Economics Insights @ CBS

Prior research has shown that an individual's hormonal profile can influence the individual's social standing within a group. We introduce a different construct — a collective hormonal profile — which describes a group's hormonal make-up. We test whether a group's collective hormonal profile is related to its performance. Analysis of 370 individuals randomly assigned to work in 74 groups of three to six individuals revealed that group-level concentrations of testosterone and cortisol interact to predict a group's standing across groups.

The notion that effort and hard work yield desired outcomes is ingrained in many cultures and affects our thinking and behavior. However, could valuing effort complicate our lives? In the present article, the authors demonstrate that individuals with a stronger tendency to link effort with positive outcomes end up complicating what should be easy decisions. People distort their preferences and the information they search and recall in a manner that intensifies the choice conflict and decisional effort they experience before finalizing their choice.

The removal of “conservatism” as a qualitative characteristic from the Conceptual Framework of the IFRS has met with considerable resistance. This paper argues that conservatism has a role in accounting, but not as a qualitative characteristic. Rather, it serves as a defining principle for how accounting is to be done. It is thus central to resolving “recognition” and “measurement” issues in the Conceptual Framework, issues that determine what actually goes into the balance sheet and income statement but issues on which the Framework is particularly weak.

This research examines the relationship between desire for control and acceptance of new products. We hypothesize that desire for control — the need to personally control outcomes in one's life — acts as a barrier to new product acceptance. Three experiments provide support for this hypothesis. This effect holds when desire for control is high as a dispositional trait (Studies 1 and 3) and when it is situationally induced (Study 2). We also identify an intervention to increase new product acceptance based on the idea that new products threaten one's sense of control.