Past research holds that a decision between two unattractive alternatives is more difficult than one between two attractive alternatives. We argue that this conclusion may rest on the the task of "choosing" adopted in the past research. A task of choosing requires an attractiveness judgment that...

This article examines the effects of counterfactual thinking on information processing. We conceptualize counterfactual thinking--a process of mentally undoing the outcome of an event by imagining alternate antecedent states--as a problem-solving process that will increase scrutiny of...

This research examines whether mental budgets, defined as self-specified allowances for behaviors, can help with self-control. We theorize that mental budgets will lead to greater self-control when the avoidance aspects of the behavior are made salient and when the decision context allows easy...

This article examines the bases children of different ages use to categorize products. Data from children ages 4 to 10 indicate that the use of perceptual attributes as a basis for categorizing products decreases with age, whereas the use of underlying attributes to categorize products increases...

We examine the role of high self-accountability emotions in enhancing compliance with fear appeals. In two field experiments, we find that relative to straight fear appeals (negative) or adding hope (positive), which ascribes low accountability to the self, action-facilitative coping,...