Jane L Risen
Biographic Data
| ID | 4101082 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jane L Risen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jane L |
| FAMILY NAME | Risen |
| SIGNATURE | RISEN J L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4879-1705 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Learning to distrust: One trust experience changes the expected value of trust
Do people learn from a single trust interaction? Using internal meta-analyses with twenty-one studies ( N = 11,899), we find that feedback about the trustworthiness of one interaction partner influences the decision to trust a new person in a subsequent interaction. People are more likely to trust a new individual after positive feedback about an initial partner and less likely to trust a new individual after negative feedback about an initial pa…
Hiding from the Truth: When and How Cover Enables Information Avoidance
More information is available today than ever before, yet at times consumers choose to avoid it. Even with useful information (I should find out), people may prefer ignorance (But I don’t want to). Seven studies (N = 4,271) and five supplemental studies (N = 3,013) apply the concept of “cover” to information avoidance for consumer choices with real financial consequences. More consumers avoid information with cover—that is, when they can attribut…
When “enemies” become close: Relationship formation among Palestinians and Jewish Israelis at a youth camp
Having close relationships with outgroup members is an especially powerful form of intergroup contact that can reduce prejudice. Rather than examine the consequences of forming close outgroup relationships, which has previously been studied as part of intergroup contact theory, we examine how outgroup relationships-relative to ingroup relationships-form in the first place. We collected 7 years of data from Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers…
Tied to both sides or asserting a preferred identity? The case of Palestinian citizens of Israel in an intergroup contact setting
Research shows that individuals with dual identities have the potential to serve as a gateway between the groups represented by their dual identity, reducing bias between opposing sides. But does this potential necessarily exhibit itself in an intergroup contact setting where all groups are present? We study Palestinian Citizens of Israel (PCI) at Seeds of Peace, a three-week program with PCI, Jewish Israeli, and Palestinian teens. By analyzing w…
Handshaking promotes deal-making by signaling cooperative intent
We examine how a simple handshake-a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions-can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive interactions, a handshake is viewed as a signal of cooperative intent, increasing people's cooperative behavior and affecting deal-making outcomes. In Studies 1a and 1b, pairs who chose to…
The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework
Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, this article provides an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work…
Sudden-death aversion: Avoiding superior options because they feel riskier
We present evidence of sudden-death aversion (SDA)-the tendency to avoid "fast" strategies that provide a greater chance of success, but include the possibility of immediate defeat, in favor of "slow" strategies that reduce the possibility of losing quickly, but have lower odds of ultimate success. Using a combination of archival analyses and controlled experiments, we explore the psychology behind SDA. First, we provide evidence for SDA and its …
Closing your eyes to follow your heart: Avoiding information to protect a strong intuitive preference
Rationally, people should want to receive information that is costless and relevant for a decision. But people sometimes choose to remain ignorant. The current paper identifies intuitive-deliberative conflict as a driver of information avoidance. Moreover, we examine whether people avoid information not only to protect their feelings or experiences, but also to protect the decision itself. We predict that people avoid information that could encou…
Enacting rituals to improve self-control
Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this hypothesis in 6 experiments. A field experiment showed that engaging in a pre-eating ritual over a 5-day period helped participants reduce calorie intake (Experiment 1). Pairing a ritu…
Believing what we do not believe: Acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions.
