Can the negative footprint illusion be eliminated by summative priming?
Holmgren, Mattias ; Andersson, Hanna LU
; Ball, Linden J.
and Marsh, John E.
(2021)
In Journal of Cognitive Psychology
33(3).
p.337-356
- Abstract
People’s belief that one or more environmentally friendly items that are added to a set of conventional items can reduce the total environmental impact of these items (the negative footprint illusion) could lead to unwanted environmental consequences. An averaging bias seems to underpin this illusion: people make their estimates based on the average of the environmental impact produced by the items rather than the accumulated sum. We report four studies that used various priming manipulations to explore whether people’s preoccupation to think in terms of an average can be eliminated by fostering a summative mindset. The results demonstrate that participants avoid succumbing to the negative footprint illusion when the critical judgment... (More)
People’s belief that one or more environmentally friendly items that are added to a set of conventional items can reduce the total environmental impact of these items (the negative footprint illusion) could lead to unwanted environmental consequences. An averaging bias seems to underpin this illusion: people make their estimates based on the average of the environmental impact produced by the items rather than the accumulated sum. We report four studies that used various priming manipulations to explore whether people’s preoccupation to think in terms of an average can be eliminated by fostering a summative mindset. The results demonstrate that participants avoid succumbing to the negative footprint illusion when the critical judgment task is preceded by tasks that engender a summation judgment. Our evidence indicates that the negative footprint illusion can be tempered when a primed concept (summation) is used adaptively on subsequent judgments, thereby correcting for bias in environmental judgments.
(Less)
- author
- Holmgren, Mattias
; Andersson, Hanna
LU
; Ball, Linden J.
and Marsh, John E.
- publishing date
- 2021
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- averaging bias, Negative footprint illusion, summative priming
- in
- Journal of Cognitive Psychology
- volume
- 33
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 20 pages
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85102932673
- ISSN
- 2044-5911
- DOI
- 10.1080/20445911.2021.1903012
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
- id
- 4530fe56-789c-4039-87d8-99ed8c393320
- date added to LUP
- 2023-12-05 17:07:37
- date last changed
- 2023-12-07 11:16:43
@article{4530fe56-789c-4039-87d8-99ed8c393320,
abstract = {{<p>People’s belief that one or more environmentally friendly items that are added to a set of conventional items can reduce the total environmental impact of these items (the negative footprint illusion) could lead to unwanted environmental consequences. An averaging bias seems to underpin this illusion: people make their estimates based on the average of the environmental impact produced by the items rather than the accumulated sum. We report four studies that used various priming manipulations to explore whether people’s preoccupation to think in terms of an average can be eliminated by fostering a summative mindset. The results demonstrate that participants avoid succumbing to the negative footprint illusion when the critical judgment task is preceded by tasks that engender a summation judgment. Our evidence indicates that the negative footprint illusion can be tempered when a primed concept (summation) is used adaptively on subsequent judgments, thereby correcting for bias in environmental judgments.</p>}},
author = {{Holmgren, Mattias and Andersson, Hanna and Ball, Linden J. and Marsh, John E.}},
issn = {{2044-5911}},
keywords = {{averaging bias; Negative footprint illusion; summative priming}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
pages = {{337--356}},
publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}},
series = {{Journal of Cognitive Psychology}},
title = {{Can the negative footprint illusion be eliminated by summative priming?}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2021.1903012}},
doi = {{10.1080/20445911.2021.1903012}},
volume = {{33}},
year = {{2021}},
}