TIBER, the Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research is happy to announce the 11 Tiber Symposium on Psychology and Economics, to be held on August 24, 2012.

The symposium aims to bring together Economists, Psychologists, Marketing researchers and others who work on Behavioral Decision Making, either in individual or interdependent settings. The symposium will be held at Tilburg th University and consists of two keynotes, a number of parallel sessions with presentations of about 20 to 30 minutes, and a poster session.

This year’s keynote speakers are:

- George Loewenstein
- Colin Camerer

The goal of this series of symposia is to establish contact and discussion between researchers of the different fields. We look for empirical contributions from diverse fields, such as Individual Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, Bargaining, Social Dilemmas, Experimental Games, Emotions, Fairness and Justice, Rational Choice, and related subjects.

CALL FOR PAPERS
If you would like to contribute to this symposium by presenting a paper, we ask you to send an abstract of max. 300 words via email to Diana Vingerhoets (D.Vingerhoets@tilburguniversity.edu). Please use subject: TIBER XI in your email.
On the basis of these abstracts we will select presenters for the symposium. Please indicate whether you would be willing to present your research in a poster session by adding Poster: Yes or Poster: No to your submission.

IMPORTANT DATES
18th of April Call for papers
1st of June Deadline for submission of abstracts
18th of June Selection of speakers
11th of August Normal registration deadline (late registration fee applies after this date)
24th of August Symposium at Tilburg University

More information about the program of the symposium and the keynote speakers, as well as the location of the symposium and the registration forms will soon be available here.

If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact Job van Wolferen (J.vanWolferen@tilburguniversity.edu). Again, please use subject: TIBER XI. Other organizers include Ilja van Beest, Rik Pieters, Jan Potters, and Marcel Zeelenberg.

As reported in the New York Times (Microsoft Taps Yahoo Scientists for New York Research Lab) and elsewhere, we’re moving to Microsoft. Your Decision Science News editor will be one of the founding members of a brand new Microsoft Research Lab in New York City.

The founding members, so far, are:

Sharad Goel web twitter
Dan Goldstein web twitter
Jake Hofman web twitter
John Langford web
Dave Pennock web twitter
Dave Rothschild web twitter
Sid Suri web twitter
Duncan Watts web twitter

Managing Directors of the lab are:
Jennifer Chayes
Christian Borgs

SELECTED REFERENCES:

NEW YORK TIMES
Microsoft Taps Yahoo Scientists for New York Research Lab

PC MAGAZINE
Microsoft Opens New York Research Lab With Former Yahoo Scientists

COMPUTERWORLD
Microsoft opens New York research lab, hires mainly Yahoo researchers

CNET
Microsoft snags Yahoo scientists for new research lab

ALL THINGS D
Microsoft Hires 14 Yahoo Researchers to Kick-Start New NYC Research Lab

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
Microsoft’s New Lab Hunts for Value in User Data

PRESS RELEASES
Start Spreading the News … Announcing Microsoft Research New York City!

Microsoft Research Debuts N.Y.C. Lab

Microsoft Research sets up home in NYC

MANY MORE REFERENCES:
Search Microsoft “New York”

Decision Science News was creating a new account online and had to fill out the above-pictured CAPTCHA (*) to proceed. It’s an ad and a CAPTCHA in one. It gets people to spend time and effort typing the name of the brand. [If you don't know what a CAPTCHA is see Wikipedia, or the Official CAPTCHA Site]

That time and effort should serve the advertiser well.

Cognitive psychologists know that the longer people spend processing a thing the more likely they are to remember it. By getting you to type the name of the brand, you become more likely to remember it, which is what advertisers want.

But this manipulation does double duty. Psychologists have also uncovered the familiarity-liking effect in which repeated stimuli (e.g. songs) become liked simply for being familiar. These studies randomly assign people to various stimuli, repeat the stimuli over time, and measure liking, which tends to increase. Each subsequent impression of an ad has this effect on you, but some ad impressions go unnoticed. By getting you to type the name of the brand, you are pretty sure to notice it. [Another thing that determines whether people notice ads is the amount of time they are in view, see our recent papers on this here and here].

What’s next? Will they go after the frequency-validity effect, by which familiar statements are judged as more likely to be true? If so, the CAPTCHAs of the future will ask you to type things like “I’m going to buy a Prius C right away!”

