Ed O''Brien
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4230355 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Ed O''Brien |
| PRENOMES | Ed |
| SOBRENOME | O''Brien |
| ASSINATURA | BRIEN E O |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Chicago |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4481-8408 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 16 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 62 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 16 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2012 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Insights into growth mindsets over time
Success and innovation often require multiple failures.In workplace and classroom settings, this kind of repeated failure is often visible to others-managers and teachers-whose reactions can shape whether failure is tolerated, supported, or penalized.Thus, understanding people's reactions to others' repeated failures is critical for fostering success in both professional and educational contexts.Prior research suggests that growth (vs.fixed) mind…
Threshold violations in social judgment
People commonly establish in advance the thresholds they use to pass social judgment (e.g., promising reward/punishment after a fixed number of good/bad behaviors). Ten preregistered experiments ( N = 5,542) reveal when, why, and how people violate their social judgment thresholds, even after formally establishing them based on having full information about what might unfold. People can be swayed to be both "quicker to judge" (e.g., promising rew…
The “Next” Effect
Various domains of life are improving over time, meaning the future is filled with exciting advances that people can now look forward to (e.g., in technology). Three preregistered experiments ( N = 1,602) suggest that mere awareness of better futures can risk spoiling otherwise enjoyable presents. Across experiments, participants interacted with novel technologies—but, via random assignment, some participants were informed beforehand that even be…
Ending on a familiar note
People fill their free time by choosing between hedonic activities that are new and exciting (e.g., exploring a buzzed-about restaurant) versus old and familiar (e.g., revisiting the same old spot). The dominant psychological assumption is that people will prefer novelty, holding constant factors like cost, availability, and convenience between acquiring such options ("variety is the spice of life"). Eight preregistered experiments (total N = 5,8…
Repeated exposure to success harshens reactions to failure
Keep talking
1,093 participants, including 966 spoken conversations) address these gaps. We find that people misunderstand the hedonic trajectory of conversation: After enjoying the initial minutes of conversation with a new acquaintance, participants expected their enjoyment to decline as their conversations continued, but experienced stable or increasing enjoyment in reality. This miscalibration arose at least partly because participants underestimated how …
Enjoy it again
What would it be like to revisit a museum, restaurant, or city you just visited? To rewatch a movie you just watched? To replay a game you just played? People often have opportunities to repeat hedonic activities. Seven studies (total N = 3,356) suggest that such opportunities may be undervalued: Many repeat experiences are not as dull as they appear. Studies 1-3 documented the basic effect. All participants first completed a real-world activity …
The tipping point of perceived change
Change often emerges from a series of small doses. For example, a person may conclude that a happy relationship has eroded not from 1 obvious fight but from smaller unhappy signs that at some point "add up." Everyday fluctuations therefore create ambiguity about when they reflect substantive shifts versus mere noise. Ten studies reveal an asymmetry in this first point when people conclude "official" change: people demand less evidence to diagnose…
(Mis)imagining the good life and the bad life
The power and limits of personal change
Observing other people improve their lives can be a powerful source of inspiration. Eight experiments explore the power, limits, and reasons for this power of personal change to inspire. We find that people who have improved from undesirable pasts (e.g., people who used to abuse extreme drugs but no longer do) are more inspiring than people who maintain consistently desirable standings (e.g., people who have never used extreme drugs to begin with…
Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries
Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others' experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of these differences, are relatively unknown. Thus, the current study explored cultural variation in empath…
The implicit meaning of (my) change
The concept of change simply entails the totality of ways in which a particular entity has grown better and grown worse. Five studies suggest that this is not how people actually understand it for themselves. Rather, when asked to assess how they have "changed" over time, people bring to mind only how they have improved and neglect other trajectories (e.g., decline) that they have also experienced; global change is specifically translated as dire…
MLKDay and Racial Attitudes
Intuition suggests that theMartinLutherKing holiday (MLKDay) should improve racial attitudes toward African Americans. However, its influence may depend on whether African Americans are evaluated as a group or individually. In two studies, we assessed racial attitudes either onMLKDay or on a control day. As might be expected, participants had more sympathetic attitudes towards African Americans as a group onMLKDay compared to control days; howeve…
