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Publications

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1. Hart, E.*, VanEpps, E.*, Yudkin, D. & Schweitzer, M. E. (accepted Aug 2023). The Interpersonal Costs of Revealing Others' Secrets. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology [SSRN]
People often keep relevant information secret from others. For example, an employee might keep a coworker’s plan to quit without giving notice secret from their manager, or someone might keep a friend’s affair secret from their friend’s spouse. In this article, we identify a critical, but overlooked factor that determines whether an actor will disclose secret information they know about another person—impression management concerns about how other people will judge their decision to disclose or keep the secret. We conceptualize secret-keeping as social decisions that involve the focal actor (who could keep or disclose a secret), the partner (the focus of the secret), the audience (interested in learning the secret information), and external observers (who may observe if the focal actor disclosed the secret). Across four preregistered studies, including real-world judgments of secret-keeping dilemmas (field data from a Reddit community; N=332), a recall study (N=200), and controlled experiments (N=624), we describe how impression management concerns influence secret-keeping decisions. We find that focal actors are often judged harshly for disclosing others’ secrets, even when the audience could derive substantial benefits from learning the information and even when observers judge disclosure to be more moral than keeping a secret. Focal actors are heavily influenced by impression management concerns and routinely keep partners’ secrets from an audience who could benefit from the information. Taken together, impression management concerns act as significant impediments to the flow of information, advancing our understanding of both information flows within groups and secret-keeping dilemmas.   -top-
2. VanEpps, E.*, Hart, E.*, & Schweitzer, M. E. (2023). Dual-promotion: Bragging Better by Promoting Peers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [Paper]
To receive credit and to create favorable impressions, individuals need to share information about their past accomplishments. Claiming credit to demonstrate competence, however, can harm perceptions of warmth and likability. In fact, prior work has conceptualized self-promotion as a hydraulic challenge: tactics that boost perceptions along one dimension (e.g., competence) harm perceptions along the other dimensions (e.g., warmth). In this work, we identify a novel approach to self-promotion: We show that by combining other-promotion (promoting others) and self-promotion, which we term “dual-promotion”, individuals can project both warmth and competence to make better impressions on observers. In two pre-registered pilot studies, including annual reports from members of Congress and an interactive lab study, we demonstrate that even when motivated to create a favorable impression, people rely heavily upon self-promotion. Yet across four experiments using workplace and political contexts (N = 1,510, pre-registered), we show that individuals who engage in dual-promotion consistently create more favorable impressions than those who only engage in self-promotion, an effect mediated by enhanced perceptions of both warmth and competence. These benefits also extend to behavioral intentions. In addition, we show that regardless of what colleagues and peers do, dual-promotion creates more favorable impressions than self-promotion, suggesting that sharing credit can be an optimal strategy across a variety of contexts.   -top-
3. Huber, C., & 95 authors including Hart, E. (2023). Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 [Paper]
Does competition affect moral behavior? This fundamental question has been debated among leading scholars for centuries, and more recently, it has been tested in experimental studies yielding a body of rather inconclusive empirical evidence. A potential source of ambivalent empirical results on the same hypothesis is design heterogeneity—variation in true effect sizes across various reasonable experimental research protocols. To provide further evidence on whether competition affects moral behavior and to examine whether the generalizability of a single experimental study is jeopardized by design heterogeneity, we invited independent research teams to contribute experimental designs to a crowd-sourced project. In a large-scale online data collection, 18,123 experimental participants were randomly allocated to 45 randomly selected experimental designs out of 95 submitted designs. We find a small adverse effect of competition on moral behavior in a meta-analysis of the pooled data. The crowd-sourced design of our study allows for a clean identification and estimation of the variation in effect sizes above and beyond what could be expected due to sampling variance. We find substantial design heterogeneity—estimated to be about 1.6 times as large as the average standard error of effect size estimates of the 45 research designs—indicating that the informativeness and generalizability of results based on a single experimental design are limited. Drawing strong conclusions about the underlying hypotheses in the presence of substantive design heterogeneity requires moving toward much larger data collections on various experimental designs testing the same hypothesis.   -top-
4. Ren, Z., Hart, E., Levine, E. E., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2022). The Shared Responsibility Model of Deception. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Deception scholarship has focused on deceivers and has largely conceptualized targets as passive victims. We introduce the Shared Responsibility Model of deception (SR Model) to describe how both communicators and targets are responsible for deception. The SR Model conceptualizes deception as a social process to explain when deceivers and victims are blamed for deception. Observers’ perception of targets’ responsibility is a function of whether targets should have expected deception, whether targets took preventive actions, targets’ inferred motives, and targets’ characteristics. The SR Model also challenges the implicit assumption that as communicators’ responsibility for deception increases, targets’ responsibility decreases. The SR Model has important implications for research on ethics, communication, and behavioral decision making.   -top-