Traditionally, research on superstition and magical thinking has focused on people's cognitive shortcomings, but superstitions are not limited to individuals with mental deficits. Even smart, educated, emotionally stable adults have superstitions that are not rational. Dual process models--such as the corrective model advocated by Kahneman and Frederick (2002, 2005), which suggests that System 1 generates intuitive answers that may or may not be …
Befriending the enemy: Outgroup friendship longitudinally predicts intergroup attitudes in a coexistence program for Israelis and Palestinians
One of the largest Middle East coexistence programs annually brings together Israeli and Palestinian teenagers for a 3-week camp in the United States. For 3 years, we longitudinally tracked how this intervention affected Israelis’ and Palestinians’ relationships with, and attitudes toward, each other. Specifically, we measured participants’ outgroup attitudes immediately before and after camp, and, for 2 years, 9 months following “reentry” to the…
If he can do it, so can they: Exposure to counterstereotypically successful exemplars prompts automatic inferences
After incidental exposure to Blacks who succeeded in counterstereotypical domains (e.g., Brown University President Ruth Simmons, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison), participants drew an automatic inference that race was not a success-inhibiting factor in modern society. Of note, participants' automatic inferences were not simply guided by their explicit reasoning (i.e., their beliefs about what these exemplars signify about the state of race relation…
Embodied motivation: Using a goal systems framework to understand the preference for social and physical warmth
Embodiment research has primarily focused on metaphor-assimilative effects (e.g., perceiving someone to be socially warmer when holding a warm object). Research shows these effects can occur by activating metaphor-associated knowledge constructs. This account is not sufficient, however, for explaining complementary effects--for example, the tendency to prefer social warmth when experiencing physical coldness (Experiment 1). We suggest that social…
Visceral fit: While in a visceral state, associated states of the world seem more likely
We propose that visceral states can influence beliefs through "visceral fit": People will judge states of the world associated with their current visceral experience as more likely. We found that warmth influenced belief in global warming (Studies 1-3) and that thirst impacted forecasts of drought and desertification (Study 5). These effects emerged in a naturalistic setting (Study 1) and in experimental lab settings (Studies 2, 3, and 5). Studie…
How choice affects and reflects preferences: Revisiting the free-choice paradigm
After making a choice between 2 objects, people reevaluate their chosen item more positively and their rejected item more negatively (i.e., they spread the alternatives). Since Brehm's (1956) initial free-choice experiment, psychologists have interpreted the spreading of alternatives as evidence for choice-induced attitude change. It is widely assumed to occur because choosing creates cognitive dissonance, which is then reduced through rationaliz…
It's All in the Timing: Interpersonal Synchrony Increases Affiliation
The tendency to mimic and synchronize with others is well established. Although mimicry has been shown to lead to affiliation between co-actors, the effect of interpersonal synchrony on affiliation remains an open question. The authors investigated the relationship by having participants match finger movements with a visual moving metronome. In Experiment 1, affiliation ratings were examined based on the extent to which participants tapped in syn…
Is choice a reliable predictor of choice? A comment on Sagarin and Skowronski
Why people are reluctant to tempt fate
The present research explored the belief that it is bad luck to "tempt fate." Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that people do indeed have the intuition that actions that tempt fate increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Studies 3-6 examined our claim that the intuition is due, in large part, to the combination of the automatic tendencies to attend to negative prospects and to use accessibility as a cue when judging likelihood. Study 3 demonstr…
Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets
People are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, a result that previous investigators have attributed to anticipated regret. The authors suggest that people's subjective likelihood judgments also make them disinclined to switch. Four studies examined likelihood judgments with respect to exchanged and retained lottery tickets and found that (a) exchanged tickets are judged more likely to win a lottery than are retained tickets and (b) exchanged t…
Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies
Do people distinguish between sincere and insincere apologies? Because targets and observers face different constraints, we hypothesized that observers would differentiate between spontaneous and coerced apologies but that targets would not. In Studies 1 and 2 participants either received or observed a spontaneous apology, a coerced apology, or no apology, following a staged offense, and the predicted target-observer difference emerged. Studies 3…
Befriending the enemy: Outgroup friendship longitudinally predicts intergroup attitudes in a coexistence program for Israelis and Palestinians
