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

C.V.

Publications


Biases in Improvement Decisions: People Focus on the Relative Reduction in Bad Outcomes (link coming soon)
Ryan*, W. H., Baum*, S. & Evers, E. R. K. (in press, 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.

Data and materials


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

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.
2nd round r&r at JCR


Advantage versus disadvantage framing effects on preferences for redistributive policies.
Howlett, S., Jarvis, 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


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


There is a potential collector in every consumer.
Evers, E. R. K., Ryan, W. H., & Lindernberg, S.
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.
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