Drawing on life history theory, Associate Professor Vladas Griskevicius of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and colleagues hypothesized that the strategy a person takes when times are tight may be determined, at least in part, by features of their childhood environment.

The researchers hypothesized that people who grew up unpredictable, harsh conditions (e.g., poverty), would take a "fast" strategy, focusing on immediate gains and ignoring long-term consequences. People who grew up in more predictable, comfortable conditions, however, would take a "slow" strategy, delaying immediate gratification in an effort to increase future payoffs.

In two experiments, the researchers primed half of the participants to think about economic recession. All of the participants then completed tasks related to risk-taking and impulsive decision-making.

Participants who grew up in poorer homes responded to recession cues with riskier, more impulsive responses than participants in the control group, consistent with a "fast" strategy. They were also faster to approach luxury good temptations. Participants who grew up in wealthier homes, on the other hand, responded to recession cues by showing less risky, less impulsive responses than participants in the control group, consistent with a "slow" strategy. They were also slower to approach the luxury goods.

In a third experiment, Griskevicius and colleagues found evidence that these different life history strategies may manifest as oxidative stress as detected in urine, a physiological indicator of cellular damage that can be accelerated by environmental stressors (such as those associated with poverty).

"These experiments show that our early childhood environment can program our life history strategy for the rest of our lives," says Griskevicius. "During good times, the tendencies associated with fast versus slow strategies can be dormant, but they emerge under duress."

Importantly, these tendencies can influence our responses in automatic and non-deliberative ways -- showing up even at the physiological level.

The trade-offs we make in times of scarcity have important consequences, but the researchers emphasize that neither strategy is inherently good or bad.

"Lots of research assumes that delay of gratification is always a good thing, but the current research suggests that it's sometimes smart to be impulsive," Griskevicius explains. "For people who expect to live in a harsh and unpredictable environment, it's more adaptive to be impulsive and maximize present resources and opportunities."

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The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "When the Economy Falters, Do People Spend or Save? Responses to Resource Scarcity Depend on Childhood Environments" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

"There is a lot of information on specific job-searching techniques, but there is very little about the process itself," said the paper's lead author Connie Wanberg, the Industrial Relations Faculty Excellence Chair at the Carlson School. "This study provides a realistic preview of the job-search process, as well as lessons about coping with the challenges and surprises people faced."

The authors conducted a rigorous, qualitative investigation of the experiences of 40 unemployed, 23 employed and nine partially employed white-collar, managerial-level job seekers. Interviewing professionals seeking positions in finance, human resources, marketing, operations and sales allowed the researchers to focus on the difficulties of the job search, rather than economic challenges.

Analyzing the responses, researchers determined that five major types of context-related, job-search demands existed within employed and unemployed job seekers: omnibus, organizational, social, task and personal. These types, or layers, contained 13 common categories:

1. Economic conditions
2. Employment status
3. Insistence on a perfect match
4. Lake of professionalism, competence or efficiency
5. Vague/dated advertising
6. Demographic discrimination
7. Social network
8. Depersonalization
9. Uncertainty
10. Repeated rejection
11. Monotony
12. Impact on the family and finances
13. Job decisions

According to Wanberg, one of the most common obstacles job seekers faced was feeling that they were in a black hole, stuck in a situation from which they cannot escape.

"Frequently, individuals talked about how they would send their resumes into a black hole and rarely heard back from a company - sometimes even after getting an interview," says Wanberg. "Additionally, we heard that it was challenging to find the right fit between a person's skills and the jobs they were applying for."

Many job seekers started their search too broadly and learned to become more specific over time. Conversely, others began their search with a too-narrow approach and were later forced to become less specific to achieve success.

Interview subjects also noted the depersonalization of the search process. Job seekers repeatedly experienced a lack of professionalism by HR departments, citing examples of last-minute cancelations, excessive waiting time, out-of-date job postings, and interviewers who lacked knowledge and experience.