One of the largest Middle East coexistence programs annually brings together Israeli and Palestinian teenagers for a 3-week camp in the United States. For 3 years, we longitudinally tracked how this intervention affected Israelis’ and Palestinians’ relationships with, and attitudes toward, each other. Specifically, we measured participants’ outgroup attitudes immediately before and after camp, and, for 2 years, 9 months following “reentry” to the…
Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies
Do people distinguish between sincere and insincere apologies? Because targets and observers face different constraints, we hypothesized that observers would differentiate between spontaneous and coerced apologies but that targets would not. In Studies 1 and 2 participants either received or observed a spontaneous apology, a coerced apology, or no apology, following a staged offense, and the predicted target-observer difference emerged. Studies 3…
Why people are reluctant to tempt fate
The present research explored the belief that it is bad luck to "tempt fate." Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that people do indeed have the intuition that actions that tempt fate increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Studies 3-6 examined our claim that the intuition is due, in large part, to the combination of the automatic tendencies to attend to negative prospects and to use accessibility as a cue when judging likelihood. Study 3 demonstr…
How choice affects and reflects preferences: Revisiting the free-choice paradigm
After making a choice between 2 objects, people reevaluate their chosen item more positively and their rejected item more negatively (i.e., they spread the alternatives). Since Brehm's (1956) initial free-choice experiment, psychologists have interpreted the spreading of alternatives as evidence for choice-induced attitude change. It is widely assumed to occur because choosing creates cognitive dissonance, which is then reduced through rationaliz…
Closing your eyes to follow your heart: Avoiding information to protect a strong intuitive preference
Rationally, people should want to receive information that is costless and relevant for a decision. But people sometimes choose to remain ignorant. The current paper identifies intuitive-deliberative conflict as a driver of information avoidance. Moreover, we examine whether people avoid information not only to protect their feelings or experiences, but also to protect the decision itself. We predict that people avoid information that could encou…
Visceral fit: While in a visceral state, associated states of the world seem more likely
We propose that visceral states can influence beliefs through "visceral fit": People will judge states of the world associated with their current visceral experience as more likely. We found that warmth influenced belief in global warming (Studies 1-3) and that thirst impacted forecasts of drought and desertification (Study 5). These effects emerged in a naturalistic setting (Study 1) and in experimental lab settings (Studies 2, 3, and 5). Studie…
Enacting rituals to improve self-control
Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this hypothesis in 6 experiments. A field experiment showed that engaging in a pre-eating ritual over a 5-day period helped participants reduce calorie intake (Experiment 1). Pairing a ritu…
Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets
People are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, a result that previous investigators have attributed to anticipated regret. The authors suggest that people's subjective likelihood judgments also make them disinclined to switch. Four studies examined likelihood judgments with respect to exchanged and retained lottery tickets and found that (a) exchanged tickets are judged more likely to win a lottery than are retained tickets and (b) exchanged t…
Is choice a reliable predictor of choice? A comment on Sagarin and Skowronski
If he can do it, so can they: Exposure to counterstereotypically successful exemplars prompts automatic inferences
After incidental exposure to Blacks who succeeded in counterstereotypical domains (e.g., Brown University President Ruth Simmons, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison), participants drew an automatic inference that race was not a success-inhibiting factor in modern society. Of note, participants' automatic inferences were not simply guided by their explicit reasoning (i.e., their beliefs about what these exemplars signify about the state of race relation…
Embodied motivation: Using a goal systems framework to understand the preference for social and physical warmth
Embodiment research has primarily focused on metaphor-assimilative effects (e.g., perceiving someone to be socially warmer when holding a warm object). Research shows these effects can occur by activating metaphor-associated knowledge constructs. This account is not sufficient, however, for explaining complementary effects--for example, the tendency to prefer social warmth when experiencing physical coldness (Experiment 1). We suggest that social…
Hiding from the Truth: When and How Cover Enables Information Avoidance
More information is available today than ever before, yet at times consumers choose to avoid it. Even with useful information (I should find out), people may prefer ignorance (But I don’t want to). Seven studies (N = 4,271) and five supplemental studies (N = 3,013) apply the concept of “cover” to information avoidance for consumer choices with real financial consequences. More consumers avoid information with cover—that is, when they can attribut…
Handshaking promotes deal-making by signaling cooperative intent
We examine how a simple handshake-a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions-can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive interactions, a handshake is viewed as a signal of cooperative intent, increasing people's cooperative behavior and affecting deal-making outcomes. In Studies 1a and 1b, pairs who chose to…
