The present study examines whether collaborative situations make individuals more dishonest in face-to-face settings. It also considers how this dishonesty unfolds over time. To address these questions, we employed a sequential dyadic die-rolling task in which two participants in a pair sitting face-to-face received a payoff only if both reported the same outcome when each one rolled their die. In each trial, one participant rolled a die first and reported the outcome. Then, the second participant was informed of A’s reported (...) number, rolled a die as well, and reported the outcome. If their reported outcomes were identical, both of them received a reward. We also included an individual condition in which an individual subject rolled a die twice and received a reward if he/she reported the same die-roll outcome. We found that B lied significantly more than participants in the individual condition, whereas A lied as much as participants in the individual condition. Furthermore, when collaborating, more and more participants became dishonest as the game progressed, whereas there was no such trend among participants in the individual condition. These findings provide evidence indicating that collaborative settings increase dishonesty and that this effect becomes more evident as the collaboration progress. (shrink)

Individuals often fail to accurately predict others’ decisions in a risky environment. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics and causes of this prediction discrepancy. Participants completed a risky decision-making task mixed with different domains (gain vs. loss) and probabilities (small vs. large), with some participants making decisions for themselves (the actor) and the others predicting the actors’ decisions (the predictor). The results demonstrated a prediction discrepancy: predictions were more risk-averse than the actual decisions over small-probability gains and more risk-seeking (...) over large-probability gains, while these patterns were reversed in the loss domain. Reported and predicted levels of emotional stimulation revealed a pattern that is consistent with the notion of risk-as-feelings and empathy gaps. Mediation analysis provided strong evidence that such prediction discrepancy is driven mainly by the predictor’s underestimate of the intensity (not the impact) of the actor’s emotional state. (shrink)

The barriers to responsiveness and the initiation of communication are the two key problems encountered by children with autism spectrum disorders. Prior interventions based on behavioral reinforcement have had an obvious effect on responsive communication but a weak effect on the initiation of communication. Based on psychological development theory, we designed ultra-light clay interventions involving hands-on production or multi-interaction around key concepts and themes, teaching children about basic concepts, relationships, and logic, making abstract knowledge concrete and experience. Two studies showed (...) that ultra-light clay intervention improved both the initiation of and response to communication among children with ASD, but that such improvements show a peer-generalization effect in initiation communication, not in responsive communication. These findings provide a set of ultra-light clay interventions for communication in children with ASD and suggest a relationship between endogenous interventions and the initiation of communication. (shrink)