Biased expectations in times of predicament : essays on help-seeking and indecision
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines the accuracy of behavioral and attitudinal expectations in times of predicament. The first two chapters use experimental research methods to study people's predictions when they are in need of tangible favors. Specifically, chapter one explores help-seekers' expectations of receiving assistance from someone who has refused to provide aid in the past. Based on findings from four social-psychological studies, this chapter argues that help-seekers underestimate the likelihood of receiving help in this situation. This underestimation is driven by help-seekers' failure to appreciate the discomfort of refusing to provide help not only once, but twice, as well as their assumption that a person who has refused to help once is invariably an unhelpful person. Chapter two investigates the quality of help that help-seekers' expect, conditional on receiving help. Four additional studies find that help-seekers underestimate the effort that helpers put into their assistance. Once again, the psychological mechanism driving this bias appears to be help-seekers' failure to appreciate helpers' discomfort. The final chapter of this dissertation is a conceptual work examining people's expectations while struggling in a state of indecision. What behaviors and functions do people expect while distressed by a decision they do not know how to make? This chapter argues that decision-makers are unduly pessimistic about indecision, seeing it primarily as a disquieting pathology of choice. This is due, in part, to the strength of cultural and cognitive norms surrounding decision-making and results in decision-makers failing to see indecision's potential as an arena for identity formation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Newark, Daniel A |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education. |
| Primary advisor | March, James G |
| Primary advisor | McFarland, Daniel |
| Thesis advisor | March, James G |
| Thesis advisor | McFarland, Daniel |
| Thesis advisor | Cohen, Geoffrey |
| Thesis advisor | Flynn, Francis J |
| Advisor | Cohen, Geoffrey |
| Advisor | Flynn, Francis J |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Daniel A. Newark. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Daniel Newark
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