HOPE Lab Research
We are a group of researchers who study ethical decision-making, broadly defined. Our work focuses primarily on how people balance fundamental values such as honesty, opportunity, prosociality and navigate ethical dilemmas involving these values. Our research delves deeper by examining how ethical judgments define social interactions by shaping our language, influencing group affiliation, and informing our beliefs. Click on each topic to learn more about the research stream.
You can find the CVs and papers of each of our members on the PEOPLE page. Below, we highlight some of our recent work.
Honesty
Many of our most common and difficult ethical dilemmas involve balancing honesty and benevolence. We routinely face this conflict in our personal lives, when deciding how to communicate with friends and family members, and in our professional lives, when deciding how to deliver difficult news and critical feedback. Honesty and benevolence also conflict during some of our most demanding and emotional ethical decisions. For example, when healthcare professionals communicate information to sick and elderly individuals, they must strike a delicate balance between providing hope and care, and communicating honestly. Using a variety of research methods, in both the laboratory and the field, we study how individuals navigate this tension. Our research unearths specific circumstances in which people welcome and appreciate deception, as well as circumstances in which they underestimate the benefits of honesty. We recently launched an interdisciplinary project on honesty-values conflicts, supported by the Honesty Project and the Templeton Foundation (read more about it here).
Recent Papers:
Jensen, S., Levine, E.E., White, M., Huppert, E. Lying is ethical, but honesty is the best policy: The desire to avoid harmful lies leads to moral preferences for unconditional honesty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Cooper, B., Cohen, T. R., Huppert, E., Levine, E. E., & Fleeson, W. (2023) Honest Behavior: Truth-seeking, Belief-speaking, and Fostering-understanding. Academy of Management Annals.
Huppert, E., Herzog, N., Landy, J., Levine, E.E. (2023). On being dishonest about dishonesty: The social costs of taking nuanced (but realistic) moral stances. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Huppert, E., Levine, E.E. (2023) The rise of dishonest leaders: Causes and solutions. Academy of Management Perspectives, 37(3), 239-251.
Levine, E.E. (2022). Community standards of deception: Deception is perceived to be ethical when it prevents unnecessary harm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,151(2), 410–436.
Opportunity
We often select people for scarce opportunities, like college or a job, on the basis of what they have accomplished. However, these accomplishments have taken place under different circumstances, some advantageous and others not. In this area of research, we examine the difficult decisions and moral dilemmas that this reality presents. We also explore how other facets of decision-making—including our choice context and social or financial incentives—influence whether: (1) members of historically marginalized groups are offered opportunities and (2) members of historically marginalized groups seize opportunities, Finally, we use these insights to test theoretically-motivated interventions to increase equity.
Recent Papers:
Kirgios, E.L., Silver, I., & Chang, E.H. (2024). Does Communicating Measurable Diversity Goals Attract or Repel Historically Marginalized Job Applicants? Evidence from the Lab and Field. Forthcoming at the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Rai, A., Chang, E.H., Kirgios, E.L., & Milkman, K.L. (2024). Group size and its impact on diversity-related perceptions and hiring decisions in homogeneous groups. Organization Science.
Chang, E. H., & Kirgios, E. L. (2024). Demographic “stickiness”: The demographic identity of departing group members influences who is chosen to replace them. Management Science, 70(7), 4236-4259.
Munguia Gomez, D., Levine, E.E. (2022). The Policy-People Gap: Decision makers choose policies that would select different applicants than they select when making individual decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 65(3), 842-869.
Kirgios, E.L., Chang, E.H., Milkman, K.L. (2020). Going It Alone: Competition Increases the Attractiveness of Minority Status. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 161, 20-33.
Chang, E.H.*, Kirgios, E.L.*, Rai, A., Milkman, K.L. (2020). The Isolated Choice Effect and Its Implications for Gender Diversity in Organizations. Management Science, 66(6), 2752-2761. *denotes equal authorship
Chang, E.H., Kirgios, E.L., Smith, R.K. (2021). Large-Scale Field Experiment Shows Null Effects of Team Diversity on Others’ Willingness to Support the Team. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Kirgios, E.L., Rai, A., Chang, E.H., Milkman, K.L. (2022). When Seeking Help, Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities Benefit from Explicitly Stating Their Identity. Nature Human Behaviour.
Ethical dilemmas
Our broadest goal is to understand how people fundamentally resolve ethical dilemmas, in order to build theory and inform practice. We have written several papers about a broad class of ethical dilemmas (benevolence-integrity dilemmas) that are common in every-day life. Benevolence reflects the motivation to improve the welfare of an individual in need based on the specific situation the individual faces, whereas integrity reflects the motivation to adhere to universal principles in an impartial manner. Many dilemmas involving honesty and prosociality are specific instantiations of benevolence-integrity dilemmas. Outside of benevolence-integrity dilemmas, we have also explored dilemmas involving autonomy and paternalism in the domain of medicine.
