We demonstrate that people attribute such inconsistency to hypocrisy, even when over half a century separates the practicing and preaching. Five experiments and three supplemental studies demonstrate this intergenerational hypocrisy effect ( N = 4,482). Organizations were perceived as more…
Creativity quotes: An expansive analysis of condensed wisdom
People overestimate how harshly they are evaluated for disengaging from passion pursuit
The call to pursue one's passion is ubiquitous advice, and prior research highlights the many upsides to doing so. To pursue one's passion sustainably, people need to try different pursuits-and, critically, drop those that are not tenable for them. However, disengaging from a passion is seemingly antithetical to the stereotypical expectations people hold of how passion should be pursued, which is commonly depicted as persevering through challenge…
How Much Is Enough? The Relationship Between Prosocial Effort and Moral Character Judgments
The amount of effort required to bring about a prosocial outcome can vary from low—handing a stranger the wallet she just dropped—to high—spending days tracking down the owner of a lost wallet. The goal of the current research is to characterize the relationship between prosocial effort and moral character judgments. Does more prosocial effort always lead to rosier moral character judgments? Across four studies ( N = 1,658), we find that moral ch…
Low power warm-up effect: Understanding the effect of power on creativity over time
Prior research suggests that having power makes individuals more creative, because the powerful are more willing to break with convention. We investigate the possibility that lower power individuals can also be creative when given the opportunity to warm up by completing a creative task more than once. In Study 1 (N = 153), we divided a creative ideation session into two consecutive rounds and found that low (vs. high) power individuals were less…
A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains
Moral cleansing as hypocrisy: When private acts of charity make you feel better than you deserve
What counts as hypocrisy? Current theorizing emphasizes that people see hypocrisy when an individual sends them "false signals" about his or her morality (Jordan, Sommers, Bloom, & Rand, 2017); indeed, the canonical hypocrite acts more virtuously in public than in private. An alternative theory posits that people see hypocrisy when an individual enjoys "undeserved moral benefits," such as feeling more virtuous than his or her behavior merits, eve…
(Anti-)egalitarianism differentially predicts empathy for members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups
We explore the relationship between group-based egalitarianism and empathy for members of advantaged groups (e.g., corporate executives; state officials) versus disadvantaged groups (e.g., blue-collar workers; schoolteachers) subjected to harmful actions, events, or policies. Whereas previous research suggests that anti-egalitarians (vs. egalitarians) dispositionally exhibit less empathy for others, we propose that this relationship depends on th…
People underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance
Across 7 studies, we investigated the prediction that people underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Across a range of creative tasks, people consistently underestimated how productive they would be while persisting (Studies 1-3). Study 3 found that the subjectively experienced difficulty, or disfluency, of creative thought accounted for persistence undervaluation. Alternative explanations based on idea quality (Studies 1…
Feeling socially connected increases utilitarian choices in moral dilemmas
(Anti-)egalitarianism differentially predicts empathy for members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups
We explore the relationship between group-based egalitarianism and empathy for members of advantaged groups (e.g., corporate executives; state officials) versus disadvantaged groups (e.g., blue-collar workers; schoolteachers) subjected to harmful actions, events, or policies. Whereas previous research suggests that anti-egalitarians (vs. egalitarians) dispositionally exhibit less empathy for others, we propose that this relationship depends on th…
People underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance
Across 7 studies, we investigated the prediction that people underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Across a range of creative tasks, people consistently underestimated how productive they would be while persisting (Studies 1-3). Study 3 found that the subjectively experienced difficulty, or disfluency, of creative thought accounted for persistence undervaluation. Alternative explanations based on idea quality (Studies 1…
Feeling socially connected increases utilitarian choices in moral dilemmas
A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains
Feeling socially connected increases utilitarian choices in moral dilemmas
People underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance
Across 7 studies, we investigated the prediction that people underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Across a range of creative tasks, people consistently underestimated how productive they would be while persisting (Studies 1-3). Study 3 found that the subjectively experienced difficulty, or disfluency, of creative thought accounted for persistence undervaluation. Alternative explanations based on idea quality (Studies 1…
(Anti-)egalitarianism differentially predicts empathy for members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups
We explore the relationship between group-based egalitarianism and empathy for members of advantaged groups (e.g., corporate executives; state officials) versus disadvantaged groups (e.g., blue-collar workers; schoolteachers) subjected to harmful actions, events, or policies. Whereas previous research suggests that anti-egalitarians (vs. egalitarians) dispositionally exhibit less empathy for others, we propose that this relationship depends on th…
Moral cleansing as hypocrisy: When private acts of charity make you feel better than you deserve
What counts as hypocrisy? Current theorizing emphasizes that people see hypocrisy when an individual sends them "false signals" about his or her morality (Jordan, Sommers, Bloom, & Rand, 2017); indeed, the canonical hypocrite acts more virtuously in public than in private. An alternative theory posits that people see hypocrisy when an individual enjoys "undeserved moral benefits," such as feeling more virtuous than his or her behavior merits, eve…
A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains
Low power warm-up effect: Understanding the effect of power on creativity over time
Prior research suggests that having power makes individuals more creative, because the powerful are more willing to break with convention. We investigate the possibility that lower power individuals can also be creative when given the opportunity to warm up by completing a creative task more than once. In Study 1 (N = 153), we divided a creative ideation session into two consecutive rounds and found that low (vs. high) power individuals were less…
How Much Is Enough? The Relationship Between Prosocial Effort and Moral Character Judgments
The amount of effort required to bring about a prosocial outcome can vary from low—handing a stranger the wallet she just dropped—to high—spending days tracking down the owner of a lost wallet. The goal of the current research is to characterize the relationship between prosocial effort and moral character judgments. Does more prosocial effort always lead to rosier moral character judgments? Across four studies ( N = 1,658), we find that moral ch…
People overestimate how harshly they are evaluated for disengaging from passion pursuit
The call to pursue one's passion is ubiquitous advice, and prior research highlights the many upsides to doing so. To pursue one's passion sustainably, people need to try different pursuits-and, critically, drop those that are not tenable for them. However, disengaging from a passion is seemingly antithetical to the stereotypical expectations people hold of how passion should be pursued, which is commonly depicted as persevering through challenge…
Intergenerational Hypocrisy: When an Organization’s Distant Past Limits Its Legitimacy to Practice or Preach in the Present
Organizations often endure across multiple generations of members—and what one generation preaches may not always align with what another generation practices. We demonstrate that people attribute such inconsistency to hypocrisy, even when over half a century separates the practicing and preaching. Five experiments and three supplemental studies demonstrate this intergenerational hypocrisy effect ( N = 4,482). Organizations were perceived as more…
Creativity quotes: An expansive analysis of condensed wisdom
Psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (5 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (5 works) · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience (4 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (4 works) · Creativity (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Cognitive psychology (2 works)