Ellen R. K. Evers
Associate Professor Marketing
Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow
University of California, Berkeley
Haas school of Business
545 Student Services Building,
#1900 Berkeley, CA 94720-1900
Office F528
contact: evers[at]haas.berkeley[dot]edu
Publications
There is a potential collector in every consumer. (Psyarxiv)
Ryan, W. H.*, Evers, E. R. K.* & Lindenberg, S. M. (2025 JACR)
Virtually all work on collecting tries to understand what makes collectors different from regular consumers. In a large representative survey we find that collectors do not really differ from other consumers. We argue that the way collectors have been studied so far has only focused on a-typical collectors and that as a consequence our understanding of collectors is biased.
Biases in Improvement Decisions: People Focus on the Relative Reduction in Bad Outcomes
Ryan*, W. H., Baum*, S. & Evers, E. R. K. (2024, Psychological Science)
People value improvement decisions in a biased way focusing on the relative reduction in bad outcomes rather than the effect across all outcomes.
Arbitrary Fairness in Punishments and Rewards (Psyarxiv)
Evers, E. R. K., O'Donnell, M. & Inbar, Y. (2022, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General)
People judge fairness and distribute outcomes based on surface characteristics
Time Periods Feel Longer When They Span More Category Boundaries: Evidence From the Lab and the Field
Donelly, K., Evers, E. R. K. & Compiani, G. (2022, Journal of Marketing Research)
Time periods feel longer when they cross hour boundaries, affecting a wide variety of behaviors including ride-share choices
data and materials coming soon, linked in the manuscript
Mental Accounting, Similarity, and Preferences Over the Timing of Outcomes (SSRN link)
Evers, E. R. K., Imas, A. O., & Kang, C. (2022, Psychological Review)
The integration and segregation of outcomes in Mental Accounting is constrained by similarity
data and materials
Worse is Bad: Divergent Inferences From Logically Equivalent Comparisons (Psyarxiv link)
Inbar, Y. & Evers, E. R. K. (2022, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General)
We investigate how the concept of markedness can inform our understanding of (comparative) framing
data and materials
Poisson Regressions: A Little Fishy (SSRN)
Ryan, W. H., Evers, E. R. K., & Moore, D. A. (2021, Collabra)
Don't use Poisson regressions for count data, they are bad.
data and materials
A pre-registered, multi-lab non-replication of the action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE).
Morey, R., Kaschak, M. P., ....... (2021, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review)
One of the most famous embodied cognition effects does not appear to be reliably detectable.
data and materials
Logarithmic Axis Graphs Distort Lay Judgment.
Ryan, W. H. & Evers, E. R. K. (2021, Behavioral Science and Policy)
People do not understand logarithmic graphs very well, for exponential growth, such as for Covid-19, logarithmic graphs (vs. linear ones) lead lower behavioral intentions to protect oneself and ones community.
data and materials
The Bias of individuals (in crowds): Why Implicit Bias Is Probably a Noisily Measured Individual-Level Construct
Connor, P. & Evers, E. R. K. (2020, Perspectives on Psychological Science)
Preference reversals in willingness-to-pay and choice (link is to an un-edited version)
O'Donnell, M. & Evers, E. R. K. (2019, Journal of Consumer Research)
We document a robust and consistent difference in expressed preferences depending on whether they are expressed as choices or in willingness to pay.
data and materials
The impact of doubt on the experience of regret
Van de Calseyde, P., Zeelenberg, M. & Evers, E. R. K. (2018, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes)
Post-decision doubt increases regret.
data and materials
When do people prefer carrots over sticks? A Robust “Matching Effect” in Policy Evaluation (link is to older version on SSRN)
Evers, E. R. K., Inbar, Y., Blanken, I., & Oosterwijk, L. D. (2017, Management Science)
Policies targeting a desirable behavior can be framed as advantaging those who act desirably, or disadvantaging those who do not. We find that people prefer policies framed as disadvantaging those who do not act desirably when targeting obligations, but prefer policies that advantage those who act desirably when targeting voluntary behavior.
data and materials
The hidden cost of microtransactions
Evers, E. R. K., van de Ven, N., & Weeda, D. (2015, International Journal of Internet Science)
Application of social-comparison theory in online gaming environments. Buying status-enhancing items with real money leads to a decrease in status.
Set-Fit Effects in Choice
Ellen R. K. Evers, Yoel Inbar, & Marcel Zeelenberg (2014, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General)
The organization of a set of items causes preference-shifts
Practical Recommendations to Increase the Informational Value of Studies
Daniel Lakens, & Ellen R. K. Evers (2014, Perspectives on Psychological Science)
Overview and how-to of new methods that can be used to interpret published studies
Revisiting Tversky's diagnosticity principle
Ellen R. K. Evers & Daniel Lakens (2014, Frontiers in Psychology)
We repeat Tversky's (1977) studies on diagnosticity. We find similar data as Tversky, however, when we eliminate a confounding factor, we do not replicate diagnosticity effects.
Data & Materials (link to OSF)
Working papers (If not linked, reach out for a copy)
Windfalls, similarity and mental accounting
Chen, V. & Evers E. R. K.
A preregistered report proposal investigating the underlying mechanism of windfall effects.
Working paper
Liking scales are broken (for probabilistic outcomes)
Cho, K. & Evers, E. R. K.
Risky r&r at Psych Science
People are (shockingly) bad at valuing hedges
Ryan, W. H., Baum, S. M., & Evers, E. R. K.
Title kind of covers it, people are *very* bad at valuing hedges
Spending Guilt in Consumer Decisions
O'Donnell, M. & Evers, E. R. K.
Consumers have beliefs about how they "should" spend their money, but do not hold similar beliefs for other forms of exchange (e.g., work, choices) leading to reliable preference reversals.
3nd round r&r at JCR
Advantage versus disadvantage framing effects on preferences for redistributive policies.
Lombard, E., Jarvis, S., Howlett, S. & Evers, E. R. K.
Expressing inequality as a disadvantage for one group (vs. an advantage for the other group) does not appear to reliably affect judgments and decisions
working paper, link is to old version, please reach out for newer version
Perceived Exploitation in Quality Discrimination.
Baum, S & Evers, E. R. K.
In recent years many companies have started using software-based versioning strategies. Consumers strongly dislike this form of versioning because they perceive it as exploitative
working paper
Order Preference (SSRN)
Evers, E. R. K., Inbar, Y, Loewenstein, G., & Zeelenberg, M.
We find that people prefer sets that exhibit high order. This preference leads to violations of normative choice theory.
Biased estimations of change
Evers, E. R. K., & Keren, G.
People generally underestimate large quantities more than smaller ones. As a consequence, portrayal of change in relative (i.e., %) or absolute terms leads to systematic under- or over-estimation.
Other stuff
No Evidence of Bias When Using Inappropriate Test for Bias: Comment on Cesario, Johnson, & Terrill 2018
Cesario et al. claim there is no evidence for bias in police shootings. We claim their benchmark is wrong.
Reply from Cesario
Replication of Hoorens & Bruckmuller, 2005, study 5
Wong, P. H.
Data (.csv), Data (.sav), Materials