When “enemies” become close: Relationship formation among Palestinians and Jewish Israelis at a youth camp
Having close relationships with outgroup members is an especially powerful form of intergroup contact that can reduce prejudice. Rather than examine the consequences of forming close outgroup relationships, which has previously been studied as part of intergroup contact theory, we examine how outgroup relationships-relative to ingroup relationships-form in the first place. We collected 7 years of data from Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers…
Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets
People are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, a result that previous investigators have attributed to anticipated regret. The authors suggest that people's subjective likelihood judgments also make them disinclined to switch. Four studies examined likelihood judgments with respect to exchanged and retained lottery tickets and found that (a) exchanged tickets are judged more likely to win a lottery than are retained tickets and (b) exchanged t…
Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies
Do people distinguish between sincere and insincere apologies? Because targets and observers face different constraints, we hypothesized that observers would differentiate between spontaneous and coerced apologies but that targets would not. In Studies 1 and 2 participants either received or observed a spontaneous apology, a coerced apology, or no apology, following a staged offense, and the predicted target-observer difference emerged. Studies 3…
Is choice a reliable predictor of choice? A comment on Sagarin and Skowronski
Why people are reluctant to tempt fate
The present research explored the belief that it is bad luck to "tempt fate." Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that people do indeed have the intuition that actions that tempt fate increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Studies 3-6 examined our claim that the intuition is due, in large part, to the combination of the automatic tendencies to attend to negative prospects and to use accessibility as a cue when judging likelihood. Study 3 demonstr…
It's All in the Timing: Interpersonal Synchrony Increases Affiliation
The tendency to mimic and synchronize with others is well established. Although mimicry has been shown to lead to affiliation between co-actors, the effect of interpersonal synchrony on affiliation remains an open question. The authors investigated the relationship by having participants match finger movements with a visual moving metronome. In Experiment 1, affiliation ratings were examined based on the extent to which participants tapped in syn…
How choice affects and reflects preferences: Revisiting the free-choice paradigm
After making a choice between 2 objects, people reevaluate their chosen item more positively and their rejected item more negatively (i.e., they spread the alternatives). Since Brehm's (1956) initial free-choice experiment, psychologists have interpreted the spreading of alternatives as evidence for choice-induced attitude change. It is widely assumed to occur because choosing creates cognitive dissonance, which is then reduced through rationaliz…
Visceral fit: While in a visceral state, associated states of the world seem more likely
We propose that visceral states can influence beliefs through "visceral fit": People will judge states of the world associated with their current visceral experience as more likely. We found that warmth influenced belief in global warming (Studies 1-3) and that thirst impacted forecasts of drought and desertification (Study 5). These effects emerged in a naturalistic setting (Study 1) and in experimental lab settings (Studies 2, 3, and 5). Studie…
Befriending the enemy: Outgroup friendship longitudinally predicts intergroup attitudes in a coexistence program for Israelis and Palestinians
One of the largest Middle East coexistence programs annually brings together Israeli and Palestinian teenagers for a 3-week camp in the United States. For 3 years, we longitudinally tracked how this intervention affected Israelis’ and Palestinians’ relationships with, and attitudes toward, each other. Specifically, we measured participants’ outgroup attitudes immediately before and after camp, and, for 2 years, 9 months following “reentry” to the…
If he can do it, so can they: Exposure to counterstereotypically successful exemplars prompts automatic inferences
After incidental exposure to Blacks who succeeded in counterstereotypical domains (e.g., Brown University President Ruth Simmons, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison), participants drew an automatic inference that race was not a success-inhibiting factor in modern society. Of note, participants' automatic inferences were not simply guided by their explicit reasoning (i.e., their beliefs about what these exemplars signify about the state of race relation…
Embodied motivation: Using a goal systems framework to understand the preference for social and physical warmth
Embodiment research has primarily focused on metaphor-assimilative effects (e.g., perceiving someone to be socially warmer when holding a warm object). Research shows these effects can occur by activating metaphor-associated knowledge constructs. This account is not sufficient, however, for explaining complementary effects--for example, the tendency to prefer social warmth when experiencing physical coldness (Experiment 1). We suggest that social…
Believing what we do not believe: Acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions.