Coping with Job Search Demands

While the job-seeking experience was a source of frustration, those who kept a positive attitude with successful coping behaviors found the hunt to be energizing, and were better at developing strategies to manage their situations. Positive responses included maintaining individual self-confidence, exercising, volunteering, seeking job-search advice from a career coach, or making time for fun activities.

"Job seeker responses indicated several examples of learning, increased insight, and changes of strategy in the search process, said Archana Agrawal, vice president of strategy at TheLadders. "For at least some members of our sample, the enjoyment of job search seemed to stem directly from the challenge involved. Some individuals remarked that they saw the search as a game, or a hunt to be mastered."
The study also suggests focusing on learning goals that can help job seekers overcome the likely setbacks in the process.

"Navigating the Black Hole: Explicating Layers of Job Search Context and Adaptational Responses" appears in the current issue of Personnel Psychology. A white paper, commissioned by TheLadders, can be downloaded here.

The fourth-quarter comeback to win the game. The tumor that appeared on a second scan. The guy in accounting who was secretly embezzling company funds. The situation may be different each time, but we hear ourselves say it over and over again: "I knew it all along."

The problem is that too often we actually didn't know it all along, we only feel as though we did. The phenomenon, which researchers refer to as "hindsight bias," is one of the most widely studied decision traps and has been documented in various domains, including medical diagnoses, accounting and auditing decisions, athletic competition, and political strategy.

In a new article in the September 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Neal Roese of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Kathleen Vohs of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota review the existing research on hindsight bias, exploring the various factors that make us so susceptible to the phenomenon and identifying a few ways we might be able to combat it. This article is the first overview to draw insights together from across different disciplines.

Roese and Vohs propose that there are three levels of hindsight bias that stack on top of each other, from basic memory processes up to higher-level inference and belief. The first level of hindsight bias, memory distortion, involves misremembering an earlier opinion or judgment ("I said it would happen"). The second level, inevitability, centers on our belief that the event was inevitable ("It had to happen"). And the third level, foreseeability, involves the belief that we personally could have foreseen the event ("I knew it would happen").

The researchers argue that certain factors fuel our tendency toward hindsight bias. Research shows that we selectively recall information that confirms what we know to be true and we try to create a narrative that makes sense out of the information we have. When this narrative is easy to generate, we interpret that to mean that the outcome must have been foreseeable. Furthermore, research suggests that we have a need for closure that motivates us to see the world as orderly and predictable and to do whatever we can to promote a positive view of ourselves.

Ultimately, hindsight bias matters because it gets in the way of learning from our experiences.

"If you feel like you knew it all along, it means you won't stop to examine why something really happened," observes Roese. "It's often hard to convince seasoned decision makers that they might fall prey to hindsight bias."

Hindsight bias can also make us overconfident in how certain we are about our own judgments. Research has shown, for example, that overconfident entrepreneurs are more likely to take on risky, ill-informed ventures that fail to produce a significant return on investment.

While our inclination to believe that we "knew it all along" is often harmless, it can have important consequences for the legal system, especially in cases of negligence, product liability, and medical malpractice. Studies have shown, for example, that hindsight bias routinely afflicts judgments about a defendant's past conduct.

And technology may make matters worse. "Paradoxically, the technology that provides us with simplified ways of understanding complex patterns - from financial modeling of mortgage foreclosures to tracking the flow of communications among terrorist networks - may actually increase hindsight bias," says Roese.

So what, if anything, can we do about it?

Roese and Vohs suggest that considering the opposite may be an effective way to get around our cognitive fault, at least in some cases. When we are encouraged to consider and explain how outcomes that didn't happen could have happened, we counteract our usual inclination to throw out information that doesn't fit with our narrative. As a result, we may be able to reach a more nuanced perspective of the causal chain of events.

"When people talk about self-control, they really imply that self-control is willpower and that some people have it and others don't when facing a tempting treat," says Joseph Redden, an assistant professor of marketing at the Carlson School and lead author of the 'Healthy Satiation: The Role of Decreasing Desire in Effective Self-Control.' "In reality, nearly everyone likes these treats. Some people just stop enjoying them faster and for them it's easier to say no."