5. VanEpps, E.* & Hart, E.* (2022). Questions and deception: How to ask better questions and elicit the truth. Current Opinion in Psychology.  [Paper]
Questions are important tools for uncovering information, but to avoid deception, question askers must be strategic in what and how they ask—and consider the social implications of their questions. Askers should consider that in addition to soliciting information, questions also signal information about expected answers, askers’ own knowledge, and the parties’ relationship. We review literatures on deception, conversations, and impression management to discuss signals embedded in question phrasing, and how these signals affect the truthfulness of respondents’ disclosures. Askers can increase truthful disclosure by remaining neutral about the desirability of possible responses, conveying knowledge of the topic, and signaling trust. We identify how asking better questions requires being more cognizant of the informational and relational signals that questions send.   -top-
6. Hart, E. & Schweitzer, M.E. (2022). Relational Concerns and the Economic Value of Negotiated Agreements. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.  [Paper]
Theoretical negotiation scholarship has conceptualized economic concerns and relational concerns as independent and orthogonal. Empirical negotiation scholarship has construed economic and relational concerns as compensatory and implicitly assumed that the negotiated deal terms reflect a complete accounting of the economic value of an agreement. We challenge these assumptions and assert that the economic value of an agreement includes both the deal terms and post-negotiation behavior, which may be influenced by relational outcomes. Across four studies, we show that negotiators’ economic outcomes are inextricably linked with their relational outcomes. We introduce a new dimension to characterize negotiation contexts: the Economic Relevance of Relational Outcomes (ERRO), a continuum that reflects the extent to which the economic value of a negotiated agreement hinges on the strength of the relationship between the parties. We show that individuals are more concerned about relationships in high ERRO rather than low ERRO contexts, and that in high ERRO contexts negotiators privilege relational concerns over favorable deal terms. Our work theoretically and empirically addresses a fundamental gap in the negotiation literature by underscoring the importance of negotiation context in linking relational outcomes with economic outcomes.
• Psychology Today
• Knowledge @ Wharton podcast
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7. Hart, E., Avrahami, J., & Kareev, Y. (2022). When Unequals Compete: Where Do They Stand After the Competition? Cognitive Science.  [Paper]
When two unequals compete, the stronger, more able, richer competitor commonly stands a better chance of winning. If the stronger competitor does win, this worsens the relative status of the weaker competitor even further. Does this result depend on the type of competition? Does it depend on the size of the reward to be won? In the present paper, we report an experimental study of how a very simple competitive mechanism can affect the relative standing of the weaker, poorer of two competitors. In a lab experiment with 208 participants, we employed competitions with different levels of uncertainty in how a winner was determined and with different sizes of rewards to be won, to explore effects on the relative standing of the weaker and stronger competitors. We used an investment game in which participants differing in their endowed budgets competed against one another, forfeiting their investment whether they won or lost. Two versions of the game were used: a simple all-pay-auction contest and a non-constant-sum Colonel Blotto contest (Roberson & Kvasov, 2012), both with players that were unequal in their budgets. Results revealed that, in line with published game-theoretic solutions, the relative standing of the weaker agents worsened following competition, and increasingly so the higher the rewards. At the same time, the effect was mitigated in the variant of the Colonel Blotto game, which involved more uncertainty in how the winner was determined.   -top-
8. Hart, E.*, VanEpps, E.*, & Schweitzer, M. E. (2021). The (better than expected) consequences of asking sensitive questions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.  [Paper]
Within a conversation, individuals balance competing concerns, such as the motive to gather information and the motives to avoid discomfort and to create a favorable impression. Across three pilot studies and four experimental studies, we demonstrate that individuals avoid asking sensitive questions, because they fear making others uncomfortable and because of impression management concerns. We demonstrate that this aversion to asking sensitive questions is both costly and misguided. Even when we incentivized participants to ask sensitive questions, participants were reluctant to do so in both face-to-face and computer-mediated chat conversations. Interestingly, rather than accurately anticipating how sensitive questions will influence impression formation, we find that question askers significantly overestimate the interpersonal costs of asking sensitive questions. Across our studies, individuals formed similarly favorable impressions of partners who asked non-sensitive (e.g., “Are you a morning person?”) and sensitive (e.g., “What are your views on abortion?”) questions, despite askers’ reticence to ask sensitive questions.