Traditionally, research on superstition and magical thinking has focused on people's cognitive shortcomings, but superstitions are not limited to individuals with mental deficits. Even smart, educated, emotionally stable adults have superstitions that are not rational. Dual process models--such as the corrective model advocated by Kahneman and Frederick (2002, 2005), which suggests that System 1 generates intuitive answers that may or may not be …
The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework
Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, this article provides an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work…
Sudden-death aversion: Avoiding superior options because they feel riskier
We present evidence of sudden-death aversion (SDA)-the tendency to avoid "fast" strategies that provide a greater chance of success, but include the possibility of immediate defeat, in favor of "slow" strategies that reduce the possibility of losing quickly, but have lower odds of ultimate success. Using a combination of archival analyses and controlled experiments, we explore the psychology behind SDA. First, we provide evidence for SDA and its …
Closing your eyes to follow your heart: Avoiding information to protect a strong intuitive preference
Rationally, people should want to receive information that is costless and relevant for a decision. But people sometimes choose to remain ignorant. The current paper identifies intuitive-deliberative conflict as a driver of information avoidance. Moreover, we examine whether people avoid information not only to protect their feelings or experiences, but also to protect the decision itself. We predict that people avoid information that could encou…
Enacting rituals to improve self-control
Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this hypothesis in 6 experiments. A field experiment showed that engaging in a pre-eating ritual over a 5-day period helped participants reduce calorie intake (Experiment 1). Pairing a ritu…
Tied to both sides or asserting a preferred identity? The case of Palestinian citizens of Israel in an intergroup contact setting
Research shows that individuals with dual identities have the potential to serve as a gateway between the groups represented by their dual identity, reducing bias between opposing sides. But does this potential necessarily exhibit itself in an intergroup contact setting where all groups are present? We study Palestinian Citizens of Israel (PCI) at Seeds of Peace, a three-week program with PCI, Jewish Israeli, and Palestinian teens. By analyzing w…
Handshaking promotes deal-making by signaling cooperative intent
We examine how a simple handshake-a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions-can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive interactions, a handshake is viewed as a signal of cooperative intent, increasing people's cooperative behavior and affecting deal-making outcomes. In Studies 1a and 1b, pairs who chose to…
Hiding from the Truth: When and How Cover Enables Information Avoidance
More information is available today than ever before, yet at times consumers choose to avoid it. Even with useful information (I should find out), people may prefer ignorance (But I don’t want to). Seven studies (N = 4,271) and five supplemental studies (N = 3,013) apply the concept of “cover” to information avoidance for consumer choices with real financial consequences. More consumers avoid information with cover—that is, when they can attribut…
When “enemies” become close: Relationship formation among Palestinians and Jewish Israelis at a youth camp
Having close relationships with outgroup members is an especially powerful form of intergroup contact that can reduce prejudice. Rather than examine the consequences of forming close outgroup relationships, which has previously been studied as part of intergroup contact theory, we examine how outgroup relationships-relative to ingroup relationships-form in the first place. We collected 7 years of data from Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers…
Learning to distrust: One trust experience changes the expected value of trust
Do people learn from a single trust interaction? Using internal meta-analyses with twenty-one studies ( N = 11,899), we find that feedback about the trustworthiness of one interaction partner influences the decision to trust a new person in a subsequent interaction. People are more likely to trust a new individual after positive feedback about an initial partner and less likely to trust a new individual after negative feedback about an initial pa…
Psychology (18 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Cognitive psychology (7 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (7 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Microeconomics (6 works)