Too much experience
People often use their own feelings as a basis to predict others' feelings. For example, when trying to gauge how much someone else enjoys a television show, people might think "How much do I enjoy it?" and use this answer as basis for estimating others' reactions. Although personal experience (such as actually watching the show oneself) often improves empathic accuracy, we found that gaining too much experience can impair it. Five experiments hi…
The thrill of (absolute) victory
The emotional value of placing in a given percentile of a competition (e.g., placing in the "top 10%") depends on how many competitors are involved. Five studies reveal that winning among larger groups is associated with more positive emotional reactions than winning among smaller groups, even when the objective chances for success are held constant. Participants thought that a runner would feel happier after placing in the top 10% in a race with…
Today's misery and yesterday's happiness
Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries
Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others' experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of these differences, are relatively unknown. Thus, the current study explored cultural variation in empath…
(Mis)imagining the good life and the bad life
Keep talking
1,093 participants, including 966 spoken conversations) address these gaps. We find that people misunderstand the hedonic trajectory of conversation: After enjoying the initial minutes of conversation with a new acquaintance, participants expected their enjoyment to decline as their conversations continued, but experienced stable or increasing enjoyment in reality. This miscalibration arose at least partly because participants underestimated how …
The tipping point of perceived change
Change often emerges from a series of small doses. For example, a person may conclude that a happy relationship has eroded not from 1 obvious fight but from smaller unhappy signs that at some point "add up." Everyday fluctuations therefore create ambiguity about when they reflect substantive shifts versus mere noise. Ten studies reveal an asymmetry in this first point when people conclude "official" change: people demand less evidence to diagnose…
The power and limits of personal change
Observing other people improve their lives can be a powerful source of inspiration. Eight experiments explore the power, limits, and reasons for this power of personal change to inspire. We find that people who have improved from undesirable pasts (e.g., people who used to abuse extreme drugs but no longer do) are more inspiring than people who maintain consistently desirable standings (e.g., people who have never used extreme drugs to begin with…
Too much experience
People often use their own feelings as a basis to predict others' feelings. For example, when trying to gauge how much someone else enjoys a television show, people might think "How much do I enjoy it?" and use this answer as basis for estimating others' reactions. Although personal experience (such as actually watching the show oneself) often improves empathic accuracy, we found that gaining too much experience can impair it. Five experiments hi…
Today's misery and yesterday's happiness
Enjoy it again
What would it be like to revisit a museum, restaurant, or city you just visited? To rewatch a movie you just watched? To replay a game you just played? People often have opportunities to repeat hedonic activities. Seven studies (total N = 3,356) suggest that such opportunities may be undervalued: Many repeat experiences are not as dull as they appear. Studies 1-3 documented the basic effect. All participants first completed a real-world activity …
MLKDay and Racial Attitudes
Intuition suggests that theMartinLutherKing holiday (MLKDay) should improve racial attitudes toward African Americans. However, its influence may depend on whether African Americans are evaluated as a group or individually. In two studies, we assessed racial attitudes either onMLKDay or on a control day. As might be expected, participants had more sympathetic attitudes towards African Americans as a group onMLKDay compared to control days; howeve…
Ending on a familiar note
People fill their free time by choosing between hedonic activities that are new and exciting (e.g., exploring a buzzed-about restaurant) versus old and familiar (e.g., revisiting the same old spot). The dominant psychological assumption is that people will prefer novelty, holding constant factors like cost, availability, and convenience between acquiring such options ("variety is the spice of life"). Eight preregistered experiments (total N = 5,8…
Today's misery and yesterday's happiness
The thrill of (absolute) victory
The emotional value of placing in a given percentile of a competition (e.g., placing in the "top 10%") depends on how many competitors are involved. Five studies reveal that winning among larger groups is associated with more positive emotional reactions than winning among smaller groups, even when the objective chances for success are held constant. Participants thought that a runner would feel happier after placing in the top 10% in a race with…
Too much experience
People often use their own feelings as a basis to predict others' feelings. For example, when trying to gauge how much someone else enjoys a television show, people might think "How much do I enjoy it?" and use this answer as basis for estimating others' reactions. Although personal experience (such as actually watching the show oneself) often improves empathic accuracy, we found that gaining too much experience can impair it. Five experiments hi…