REFERENCES

Arkes, H. R., Hackett, C. and Boehm, L. (1989), The generality of the relation between familiarity and judged validity. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2,  81–94.

Bornstein, Robert F.  (1989) Exposure and affect: Overview and meta-analysis of research, 1968–1987. Psychological Bulletin, 106(2), 265-289.

Hintzman, Douglas L. and Richard A. Block (1971). Retition and memory: Evidence for a multiple-trace hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 88(3), 297-306.

A friend of Decision Science News awoke in a hotel on April 3rd of this year and found two newspapers outside the door. The Wall Street Journal used the word “scarred” in its front page headline, which was weird enough, but all was made far weirder by the USA Today, which used the same word, also in a front page headline, also above the fold, on the same day.

We could overfit and say that “scarred” is the hot buzzword of 2012, or underfit and act as though there’s nothing to this at all, but instead we’ll just put it out there.

Scarred. Consider it out there.

Just a reminder that the quarterly Society for Judgment and Decision Making newsletter can be downloaded from the SJDM site:

http://sjdm.org/newsletters/

It features jobs, conferences, announcements, and more.

Enjoy!
Decision Science News / SJDM Newsletter Editor

At DSN, we’ve been playing a bit with FetchClimate Explorer from Microsoft Research. It lets one define regions of the globe over which it superimposes spatial and time series data concerning temperature, precipitation, sunlight, and, pictured above, wind speed.

See a demo of FetchClimate in this video, starting at 22:45.

The data (graphed above, larger image here) mesh with our experience living in Chicago that the “windy city” is not really that windy. Yes, Chicago is in a part of the country that is windier than average, but Kansas makes it look calm. Furthermore, New York City and Long Island are windier than Chicago, but nobody goes “OMG! How can you stand that wind?” when you say that you live there.

Average Wind Speed (meters / second)

• Chicago 4.92
• New York, NY 5.01
• Milwaukee, WI 5.03
• Casper, WY 5.5
• Rochester, MN 5.5
• Amarillo, TX 6.12
• Dodge City, KS 6.25

And a little wind is a good thing. Houston, TX (wind speed 4.11 m/s) would love a bit of air movement during its stifling summers. They say the phrase “windy city” has not to do with high winds or the hot air of politicians, but rather stems from an Chicago tourism slogan promoting the delightful summer breezes in the days before air conditioning.

If the numbers are both even or both odd
1. Learn how to square numbers in your head from our earlier post
2. Take the midpoint of the two numbers and square it. For example, if the numbers are 18 and 22, the midpoint is 20, which squared is 400
3. Square the difference between the midpoint and one of the original numbers. For example, the difference between 20 (midpoint number) and 18 (original number) is 2, which squared is 4.
4. Subtract step three from step two. 400 – 4 = 396. Done!

In general, (a + b) * (a -b) = a^2 – b^2. The trick is thinking of the two original numbers as (a+b) and (a-b) which are equally distant from a midpoint a.

If one number is even and the other odd
1. Round one number down or up so that both are even or both are odd. Apply the above method. Do one addition or subtraction to correct for the rounding. For example, think of 18*23 as 18*22 (which we solved above) plus 18.

Grab some pairs of numbers from the grid and try it. You may just like it!

P.S. Andrew Gelman: This is why you’d want to square numbers in your head.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthew-h/5579739816

Behavioral Economics For Dummies. That is all.

Hat tip: http://xkcd.com/1022/

ADDENDUM: Just noticed it includes a section on default options and organ donation [also movie]. What an enlightened tome!

CALL FOR PAPERS
Association for Consumer Research North American Conference
October 4-7, 2012, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Location: Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel

Conference Co-chairs:
Zeynep Gurhan-Can
Cele Otnes
Rui (Juliet) Zhu

Please address all inquiries regarding the information below to the
dedicated ACR email address:
acr2012@umn.edu

Conference website: http://www.acrweb.org/acr/Public/index.aspx
Important ACR 2012 Conference Deadlines:
Monday, March 19, 5 p.m. Central Standard Time: submission
deadline for all conference tracks except the Film Festival.