Through a series of experiments, Redden and Texas A&M University assistant professor of marketing Kelly Haws discovered that when people with high self-control eat unhealthy foods they become satisfied with the experience faster than when they are eating healthy foods and thus eat less. In one study, the researchers asked participants to monitor themselves as they ate by counting how many times they swallowed. With this subtle clue to the amount eaten, those with low self-control became satisfied at a faster rate. Redden said they were surprised at how easy it was to recreate self-control - just using a baseball pitch counter made low self-control people act like they had high self-control.

"People can essentially use attention for how much they are consuming instead of relying on self-control," Redden says. "Really paying a lot more attention to the quantity will lead people to feel satiated faster and eat less."

About the Carlson School of Management


Established in 1919 and based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information about the school can be found at www.carlsonschool.umn.edu.

Research from the University of Minnesota and University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has found the ratio of men to women dramatically alters women's choices about career and family. When men are scarce, women delay having children and instead pursue high-paying careers.

"Most women don't realize it, but an important factor in a woman's career choice is how easy or difficult it is to find a husband," said Kristina Durante, assistant professor of marketing at the UTSA College of Business.

"When a woman's dating prospects look bleak - as is the case when there are few available men - she is much more likely to delay starting a family and instead seek a career."

In one study, the researchers examined the ratio of single men to single women in each U.S. state and Washington D.C. They found that as bachelors became scarce, the percentage of women in high-paying careers increased, women delayed having children, and had fewer kids when they finally decided to start a family.

In another study on college campuses, the researchers led women to believe that there were either more men or less men on campus by having participants read one of two news article about the student population. When women read that there were fewer men than women on campus, they became more motivated to pursue ambitious careers rather than start a family.

"A scarcity of men leads women to invest in their careers because they realize it will be difficult to settle down and start a family," said study coauthor Vlad Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "In fact, the strongest effects were found for women who are least likely to secure a mate."

"Women who judged themselves to be less desirable to men--those women who are not like Angelina Jolie--were most likely to take the career path when men became scarce," added Durante.

This research highlights a sexual paradox associated with women's economic and educational advancement. "As women pursue more education and more lucrative careers when they can't find a husband, the ironic effect is that it will only get harder to find a husband as women become more educated and earn higher salaries," said Durante.

"This is because a woman's mating standards keep increasing as she becomes more educated and wealthy, which further decreases the number of suitable mates. More than ever before, modern women are increasingly forced to make tough choices such as choosing briefcase over baby."

"Sex Ratio and Women's Career Choice: Does a Scarcity of Men Lead Women to Choose Briefcase Over Baby?" was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Durante and Griskevicius's coauthors include the University of Minnesota's Jeffry A. Simpson and Stephanie M. Cantú and Joshua M. Tybur (VU University Amsterdam).

To test their theory that sex ratio affects economic decisions, the researchers had participants read news articles that described their local population as either having more men or more women. They were then asked to indicate how much money they would save each month from a paycheck, as well as how much they would borrow with credit cards for immediate expenditures. When led to believe women were scarce, the savings rates for men decreased by 42 percent. Men were also willing to borrow 84 percent more money each month.

In another study participants saw photo arrays of men and women that either had more men, more women, or were neutral. After looking at the photographs, participants were asked to choose between receiving some money tomorrow or a larger amount in a month. When women were scarce in the photos, men were much more likely to take an immediate $20 rather than wait for $30 in a month.

According to Griskevicius, participants were unaware that sex ratios were having any effect on their behavior. Merely seeing more men than women automatically led men to simply be more impulsive and want to save less while borrowing more to spend on immediate purchases.

"Economics tells us that humans make decisions by carefully thinking through our choices; that we're not like animals," he says. "It turns out we have a lot in common with other animals. Some of our behaviors are much more reflexive and subconscious. We see that there are more men than women in our environment and it automatically changes our desires, our behaviors, and our entire psychology."