• Freakonomics Radio
• Harvard Business Review article
• Knowledge @ Wharton podcast
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9. Hart, E., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2020). Getting to Less: When negotiating harms post-agreement performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.  [Paper]
The negotiation process can harm a counterpart’s motivation to fulfill the contract. In contrast to prior work that has assumed that negotiated agreements represent the full economic value of negotiated outcomes, we demonstrate that the act of engaging in a negotiation can itself influence post-agreement behavior in ways that change the economic value of an agreement. Across six studies, we demonstrate that negotiations can harm post-agreement motivation and productivity on both effortful and creative tasks. Specifically, we find that wage negotiations can harm post-agreement performance, even when the negotiation has integrative potential or is conducted face-to-face. Negotiations can increase perceptions of relational conflict, and these conflict perceptions mediate the relationship between negotiation and motivation. Compared to not negotiating, individuals who negotiate may secure favorable deal terms, but risk incurring affective, relational, and economic costs after the agreement. Our investigation fills a critical gap in our understanding of how negotiations influence subsequent performance, and has particular relevance for negotiations that involve the provision of services. Our findings suggest that individuals should enter negotiations with caution, and we call for future work to explore post negotiation behavior in service contexts.
• Wharton Magazine
• Knowledge @ Wharton podcast
• Mentions: New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, LinkedIn (Editor's picks, Jan 17 2020), Hacker News
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10. Hart, E., Mellers, B.A., & Bicchieri, C. (2019). Bad luck or bad intentions: When do third party observers reveal offender’s intentions to victims? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. [Paper]
Intentional harm is often a catalyst to action for victims and third party observers. Yet, harm may also be unintended. If there is a third party observer, and the victim does not know whether harm was intentional or accidental, would that observer reveal the offender’s intentions to the victim? In five studies, we investigated when and why third party observers reveal offenders’ intentions. We used an economic game in which participants observed a player being monetarily harmed either accidentally or intentionally. Third party observers were more likely to inform the victims when harm was accidental than intentional. We distinguish between two types of motives. First, emotional motives are desires to express one’s moral anger and empathy. Second, instrumental motives reflect desires to correct the victim’s impressions and ensure future fairness. Third party behavior is motivated by moral emotions of anger and empathy. Anger toward the offenders increases the likelihood that the observer will inform the victim when harm is intentional. Empathy for the victim increases the likelihood of informing the victim about intentional and accidental harm. Moreover, third party behavior is motivated by instrumental motives that reflect fairness concerns. By correcting the victim’s impression of the offender, the observer is ensuring fair future interactions between victim and offender. We discuss implications for forgiveness and management of conflict.   -top-
11. Hart, E., Avrahami, J., & Kareev, Y. (2016). Enlarging the market yet decreasing the profit: Competitive behavior when investment affects the prize. Judgment and Decision Making, 11(4), 380-390. [Paper]
In many competitive situations, our investments increase our gains: Developing better products or research proposals may lead to higher contracts or patents or larger grants. Does increasing investment in such cases always guarantee higher gains? We used an experimental repeated competition game in which prizes depended on contestants’ investments (n=108). Contestants invested more when they increased the potential prize (“enlarge the market”), yet in some cases this tendency was counterproductive (“decrease the profit”): Contestants in fact diminished their earnings, compared to sitting out the competition and keeping their initial funds. Moreover, when a contestant’s investment decreased an opponent’s prize, the contestant tended to invest less; this effect, in turn, led to higher overall gains for both contestants. This result implies that prosocial considerations are at play. Notably, in certain situations, excessive competitive tendencies may lead to a larger waste of resources.   -top-