The 2012 North American Conference of the Association for Consumer
Research will be held at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel from
Thursday, October 4 through Sunday, October 7, 2012. The theme of
ACR 2012 is “Appreciating Diversity.” This theme is especially
appropriate for ACR Vancouver for at least two reasons. First, we want
the conference to acknowledge, capture and celebrate the explosion of
topics and research methods that has occurred in consumer research
in recent years. The co-chairs and track chairs will seek to highlight
scholarship that contributes to diversity in terms of innovative topics,
adds to knowledge in established areas in unheralded ways, embraces
diverse research applications and a wide array of consumers, and
contributes to inclusiveness in our field. Second, the theme is fitting
because of the progressive approach by our conference city,
Vancouver, to embrace diversity on multiple fronts. Not only is the city
varied in its population and economic base, but it also offers a
breathtaking array of experiences rooted in its geography and its
culture.

A pre-conference Doctoral Symposium will be held on Thursday, Oct. 4
(co-chaired by Jennifer Argo, University of Alberta and Amna Kirmani,
University  of  Maryland).  The  conference  opens  with  a  reception  on
Thursday  evening. The  conference  program  on  Friday  and  Saturday
will  include  Competitive  Paper  sessions,  Special sessions,  Roundtable
discussions,  Poster  sessions,  and  the  Film  Festival.  A  Gala  Reception
will be held Saturday evening.

Tilburg University is a modern, specialized university. The teaching and research of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences are organized around the themes of Health, Organization, and Relations between State, Citizen, and Society. The School’s inspiring working environment challenges its workers to realize their ambitions; involvement and cooperation are essential to achieve this.

The Department of Social Psychology of Tilburg University consists of a vibrant mix of people interested in Social, Economic and Work and Organisational psychology. The Department actively strives to create and maintain an intellectually stimulating and productive group, advancing our knowledge on a variety of social, economic and work and organisational topics, while at the same time contributing to the development of effective practices for organisations and society. The research of the department is highly recognized, both nationally and internationally.

We have vacancies (full-time, F/M) for:

Two Assistant Professors in Social Psychology (Tenure Track)
One Assistant Professor in Social Psychology (Fixed Term, 3 years)

Members of the Department of Social Psychology supervise students, teach a variety of modules at both Bachelors’ and Masters’ level, including the two-year Research Master. The global research program of the Department of Social Psychology is centered around Social Decision Making. Department members also participate in the interdisciplinary research institute TIBER, the Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research, which is devoted to studying choice and decision making from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Tasks

You will work in the area of Social Psychology, Economic Psychology or Work & Organisational Psychology. You are expected to:

• conduct empirical research fitting within the global research program of the Department
• write and publish articles in international peer-reviewed journals
• teach courses (in Dutch or English) offered by the department on the BSc and MSc level
• supervise individual students at BSc and MSc level

Qualifications

We expect candidates to:

• have a PhD degree in Psychology or in a related area
• be a passionate researcher/teacher
• have high quality publications in international, peer-reviewed scientific
• have experience and affinity with teaching in the area of Social Psychology, Economic Psychology, and/or Work and Organizational Psychology
• have good command of English at an academic level

Terms of employment
We offer one fixed term and two tenure track positions. Tenure track positions consist of a four-year contract with the possibility of tenure thereafter. The fixed term contract is for three years. The salary for the position of an Assistant Professor on a full-time basis ranges between € 3195,- and € 4374,- per month (for a full-time appointment, various allowances are not included) based on scale 11 of the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO) Dutch Universities. Researchers from outside the Netherlands may qualify for a tax-free allowance equal to 30% of their taxable salary. The university can apply for such an allowance on their behalf. The university offers very good fringe benefits, such as an options model for terms and conditions of employment and excellent reimbursement of moving expenses.

Applications and information
Additional information about Tilburg University and the Department of Social Psychology can be retrieved from: www.uvt.nl. Specific information about the vacancy can be obtained from Ilja van Beest, Professor of Social Psychology, telephone +31134662472, email: I.VanBeest@uvt.nl, or from Marcel Zeelenberg, Professor of Economic Psychology & Department Head, telephone +31134668381, email: Marcel@uvt.nl.

Applications, including a curriculum vitae, a letter of motivation, and two recent (or forthcoming) publications should be send, before March 30, 2012 only by the link below to drs. J.H. Dieteren, Managing Director Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.

http://erec.uvt.nl/vacancy?inc=UVT-EXT-2012-0076