"The Financial Consequences of Too Many Men: Sex Ratio Effects on Savings, Borrowing, and Spending" will be published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Co-authors of the study include Joshua Tybur (VU University Amsterdam), Joshua M. Ackerman (M.I.T.), Andrew Delton and Theresa Robertson (University of California, Santa Barbara), and Andrew E. White (Arizona State University).

Sex Ratios Affect Expectations of Women

While sex ratios do not influence the financial choices women make, they do shape women's expectations of how men should spend their money when courting. After reading a news article informing women that there are more men than women, women expected men to spend more on dinner dates, Valentine's gifts, and engagement rings.

"When there's a scarcity of women, women felt men should go out of their way to court them," adds Griskevicius.

In a male-biased environment, men also expected they would need to spend more in their mating efforts.

Population Data Supports Research Findings

In addition to conducting laboratory experiments, the researchers reviewed archival data and calculated the sex ratios of more than 120 U.S. cities. Consistent with their hypothesis, communities with an abundance of single men showed greater ownership of credit cards and had higher debt levels.

One striking example where this was evident was found in two communities located less than 100 miles apart. In Columbus, Ga., where there are 1.18 single men for every single woman, the average consumer debt was $3,479 higher than it was in Macon, Ga., where there were 0.78 single men for every woman.

Research Implications for Marketers and Society

Whereas previous research has found that merely seeing an attractive woman in advertising would make a man more aggressive or make a man more interested in conspicuously consuming, "The Financial Consequences of Too Many Men" study suggests it may not be that simple. According to the findings, whether a woman is alone or whether she's surrounded by many or few men can have a great impact on the reaction it elicits.

Griskevicius says the effects of sex ratio go beyond marketing and impact all sorts of behavior. He cites other studies showing the strong correlation between male-biased sex ratios and aggressive behavior.

"We're just scratching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to financial behavior," says Griskevicius. "One of the troubling implications of sex ratios for the world in general is that it's about more than just money. It's about violence and survival."

"The working world typically necessitates that people develop strong connections with co-workers in order to thrive. To stray from this path ultimately puts success at risk, so most suffer from envy in silence," says Duffy, who conducted the study with colleagues from the University of British Columbia, Clemson University, and Georgia State University.

"However, from our research it seems that when someone sees themselves as a lone wolf, they are less inhibited and more likely to lash out."

According to Professor Karl Aquino, a co-author from the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business, envy is the fuel and sabotage is most likely to occur when an envious co-worker feels disconnected from others in the workplace.

"The match is not struck unless employees experience what psychologists call 'moral disengagement' - a way of thinking that allows people to rationalize or justify harming others," he adds.

To obtain data, the research team conducted two field studies. They first used a sample of 160 employees from a hospital to test whether a person's lack of identification with colleagues increases their likelihood to act on envy. The employees were asked to complete two separate surveys eight months apart. During the first survey, participants were asked to rate their reactions - positive or negative - to a series of statements regarding envy, affinity with colleagues, and comfort with subversive acts. After eight months, the respondents were surveyed again, this time about their actual undermining activities.

When the results of the surveys were compared, it showed people experiencing feelings of envy were significantly more likely to report committing sabotage when experiencing weak relationships with co-workers. Conversely, envious participants reported low sabotage incident rates when they felt they were more strongly connected to their coworkers.
 
Incidents of workplace sabotage spread if not addressed by managers

In a second study, the researchers explored how the working environment can influence employees to undermine one another. Taking part in this experiment were 247 business students. Randomly divided into numerous workgroups, the students completed a series of questionnaires throughout the semester. The students were asked to rate their level of envy, connections with their group members, and incidences of sabotage committed by themselves and others.

The findings show that students who reported feelings of envy and low levels of identification with their workgroups were significantly more likely to report committing acts of sabotage when they belonged to groups which reported high rates of sabotage as a whole. The researchers point to this result as an indication that if a workplace seems to be permitting sabotage, those who are inclined toward subversive behavior will be more likely to follow through.

