Peer-reviewed
2023
Pownall, M., Azevedo, F., König, L.M., Slack, H.R., Evans, T., Flack,
Z., Grinschgl, S., … Micheli, L. … & FORRT.
Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the
evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes.
Royal Society Open Science, 10: 221255. (link)
Azevedo, F., Micheli, L., & Bolesta., D. S. Does
Stereotype Threat contribute to the Political Knowledge Gender Gap? A
Preregistered Replication Study of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018).
Journal of Experimental Political Science. (link)
2022
Micheli, L., Negrini, M., Schuhmann, T., &
Riedl, A. (2022). Brain stimulation reveals distinct motives underlying
reciprocal punishment and reward. Proceedings of the Royal Society
B, 289: 20221590. (link)
Breznau, N., Rinke, E., Wuttke, A., Nguyen, H. H. V., Adem, M.,
Adriaans, J., Alvarez-Benjumea, A., … Micheli, L., …
& Żółtak, T. (2022). Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data
and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty. PNAS,
119(44), e2203150119. (link) [Team
Science Contributorship: Data Analysis]
Dorison, C.A., Lerner, J.S., Heller, B.H., Rothman, A., Kawachi,
I.I., Wang, K., … Micheli, L. … & Coles, N.A.
(2022). In COVID-19 Health Messaging, Loss Framing Increases Anxiety
with Little-to-No Concomitant Benefits: Experimental Evidence from 84
Countries. Affective Science. (link)
[Team Science Contributorship: Resources; Writing: review and
editing]
Azevedo, F., Marques, T., & Micheli, L. (2022).
In pursuit of racial equality: Identifying the determinants of support
for the Black Lives Matter Movement with a systematic review and
multiple meta-analyses. Perspectives on Politics, 20(4),
1305-1327. (link)
Azevedo, F., Liu, M., Pennington, C. R., Pownall, M., Evans, T. R.,
Parsons, S., Elsherif, M., Micheli, L., Westwood, S.,
& FORRT. (2022). Towards a culture of open scholarship: The role of
pedagogical communities. BMC Research Notes, 15(75). (link)
| (Preprint)
Parsons, S., Azevedo, F., Elsherif, M. M., Guay, S., Shahim, O. N.,
Govaart, G. H., Norris, E., … Micheli, L., & Aczel,
B. (2022). A Community-Sourced Glossary of Open Scholarship Terms.
Nature Human Behavior. (link) | (preprint) [Team
Science Contributorship: Resources; Writing: review and
editing]
Psychological Science Accelerator Self-Determination Theory
Collaboration (2022). A Global Experi- ment on Motivating Social
Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic. PNAS, 119(22),
e2111091119. (link) | (preprint) [Team Science
Contributorship: Resources; Writing: review and editing]
2021
Micheli, L., Stallen, M., & Sanfey, A.G. (2021).
The effect of centralized financial and social incentives on cooperative
behavior and its underlying neural mechanisms. Brain Sciences,
11(3), 317. (link) | (data)
Wang K., Goldenberg A., Dorison, C.A., Miller, J.K., Uusberg, A.,
Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., … Micheli, L., … &
Moshontz, H. (2021). A multi-country test of brief reappraisal
interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human
Behavior 5, 1089–1110. (link)
[Team Science Contributorship: Resources; Writing: review and
editing]
2020
Micheli, L. & Gagnon, N.(2020). Unequal chances:
Ex ante fairness and individual control. Scientific Reports,
10, 21862. (link).
Tierney, W., Hardy, J. H. III., Ebersole, C., Leavitt, K., Viganola,
D., Clemente, E., Gordon, M., Dreber, A.A., Johannesson, M., Pfeiffer,
T., Hiring Decisions Forecasting Collaboration, & Uhlmann, E.L.
(2020). Creative destruction in science. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 161, 291-309. (link).
[Team Science Contributorship: Member of Forecasting
Collaboration]
2019
Huijsmans, I., Ma, I., Micheli, L., Civai, C.,
Stallen, M., & Sanfey, A.G. (2019). A scarcity mindset alters neural
processing underlying value-based decision making. PNAS,
116(24), 11699-11704. (link)
Under Review
Micheli, L., Breil, C., & Böckler, A. Golden
gazes: Gaze direction and emotional context promote prosocial behavior
by increasing attributions of empathy and perspective-taking (Preregistration)
Prosocial behavior is fundamental to societies. But when and towards
whom do humans act generously? We investigate the impact of a
conversation partner’s gaze direction and the emotional context on (i)
perceptions of their social cognition skills and (ii) prosocial
decisions towards them. In three experiments (two preregistered, N =
486), participants witnessed pre-recorded video conversations between a
listener (visible) and a speaker (audible, not visible). The listener
either established eye contact, averted gaze or showed a mixed gaze
pattern (gaze direction) while the speaker told a neutral or
negatively-valenced autobiographic episode (emotional context).