Recent Papers:
Moore, A., Lewis, J., Levine, E.E., Schweitzer, M.E. (2023). Benevolent Friends and High-Integrity Leaders: How Preferences for Benevolence and Integrity Change Across Relationships. Forthcoming at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Kassirer, S., Levine, E.E., Gaertig, C. (2020). Decisional autonomy undermines advisees’ judgments of experts in medicine and in life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(21), 11368-11378.
Moore, A.K., Munguia Gomez, D.M., & Levine, E.E. (2019). Everyday dilemmas: New directions on the judgment and resolution of benevolence-integrity dilemmas. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, e12472.
Language:
Language is never just words. It signals our intentions, credibility, and values, and affects how we form and maintain relationships. Our research examines how everyday expressions such as thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming can carry social costs and benefits. By studying how people interpret and respond to these expressions, we show how factors like cultural expectations, relational closeness, and perceived costs to the speaker impact trust, credibility, and cooperation.
Recent papers:
Wald, K. A., Chaudhry, S. J., & Risen, J. L. (2024). The credibility dilemma: When acknowledging a (perceived) lack of credibility can make a boast more believable. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 183, 104351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2024.104351
Wang, J., Chaudhry, S.J., & Koch, A. (2024) “Reminders Undermine Impressions of Genuine Gratitude.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000442
Yu, J., & Chaudhry, S.J. (2023) “‘Thanks, but no thanks’: Gratitude Expression Paradoxically Signals Distance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/pspi0000435
Chaudhry, S.J. & Wald, K.A. (2022) “Overcoming listener skepticism: Costly signaling in communication increases perceived honesty,” Current Opinion in Psychology, 101442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101442
Chaudhry, S.J. & Loewenstein, G. (2019) “Thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming: Responsibility exchange theory and the currency of communication.” Psychological Review, 126(3), 313-344. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000139
Affiliation:
How do strangers become friends, and how can we forge genuine connections across deep cultural divides? This stream of research looks at the factors that bring people together, whether through shared activities, synchronized behavior, or thoughtfully designed social interactions. By addressing the roots of disagreement and the barriers to understanding, we aim to promote belonging, empathy, and durable connections at the group and individual levels.
Recent papers:
Gallardo, R., Smith, A., Zak, U., Lopez, D., Kirgios, E.L., & Koch, A. Being in the minority boosts in-group love: Explanations and boundary conditions. Forthcoming at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
White, S., Schroeder, J. & Risen, J. L. (2021). When “enemies” become close: Predicting relationship formation among Palestinians and Jewish Israelis at a youth camp. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121, 76-94.
Hove, M. J., & Risen, J. L. (2009). It’s all in the timing: Interpersonal synchrony increases affiliation. Social Cognition, 27, 949-961.
Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T. (2007). Target and observer differences in the acceptance of questionable apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 418-433.
Beliefs:
Beliefs don’t exist only in our minds, they define our values, guide our behavior, and influence how we treat others. We investigate how intuitive versus analytical processes shape our belief systems, whether they stem from visceral experiences, arise suddenly after a single unusual event, or persist even when recognized as unfounded. By uncovering the processes by which people adopt and maintain beliefs, we identify how people make sense of their worlds, relate to one another, and navigate uncertainty.
Recent papers:
Atir, S., & Risen, J. L. (2024). The paradox of explaining: When feeling unknowledgeable prevents learners from engaging in effective learning strategies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication.
Chang, L.W., Kirgios, E.L., Mullainathan, S., & Milkman, K.L. (2024). Does counting change what counts? Quantification fixation biases decision-making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (46), e2400215121
Molnar, A., Chaudhry, S.J., & Loewenstein, G. (2023) “’It’s not about the money. It’s about sending a message!’: Avengers Want Offenders to Understand the Reason for Revenge,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 174, 104207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104207
Roberts, R., & Risen, J. L. (2022). Introducing conspiracy intuitions to better understand conspiracy beliefs. Current Opinion in Psychology, 47, 101395.
Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D., & Inzlicht, M. (2018). The psychology of rituals: An integrative review and process-based framework, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22, 260-284.
Risen, J. L. (2016). Believing what we don’t believe: Acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions. Psychological Review, 123, 183-207.
Risen, J. L., & Critcher, C. R. (2011). Visceral fit: While in a visceral state, associated states of the world seem more likely. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 777-793.
Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T. (2008). Why people are reluctant to tempt fate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 293-307.
Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T., Dunning, D. (2007). One-shot illusory correlations and stereotype formation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1492-1502