"Our study shows that envy on its own is not necessarily a negative thing in the workplace. However, managers would be well-advised to consider teambuilding strategies to ensure all of their employees are engaged in the group dynamic," adds Duffy, the study's lead author. "It is also important that those in charge don't give incidents of co-worker undermining a free pass, because once it starts the tendency is for it to spread."

About the Carlson School of Management
Established in 1919 and based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information about the school can be found at www.carlsonschool.umn.edu.

"The Carlson School has a 25-year history of global engagement and was one of the first business schools in the country to introduce an international requirement for its students," says Mike Houston, associate dean, Global Initiatives. "The introduction of the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) last year elevated our outreach to new levels and creating the Carlson Global Institute will enable us to better coordinate and support efforts and advance the global competence of leaders within the University and the region."

The University of Minnesota was awarded a $1.5 million Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to establish a CIBER center at the Carlson School to increase and promote the nation's capacity for international understanding and competitiveness. The center has since held a variety of events for business leaders, educators, and students and has partnered with Enterprise Minnesota and the Minnesota Trade Office to assist the state's businesses with exporting efforts.

In addition to its CIBER efforts, the Carlson Global Institute provides global learning opportunities in 29 countries to nearly 500 students each year through partnerships with more than 30 business schools around the world. It also teams with more than 150 corporations including Cargill, General Mills, International Dairy Queen, Target, 3M, and The Toro Company, among others, on various global initiatives including its live-case program.

Global Management Education Research a Focus of New Institute

"For years we have heard anecdotally how the internationalization experience is valuable not only for students, but for business, and for the region's economy," says Sri Zaheer, interim dean. "Part of the mission of the Carlson Global Institute is to gain a deeper understanding of this impact and quantify it through research."

As part of its research mission, the Institute will explore the near and long-term impact of global experiential learning on students, faculty, staff, and the corporate community.

"As the Carlson Global Institute we'll be able to study the impact the global engagements that are already taking place in our community are having on the various stakeholders and generate innovative ways to better bridge education with practice, develop more globally-competent leaders, and identify future priorities," says Anne D'Angelo, assistant dean, Global Initiatives.

"To become more effective leaders, women need to recognize, understand, and transform common business challenges into career-building opportunities," says Mark Kizilos, assistant dean of Executive Education. "Carlson Executive Education is committed to providing aspiring women leaders with the necessary training and tools that will help them make the most of their opportunities."

The four programs include:

Success and Sanity for Professional Women - Developing Your Own Winning Strategy - In this interactive workshop for high-potential, high-performing women leaders who are looking to take their careers to the next level, Susan Davis-Ali shares tips, tools, strategies, and secrets for becoming successful in today's competitive business environment. (September 22)

Women Matter in Corporations: Increase Your Influence - Margaret Seidler shares what men do that women need to do to succeed and what women bring to the table where men fall short, while exploring nine criteria which determine what makes an effective leader. (October 6)

Negotiation Strategies for Women - Senior Lecturer Lori Abrams from the Carlson School's Department of Strategic Management and Organization will help participants understand the unspoken attitudes, hidden assumptions, and conflicting agendas that drive the negotiation process--and teach them how to use that knowledge to their advantage. (October 20)

Gender and Intercultural Conflict - Effective leadership requires an in-depth understanding of the nature of conflict. Instructor Beth Zemsky focuses on increasing women leaders' ability to develop "conflict fluency" across gender and diverse cultural contexts. (November 3)

Each program is four hours long and costs $495. Participants who enroll in two programs will receive a 10 percent discount; 15 percent when registering for three or more programs at the same time. http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/executive-education/women.html

About Carlson Executive Education and the Carlson School of Management
For more than 40 years, Carlson Executive Education has helped area companies develop talent and solve real business problems by providing high-impact learning experiences. More than 250 Minnesota businesses turn to Carlson Executive Education each year to acquire the knowledge or skills their businesses need to succeed. Carlson Executive Education is part of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, which was established in 1919. Based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information can be found at carlsonschool.umn.edu/execed.

