Biomedical subjects

Lawrence J Sanna

Publications and source records attributed to Lawrence J Sanna.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

The future is now: prospective temporal self-appraisals among defensive pessimists and optimists.

Three studies found that prospective temporal self-appraisals can be part of defensive pessimists' strategy; they felt closer to equally distant negative than positive futures. In Study 1, defensive pessimists felt closer to future failures and reported more negative affect than those considering success. In Study 2, when manipulated negative futures were close, defensive pessimists felt bad and performed well; results suggested that viewing negative futures as close may be part of their natural strategy. Study 3 found that prospective self-appraisals influenced performances through felt preparation. Optimists did not use prospective self-appraisals (Study 1) and their performances were unaffected by manipulated temporal distance (Studies 2 and 3). Discussion centers on prospective self-appraisals and multiple strategies of defensive pessimists.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2004

Integrating temporal biases: the interplay of focal thoughts and accessibility experiences.

We provide an integrative account of temporal biases (confidence changes, planning fallacy, impact bias, and hindsight bias). Students listed either 3 or 12 thoughts about success or failure before an upcoming real-life exam or immediately after learning their grades. Previous explanations had focused on how thought content alone (what comes to mind) influences temporal biases. We found, however, an interaction between thought content and accessibility experiences (how easily or difficultly thoughts come to mind). Thinking about 3 ways to succeed (success was easy to bring to mind) was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to fail (failure was difficult to bring to mind), and conversely, thinking about 3 ways to fail was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to succeed. In no case was thought content alone sufficient to predict the biases. These results have implications for debiasing strategies and other judgments over time.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

All our troubles seem so far away: temporal pattern to accessible alternatives and retrospective team appraisals.

Three studies tested the hypothesis that thoughts about alternatives become increasingly accessible over time, leading poor outcomes to feel subjectively farther away and less inevitable. This subjective temporal distance bias was obtained even though actual time since poor and good outcomes was identical. In Study 1, participants who recalled distant poor team outcomes thought of alternatives easily and outcomes felt farther away and less inevitable. Thoughts about outcomes were most easily accessible after good outcomes, which felt closer and more inevitable. In Study 2, with measures obtained immediately or at a later time on a negotiation task, changes over time occurred primarily for poor team outcomes. In Study 3, team performance on an investment task indicated it is whether alternatives are thought of easily, not thought content, that produces this effect. Discussion centers on temporal appraisals, other temporal biases, and teams.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Retrospection in social dilemmas: how thinking about the past affects future cooperation.

This article reports 2 studies investigating the effects of retrospective thought on future cooperation in social dilemmas. Some general theories of cooperation presume, but have not tested, whether retrospection has impact: People may think about the choices they could have made instead, realize that cooperation would have produced larger outcomes, and change their strategy as a result. Across both studies, the authors show that rate of future cooperation is directly related to the number of best-case scenarios and inversely related to the number of worst-case scenarios generated. The 2nd study also shows that the number and type of retrospective thoughts generated can be predicted from the person's social value orientation.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Accessibility experiences and the hindsight bias: I knew it all along versus it could never have happened.

In two experiments, we tested accessibility experiences versus accessible content in influencing the hindsight bias when participants generated either thoughts about alternative outcomes or thoughts about known outcomes. Participants who had listed many thoughts (Experiment 1) and those who had contracted their brow muscles (Experiment 2) when considering alternate outcomes rated the known outcome as more likely than did than those who had listed two thoughts or who had not contracted their brows--a "backfire" effect. In contrast, but no less ironically, participants who had listed many thoughts and those who contracted their brows when considering known outcomes rated those outcomes as less likely--an "it could never have happened" effect. Both effects are due to subjective accessibility experiences, and their role in influencing and debiasing the hindsight bias is discussed.

Eyebrows↗

PubMed2002

When debiasing backfires: accessible content and accessibility experiences in debiasing hindsight.

Two studies demonstrated that attempts to debias hindsight by thinking about alternative outcomes may backfire and traced this to the influence of subjective accessibility experiences. Participants listed either few (2) or many (10) thoughts about how an event might have turned out otherwise. Listing many counterfactual thoughts was experienced as difficult and consistently increased the hindsight bias, presumably because the experienced difficulty suggested that there were not many ways in which the event might have turned out otherwise. No significant hindsight effects were obtained when participants listed only a few counterfactual thoughts, a task subjectively experienced as easy. The interplay of accessible content and subjective accessibility experiences in the hindsight bias is discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