Reference Dependence and Attribution Bias: Evidence from Real-Effort Experiments

Abstract

We demonstrate that people’s impressions of a real-effort task are shaped by the elation or disappointment they felt when first working on the task. In our experiments, participants learned from experience about one of two unfamiliar tasks, one clearly more onerous than the other. We manipulated participants’ initial expectations about which task they would face—some were assigned their task by chance just prior to their initial experience, while others knew in advance which task they would face. In a second session conducted hours later, we elicited their willingness to work again on their previously assigned task. Participants assigned the less-onerous task by chance were more willing to work than those who faced it with certainty; conversely, those assigned the more-onerous task by chance were less willing to work than those who faced it with certainty. These qualitative results—and the fact that differences in willingness to work were observed hours after first impressions were formed—are consistent with a form of attribution bias wherein participants wrongly ascribed sensations of positive or negative surprise to the underlying disutility of their assigned task.