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"Last year's inaugural scholarship program was a great success," says Mark Kizilos, assistant dean of Carlson Executive Education. "The scholarships enabled Minnesota businesses such as the Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, Netgain Technology, and the Jungle Theatre to name a few, to gain additional insights that will help them thrive. We hope ten more organizations can benefit from our experts this year."

Scholarship winners will be able to attend one of Carlson Executive Education's open enrollment programs, which typically consist of two-to- three-days of instruction.

The scholarship is available for small companies or nonprofits that have fewer than 100 employees, as well as individual entrepreneurs.

The deadline to apply online is December 9, 2011.

Recipients of the inaugural scholarship program included Atomic Learning, Belgrade Coop Association, Clinical Supplies Management, CLUES, CoreSpine Technologies, Engineered Products, Jungle Theater, Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, Netgain Technology, and PlastiComp.

About Carlson Executive Education and the Carlson School of Management
For more than 40 years, Carlson Executive Education has helped area companies develop talent and solve real business problems by providing high-impact learning experiences. More than 250 Minnesota businesses turn to Carlson Executive Education each year to acquire the knowledge or skills their businesses need to succeed. Carlson Executive Education is part of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, which was established in 1919. Based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information can be found at carlsonschool.umn.edu/execed.

The studies, which built upon earlier research on how mortality cues influence reproductive timings, found those who grew up resource deprived or felt poor were more likely to take risks for immediate rewards when they felt threatened. Subjects who were raised in a more predictable world never worrying about their needs responded to the same stressors by becoming more cautious.

"You can have two people who appear identical, but if they see that the world is a dangerous place such as by seeing news coverage of a new terrorist attack, they'll diverge in how they respond," says Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the Carlson School. "The difference between the two people is that they had a different socioeconomic experience growing up."

According to Griskevicius, a prototypical example of the findings is a kid who grows up in a bad neighborhood. "If he hears gunshots down the street, this triggers a 'live fast and die young' psychology. He will feel the urge to get what he can while he can because the future is uncertain." This response is likely related to why poorer individuals purchase more lottery tickets.

The research also suggests that efforts using a "you never know what's going to happen tomorrow" approach to persuade at-risk kids to stay in school or avoid risky behaviors might be ineffective.

"Why should I go to school if I might not be around to see the benefits of my education?" asked Griskevicius. "Perhaps a more effective strategy would be to highlight the predictable aspects of the world. "It's a sense of the predictability of the world that's going to get people to save money, stay in school, be less risky and care about the future."

Co-authors of the study are Joshua Tybur (VU University Amsterdam) and Andrew Delton and Theresa Robertson (University of California, Santa Barbara).

About the Carlson School of Management
Established in 1919 and based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information about the school can be found at www.carlsonschool.umn.edu.

The series of studies, "Peacocks, Porsches and Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption as a Sexual Signaling System," was conducted with nearly 1,000 test subjects and published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"This research suggests that conspicuous products, such as Porsches, can serve the same function for some men that large and brilliant feathers serve for peacocks," said Jill Sundie, assistant professor of marketing at University of Texas-San Antonio and lead author of the paper.

Just as peacocks flaunt their tails before potential mates, men may flaunt flashy products to charm potential dates. Notably, not all men favored this strategy - just those men who were interested in short-term sexual relationships with women.

"The studies show that some men are like Peacocks. They're the ones driving the bright colored sports car," notes co-author Vladas Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota.

According to the researchers, women found a man who chose to purchase a flashy luxury product (such as a Porsche) more desirable than the same man who purchased a non-luxury item (such as a Honda Civic). However, there was a catch. Although women found the flashy guys more desirable for a date, the man with the Porsche was not preferred as a marriage partner. Women inferred from a man's flashy spending that he was interested in uncommitted sex.

"When women considered him for a long-term relationship, owning the sports car held no advantage relative to owning an economy car," added co-author Daniel Beal, assistant professor of psychology at Rice. "People may feel that owning flashy things makes them more attractive as a relationship partner, but in truth, many men might be sending women the wrong message."