Participants rated the listener’s empathy and perspective-taking after
each video and played the Trust Game (study 1) or the Dictator Game
(study 2) with the listener. Replicating previous findings, occasional
gaze avoidance, especially during negative narrations, increased
attributions of social understanding to the listener. Critically,
mediation analyses revealed that listeners perceived as empathic and
taking perspective were ultimately treated with more trust and
generosity in strategic and non-strategic economic games, suggesting
that social signals and contextual cues can serve as an indication of
another’s reputation, thereby promoting indirect reciprocity. Lastly, in
study 3, we show that emotional context, but not listeners’ gaze
behavior, promoted the spread of generosity towards anonymous,
previously unobserved individuals in a Dictator Game, driven by social
cognition skills attributed to the listener. We conclude that social
signals and contextual cues can be important drivers of cooperation in
societies via mechanisms such as indirect reciprocity and social
contagion of generosity.
Micheli, L., & Schumacher, A. Anticipated
scarcity and stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of
perceived threat, childhood SES and materialism.
Previous research has shown that perceived existential threat
experienced during or shortly after the first wave of the global
COVID-19 pandemic, engendered anticipated scarcity and stockpiling
behavior. However, the relationship between anticipated scarcity and
stockpiling may not hold unambiguously for everyone. Across two
exploratory and one preregistered study (N=644), we show that perceived
threat of COVID-19 is associated with stockpiling tendencies by
increasing the anticipation of product scarcity – a resource threat. The
association between anticipated product scarcity and stockpiling
depends, however, on childhood socio-economic status (SES) and
materialism. For individuals with low childhood SES, the anticipation of
product scarcity was only associated with stockpiling among those who
valued materialism. Individuals with high childhood SES, by contrast,
stockpiled in response to anticipated scarcity regardless of their level
of materialism. Our findings qualify previous literature on the
association between perceived threat of COVID-19, anticipated scarcity
and stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic and help reconcile
contradictory predictions about the role of childhood SES in
individuals’ consumption behavior in response to adversity.
In Preparation
Micheli, L., Geyskens, K., Goukens, C., & Riedl,
A. More opportunities, better outcomes: Does inequality in opportunity
call for outcome redistribution?
The rise of economic inequality has brought to light the debate of
unequal opportunities in societies. While the demand for levelling the
playing field is currently high, it is less clear how inequality in
opportunity should be rectified. Here, we explore whether outcome
redistribution is seen as a legitimate compensation for unequal
opportunities. In doing so, we examine the behavior of both involved and
non-involved individuals (i.e., stakeholders and spectators). In an
experimental setting, stakeholders received either high or low chances
to win a monetary prize. Before knowing who the winner was, stakeholders
were asked to report how they would redistribute the monetary prize in
case they were themselves the winner while spectators were asked how
they would redistribute the prize in case a person with high or low
chances was the winner. The source of inequality in opportunities was
varied. Results show that stakeholders with higher winning chances felt
more entitled to the monetary prize and redistributed less of it than
stakeholders with low winning chances. Moreover, source of inequality
differentially influenced ex ante redistribution of stakeholders with
high and low winning chances. Spectators’ ex ante redistributive
decisions were neither influenced by individuals’ chances nor by the
source of inequality. Results are discussed in light of possible
implications to redistributive policies that aim to address inequality
in opportunities.
Micheli, L., Geyskens, K., Briers, B., &
Goukens, C. Climbing the ladder: Perceptions of high upward economic
mobility increase status consumption among bottom-tier consumers.
Beliefs in upward economic mobility are prevalent in many societies and
especially pervasive among the poor. This research focuses on
bottom-tier consumers—and examines how beliefs in upward mobility affect
status seeking and the likelihood to engage in conspicuous consumption.
Because perceptions of high economic mobility enhance the perceived
legitimacy of inequality and thus the credibility of status goods,
bottom-tier consumers are expected to become more prone to signal their
status under high rather than low economic mobility. Four studies
provide evidence for this hypothesis across various measures of status
consumption and show the underlying process through perceived legitimacy
of inequality. The effect of perceptions of upward mobility on
preference for status consumption is independent of the perceived level
of economic inequality and only present when income is not directly
observable, suggesting that status consumption is used to signal one’s
income. The present research sheds light on the importance of
investigating societal perceptions among the poor to understand consumer
behavior and offers implications for policy making.
Work in Progress
Micheli, L., & Böckler, A. Effects of gaze
direction and face visibility on third-party punishment and
compensation. (Preregistration)