12. Shen, Q., Teo, M., Winter, E., Hart, E., Chew, S. H., & Ebstein, R. P. (2016). To cheat or not to cheat: Tryptophan Hydroxylase 2 SNP Variants contribute to dishonest behavior. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10, 82.  [Paper]
Although, lying (bear false witness) is explicitly prohibited in the Decalogue and a focus of interest in philosophy and theology, more recently the behavioral and neural mechanisms of deception are gaining increasing attention from diverse fields especially economics, psychology, and neuroscience. Despite the considerable role of heredity in explaining individual differences in deceptive behavior, few studies have investigated which specific genes contribute to the heterogeneity of lying behavior across individuals. Also, little is known concerning which specific neurotransmitter pathways underlie deception. Toward addressing these two key questions, we implemented a neurogenetic strategy and modeled deception by an incentivized die-under-cup task in a laboratory setting. The results of this exploratory study provide provisional evidence that SNP variants across the tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2) gene, that encodes the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of brain serotonin, contribute to individual differences in deceptive behavior.   -top-
13. Hart, E., Avrahami, J., Kareev, Y., & Todd, P. M. (2015). Investing Even in Uneven Contests: Effects of Asymmetry on Investment in Contests. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(4), 395–409.  [Paper]
Many competitions, such as political campaigns, innovative endeavors, sports or courting rituals, require investment of non-refundable resources: One contestant wins the prize for the invested amount, while all others lose their investments without receiving compensation. Frequently, contests are asymmetric, due to differing resources or prize valuations. Does asymmetry discourage the weaker players from investing? Do stronger players take this into account, and also invest less? Or does the desire to win abolish these differences? Two experiments explored the effects of asymmetry between the contestants – arising from their resources or prizes – on non-refundable investments. Subjects repeatedly competed in both symmetric and asymmetric contests, enabling within-subject comparisons. We observed an effect of asymmetry only when it concerned resources: Subjects overall invested less when their resources were unequal, whereas inequality in the prizes did not influence investments; this pattern suggests that winning itself is motivating. The changes between consecutive investments can be explained by reactions to the previous outcome (win or loss): Across all contests, investment decreased following a win, and increased following a loss.   -top-
14. Hart, E., Kareev, Y., & Avrahami, J. (2015). Good Times, Bad Times: Reversal of Risky Choice in a Good versus a Bad World. Decision, 3(2), 132-145.  [Paper]
In many situations one has to choose between risky alternatives, based only on one's past experience with these alternatives. Such decisions can be made in more – or less – benevolent states of the world. Predictions concerning two crucial aspects of choice behavior – the overall probability of choosing the riskier alternative and the round-to-round choice dynamics – depend on how one evaluates one’s payoff: Whether in its own right, compared to possible outcomes within the chosen alternative (which could result in disappointment), or compared to foregone outcomes, those of other, unchosen alternatives (which could result in regret). In two experiments, subjects made repeated, incentivized choices between two gambles, one riskier than the other, neither offering a sure amount. We explored whether and how choices are affected by the state of world in which they are made. States were manipulated both between-subjects (Experiment 1, N=144) and within-subjects (Experiment 2, N=132). We observed a significant effect of state on overall choice probability: In more benevolent states, subjects tended to choose the riskier alternative, and vice versa in worse states; choice dynamics were similar across states, and were most strongly affected by reactions to the forgone payoff. These patterns of results are in line with a regret-based account.   -top-