Though often associated with Western culture, extreme forms of conspicuous displays have been found in cultures across the globe and throughout history.
While finding that men may use conspicuous consumption as a short-term mating signal, the researchers discovered that women don't behave in the same manner and don't conspicuously consume to attract men.

"Obviously, women also spend plenty of money on expensive things," Sundie said. "But the anticipation of romance doesn't trigger flashy spending as it does with some men."

In addition to Vohs, the Other co-authors of the study are Douglas Kenrick, Arizona State University; and Joshua Tybur, University of New Mexico.

According to Torelli and his new research, certain types of power-holders may be more likely to ignore information that contradicts their internal desires and beliefs, and hence, are less likely to see the warning signs that could prevent them from acting against common norms of public decorum.

To interview Torelli regarding how different cultural values can lead to varying power concepts, contact Steve Rudolph at (612) 624-8770 or skr@umn.edu; or Preston Smith at (612) 625-0552 or smith@umn.edu.

About Carlos Torelli
Torelli applies his knowledge of cross-cultural psychology to identify the key cultural factors that drive consumers' reactions in a globalized economy and to uncover the underlying socio-cognitive processes for these reactions. Torelli's research specialties include global branding, the social psychology of power, cross-cultural consumer behavior, self-regulation and persuasion.

Expert Alert is a service provided by the University News Service. Delivered regularly, Expert Alert is designed to connect university experts to today's breaking news and current events. For an archive and other useful media services, visit www.umn.edu/news. Views expressed by experts do not represent the views of the University of Minnesota.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/02/2011) --Doing good isn't always good for business, according to new research from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. The discovery, to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, found corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts have the potential to backfire for luxury brands associated with a self-enhancement concept.

"When people see brands advertised, they implicitly bring to mind abstract meanings," said assistant professor of marketing Carlos Torelli. "With BMW, for example, people think status and self-enhancement." Torelli is the author of the "Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts" study. "When all of a sudden people see a message that communicates pro-social things about BMW, they feel a disconnect--there's a sense of discomfort trying to put these two things together."

To view or embed a video interview with Torelli discussing this new research, visit http://youtu.be/rCCZRhhWEvM.

According to Torelli and co-authors Alokparna Basu Monga and Andrew M. Kaikati, this motivational conflict is triggered by the simultaneous activation of self-enhancement and self-transcendence values and an accompanying subjective experience of disfluency - "something does not feel right". This kind of motivational conflict, which draws upon Schwartz's model of human values, had not previously been reported in CSR literature.

In their studies, the researchers identified familiar luxury brands such as Rolex and BMW and presented participants with information suggesting that these brands were also pro-social brands engaged in CSR. Subjects were then asked to evaluate the messages compared to a control condition where the brand only communicated what it typically does--self-enhancement and status appeal.

"What we found is that people evaluated the brands more negatively when they were communicated with a pro-social agenda compared to the control condition. Interestingly enough, brands that were not luxury in terms of their self-enhancing nature didn't have this effect," said Torelli.

While the study suggests CSR presents a danger to luxury brands, Torelli's research found it is possible to counter the subjective experience of disfluency.

"If you're a luxury brand and you're trying to communicate your pro-social actions, you have to put people in a mindset to think carefully about the message and to be prepared to reconcile the information. If you communicate that, you don't get the negative reaction."

In a commercial, Torelli suggested this could be achieved by prior presentation of exemplars that counter the subjective experience of disfluency, such as reminding viewers of well-known philanthropists. The introduction of a sub-brand could also serve to discount it by signaling to consumers that a brand is engaging in inconsistent actions.

About the Carlson School of Management
Established in 1919 and based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota is a recognized leader in business education and research. Its focus on experiential learning, international education and maintaining strong ties to the business community exemplify the school's commitment to excellence. More information about the school can be found at www.carlsonschool.umn.edu.