MLKDay and Racial Attitudes
Intuition suggests that theMartinLutherKing holiday (MLKDay) should improve racial attitudes toward African Americans. However, its influence may depend on whether African Americans are evaluated as a group or individually. In two studies, we assessed racial attitudes either onMLKDay or on a control day. As might be expected, participants had more sympathetic attitudes towards African Americans as a group onMLKDay compared to control days; howeve…
The implicit meaning of (my) change
The concept of change simply entails the totality of ways in which a particular entity has grown better and grown worse. Five studies suggest that this is not how people actually understand it for themselves. Rather, when asked to assess how they have "changed" over time, people bring to mind only how they have improved and neglect other trajectories (e.g., decline) that they have also experienced; global change is specifically translated as dire…
The tipping point of perceived change
Change often emerges from a series of small doses. For example, a person may conclude that a happy relationship has eroded not from 1 obvious fight but from smaller unhappy signs that at some point "add up." Everyday fluctuations therefore create ambiguity about when they reflect substantive shifts versus mere noise. Ten studies reveal an asymmetry in this first point when people conclude "official" change: people demand less evidence to diagnose…
(Mis)imagining the good life and the bad life
The power and limits of personal change
Observing other people improve their lives can be a powerful source of inspiration. Eight experiments explore the power, limits, and reasons for this power of personal change to inspire. We find that people who have improved from undesirable pasts (e.g., people who used to abuse extreme drugs but no longer do) are more inspiring than people who maintain consistently desirable standings (e.g., people who have never used extreme drugs to begin with…
Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries
Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others' experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of these differences, are relatively unknown. Thus, the current study explored cultural variation in empath…
Enjoy it again
What would it be like to revisit a museum, restaurant, or city you just visited? To rewatch a movie you just watched? To replay a game you just played? People often have opportunities to repeat hedonic activities. Seven studies (total N = 3,356) suggest that such opportunities may be undervalued: Many repeat experiences are not as dull as they appear. Studies 1-3 documented the basic effect. All participants first completed a real-world activity …
The “Next” Effect
Various domains of life are improving over time, meaning the future is filled with exciting advances that people can now look forward to (e.g., in technology). Three preregistered experiments ( N = 1,602) suggest that mere awareness of better futures can risk spoiling otherwise enjoyable presents. Across experiments, participants interacted with novel technologies—but, via random assignment, some participants were informed beforehand that even be…
Ending on a familiar note
People fill their free time by choosing between hedonic activities that are new and exciting (e.g., exploring a buzzed-about restaurant) versus old and familiar (e.g., revisiting the same old spot). The dominant psychological assumption is that people will prefer novelty, holding constant factors like cost, availability, and convenience between acquiring such options ("variety is the spice of life"). Eight preregistered experiments (total N = 5,8…
Repeated exposure to success harshens reactions to failure
Keep talking
1,093 participants, including 966 spoken conversations) address these gaps. We find that people misunderstand the hedonic trajectory of conversation: After enjoying the initial minutes of conversation with a new acquaintance, participants expected their enjoyment to decline as their conversations continued, but experienced stable or increasing enjoyment in reality. This miscalibration arose at least partly because participants underestimated how …
Threshold violations in social judgment
People commonly establish in advance the thresholds they use to pass social judgment (e.g., promising reward/punishment after a fixed number of good/bad behaviors). Ten preregistered experiments ( N = 5,542) reveal when, why, and how people violate their social judgment thresholds, even after formally establishing them based on having full information about what might unfold. People can be swayed to be both "quicker to judge" (e.g., promising rew…
Insights into growth mindsets over time
Success and innovation often require multiple failures.In workplace and classroom settings, this kind of repeated failure is often visible to others-managers and teachers-whose reactions can shape whether failure is tolerated, supported, or penalized.Thus, understanding people's reactions to others' repeated failures is critical for fostering success in both professional and educational contexts.Prior research suggests that growth (vs.fixed) mind…
Psychology (15 obras) · Social Psychology (15 obras) · Social Psychology (10 obras) · Cognitive psychology (7 obras) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (6 obras) · Cultural Differences and Values (5 obras) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (5 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (4 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (4 obras) · Feeling (3 obras)