15. Avrahami, J., Kareev, Y., & Hart, E. (2014). Taking the Sting out of Choice? Diversification of Investments. Judgment and Decision Making, 9(5), 373-386. [Paper]
It is often the case that one can choose a mix of alternative options rather than have to select one option only. Such an opportunity to diversify may blunt the risk involved in all-or-none choice. Here we investigate repeated in investment decisions in two-valued options that differ in their riskiness, looking for the effects of recent decisions and their outcomes on upcoming decisions. We compare these effects to those evident in all-or-none choice between the same risky options. The ‘state of the world’, namely, the likelihood of the high versus the low outcomes of the options is manipulated. We find that aggregate allocation diverges from uniformity (i.e., from 1/n), and is sensitive to outcome probabilities with the pattern of results indicating reactivity to the outcome of the previous decision. Round-to-round dynamics reveal that the outcome of the previous decision has an effect on the subsequent decision, on top of inertia; the aspects of the outcome that influence the next decision indicate an effect of a missed opportunity, if there was one, in the previous decision. Importantly, recent outcomes have a similar effect in diversification decisions and in all-or-none choice.   -top-
16. Israel, S., Hart, E., & Winter, E. (2014). Oxytocin decreases accuracy in the perception of social deception. Psychological Science, 25, 293-295. [Paper]
Social interactions such as coalition formation, negotiation and bargaining, all involve the ability to mask, and uncover, non-cooperative intentions. However, the psychobiological factors underlying the identification of deception remain poorly understood. Our study explored the role of oxytocin (OT) – a neuropeptide with marked effects on social cognition and behavior – on the ability to differentiate between authentic and falsely presented cooperative intentions within a televised social (prisoners') dilemma. We demonstrate that subjects were able to accurately differentiate between cooperators and defectors, and that this ability was negatively impacted by administration of OT. We conjecture that this impairment is characterized by less social vigilance in detecting deceptive behavior. Our findings place a cautionary note on the use of OT as a tool for decoding others' intentions, particularly in the all too common context where mixed motives may lurk behind the veil of a seemingly friendly face.   -top-

Revisions and Under Review

1. Hart, E.*, Campagna, R.C.*, Elfenbein, H.A. & Curhan, J. (R&R). Consequences of Employment Negotiation for Job Candidates and for Managers.
Researchers and practitioners encourage job candidates to negotiate their employment agreements because doing so can benefit their long-term economic performance. However, we demonstrate that employment negotiation also has the potential to influence job candidates’ interests adversely via a blowback effect. Specifically, we theorize that negotiating affects job candidates’ and managers’ perceptions of their counterpart, as a function of whether the negotiation behavior is consistent or inconsistent with implicit expectations for the counterpart’s role. Role expectation violations can diminish perceived relational capital, which in turn may jeopardize post-agreement commitment. We find support for this theory from four studies (N = 1,207), including archival longitudinal employment data over a 13-year period as well as three experiments. Our findings suggest that the choice by employees and managers regarding whether or not to engage in a negotiation process profoundly affects subsequent individual- and organization-level outcomes. We discuss practical implications for job candidates and managers.   -top-
2. Hart, E., Bear, J., & Ren, Z. B. (R&R). Negotiation Avoidance Due to (Inflated) Concern about Jeopardizing a Deal.
Negotiation can benefit individuals economically, yet it can also have adverse relational consequences, leading some to be reluctant to negotiate. Here we investigate another, potential concern about negotiating: that the initial offer will be withdrawn and that negotiators will lose a deal entirely. In the context of job offers, we show that individuals are highly concerned about their likelihood of jeopardizing an offer by negotiating. This concern contributes to job candidates’ negotiation avoidance. Notably, an individual’s perception of the likelihood of jeopardizing a deal because of negotiation may not match the negotiation counterpart’s perception. We propose that the concern about the likelihood of jeopardizing a deal by negotiating is often exaggerated—and reflects a flawed mental model of the negative consequences of negotiating. Across studies with real-world employees and job candidates, as well as tightly controlled experimental studies, we investigate job candidates’ perceived and actual likelihood of losing the offer by negotiating, and how it affects their reluctance to negotiate. We document that candidates consistently overestimate the likelihood of jeopardizing a deal. Our findings suggest that, although withdrawal of offers due to negotiation occurs, it is uncommon; candidates have an inflated concern and, in turn, might be too reluctant to negotiate.   -top-
3. Sontuoso, A., Bicchieri, C., Funcke, A., & Hart, E. (1st round). Strategic Problems with Risky Prospects.  [WP]
We study games where the impact of strategic uncertainty (i.e., ambiguity arising from uncertainty about other players’ actions and beliefs) is compounded by the simultaneous presence of risky prospects (chance moves with commonly-known conditional probabilities). We embed such games in an experimental environment that allows us to test if risk-taking behavior is affected by information that reduces the extent of strategic uncertainty. In doing so, we test some implications of expected utility theory, while making minimal assumptions about individual-level (risk or ambiguity) attitudes. Our analysis provides evidence for an effect of the information: notably, we find that the effect on choice behavior is triggered in some cases by a rational belief revision about others’ actions, and in other cases by a reversal in risk preferences.   -top-

Working Papers and In Prep

1. Hart, E.* & Bowles, H. R.* (working paper). What Employers Negotiate to Increase Employee Engagement?
Does negotiating role or workload enhance employee engagement more than negotiating pay? We posit that successfully negotiating role/workload boosts engagement because it increases self-determination. We report two field studies and a pre-registered experiment. Both graduate students and senior executives who reported greater success negotiating role/workload had higher work engagement; negotiating pay had no effect. Experimentally comparing role/workload, pay, and no negotiation, we again find that success negotiating role/workload increased engagement more than pay and no negotiation; self-determination mediates the effect of negotiation subject on engagement.   -top-
2. Ren, Z. B., Hart, E. & Schweitzer, M. E. (working paper). Longer Negotiation Dances Harm Satisfaction and Relationships
Though the exchange of offers (the “negotiation dance”) is likely to shape both economic and interpersonal outcomes, surprisingly little prior work has explored the offer exchange beyond the first offer, which reflects only a very small aspect of the negotiation dance and its consequences. Across various negotiation contexts, we show that when negotiation dances are longer, negotiators are less satisfied with the process and the relationship with their counterpart, and we identify detrimental behavioral implications of long vs. short negotiation dances.   -top-
3. Campagna, R.C.*, & Hart, E.* (working paper). Less Envious of Those We Trust: The Dual Mitigating Role of Trust on the Development of Envy and Harmful Behaviors.
When one compares unfavorably to another person (e.g., a co-worker or colleague who received a coveted promotion), one often becomes envious and may wish to harm the envied person. We draw from several theoretical perspectives about interpersonal trust to show how parties’ pre-existing trust, prior to the envy-inducing event, influences whether and how envy develops. Across studies using measured and manipulated trust and different facets of envy and harmful behaviors, we document that trust has two distinct moderating roles in the envy process. First, we show that trust minimizes perceivers’ feeling of envy after ‘losing’ to a target person. When trust is high, there is a weaker relationship between ‘losing’ and envy than when trust is low. Second, we show that high trust in the target buffers the extent to which perceivers’ envy impacts their harmful behaviors towards the target. That is, when trust is high, envious perceivers are less likely to harm the target and the relationship between felt envy and harmful intentions is weaker. Taken together, we identify interpersonal trust as a crucial moderator of both envy development and the negative consequences of envy.   -top-
4. Hart, E., Cronin, M., & Shapiro, D. (in prep). Effectively Managing Relationship Conflict.
Relationship conflict is defined as the interpersonal incompatibilities, tension, animosity, and annoyance amongst team members. The dominant view in the management literature is that relationship conflict is detrimental to functioning and should be avoided. Our theory draws on insights from the counseling literature to propose the potential mechanisms that might make relationship conflict adaptive. We develop novel hypotheses about these mechanisms as they pertain to the organizational context, and how they can be used to make relationship conflict not only not harmful but in fact helpful for individuals and groups.   -top-
5. Campagna, R. C., Mislin, A., Hart, E., Dirks, K., & Lee, J. (in prep). Role of Time and Apologies in Trust Repair.  -top-