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Keith D. Markman
Associate
Professor of Psychology
Ph.D. (1994)
Indiana University, Bloomington
Research Area:
Social Judgment &
Behavioral Decision Making
Specializations:
Social, Judgment
and Decision Making
Contact Information:
- Office: 200 Porter Hall
- Phone: (740) 593-1083
- E-mail: markman@ohio.edu
Research Interests:
My
research interests, characterized broadly, are in the areas of motivated
social cognition and social judgment and decision-making. Areas of specific
interest break down into the following three categories:
I. Counterfactual
Thinking and Other Forms of Mental Simulation
Mental
simulation involves the generation of imagined alternatives to reality.
My research program in this area has led to the recent development of
the Reflection and Evaluation Model (REM) of comparative thinking (Markman
& McMullen, 2003), which makes predictions regarding when assimilation
and contrast effects in counterfactual, social, and temporal comparisons
are likely to occur, and specifies the affective and motivational consequences
of making such comparisons.
At the heart of the model is the assertion that two psychologically
distinct modes of mental simulation operate during comparative thinking:
Reflection, an experiential (“as if”) mode of thinking characterized
by vividly simulating that information about a comparison standard is
true of or part of the self, and Evaluation, an evaluative mode of thinking
characterized by the use of information about a standard as a reference
point against which to evaluate one’s present standing. Reflection
occurs when information about a standard is included in one’s
self-construal, and evaluation occurs when such information is excluded.
The result of reflection is that standard-consistent cognitions implicating
the self become highly accessible, thereby yielding affective assimilation,
whereas the result of evaluation is that comparison information is used
as a standard against which one’s present standing is evaluated,
thereby yielding affective contrast. The resulting affect leads to either
an increase or decrease in behavioral persistence as a function of the
type of task with which one is engaged, and a combination of comparison-derived
causal inferences and regulatory focus strategies direct one toward
adopting specific future action plans.
II. Psychological
Momentum
There
is a common perception among individuals that a psychological force
called “momentum” exists that can powerfully influence performance.
In athletic contexts, the belief in psychological momentum (PM) is so
pervasive that one can hardly read about or view a sporting event without
being exposed to references to how momentum-shifting plays influenced
the outcome of a game. Importantly, however, the PM concept extends
beyond athletics. Individuals believe that they can experience momentum
while they are designing a computer program, writing a paper, or cleaning
an apartment, and political campaigns and celebrity careers are often
described as gaining or losing momentum.
Psychological Momentum Theory (PMT; Markman & Guenther, 2007), attempts
to describe individuals’ experience and perception of PM. Newtonian
physics represents the equation describing momentum as mass (m) X velocity
(v) = momentum (p), and PMT maps psychological analogues onto the mass
and velocity variables. According to the theory, a precipitating event
provides a target (e.g., an attitude object, person, group of persons,
etc.) with velocity. Velocity is a vector quantity, and thus is fully
described by direction as well as magnitude. In PMT, the direction of
the velocity vector can be positive (i.e., toward a goal) or negative
(i.e., away from a goal). Mass is determined by the strength of contextual
variables that connote value, immediacy, and importance, and combines
with velocity to imbue a target with momentum. PM reflects the expected
displacement of a target imbued with momentum. Thus, for positive momentum
expected displacement is successful goal attainment, whereas for negative
momentum expected displacement is unsuccessful goal attainment.
Rather than directly address whether PM actually does affect performance,
we have chosen to examine what people think PM is, and how naïve
theories about PM influence expected performance outcomes. Study 1 (Markman
& Guenther, 2007) established that individuals share intuitions
about the types of events that precipitate PM, and Study 2 found that
defeating a rival increases momentum perceptions. Study 3 then provided
evidence for the lay belief that as more PM accumulates during a prior
task, more residual momentum is left to carry over to a subsequent task,
and Study 4 found that an individual whose PM is interrupted is expected
to have greater difficulty completing a task than is an individual whose
steady progress is interrupted. As the theory continues to develop,
future research will examine momentum perceptions in the domain of political
attitudes and beliefs.
III.
Creativity, Debiasing, and Mind-Set Priming
A
third line of research explores the effects of mind-set priming on creative
and analytical thinking processes, as well as the debiasing effects
of considering multiple alternatives and perspectives. The results of
several studies suggest that considering multiple alternative outcomes
for events, not just opposite outcomes, are effective for debiasing
judgments, and that the consideration of alternatives in one domain
may have debiasing effects on judgments made in a completely unrelated
domain.
Markman, Lindberg, Kray, and Galinsky (2007) hypothesized that additive
counterfactual thinking mind-sets (i.e., those activated by adding new
antecedent elements to reconstruct reality) promote an expansive processing
style that broadens conceptual attention and facilitates performance
on creative generation tasks, whereas subtractive counterfactual thinking
mind-sets (i.e., those activated by removing antecedent elements to
reconstruct reality) promote a relational processing style that enhances
tendencies to consider relationships and associations and facilitates
performance on analytical problem solving tasks. A re-analysis of a
published data set (Kray, Galinsky, & Wong, 2006) suggested that
the counterfactual mind-set primes previously used by these researchers
tend to evoke subtractive counterfactuals. Studies 1 and 2 then demonstrated
that subtractive counterfactual mind-sets enhance performance on analytical
problem solving tasks, whereas Studies 3 and 4 found that additive counterfactual
mind-sets enhance performance on creative generation tasks. In all,
this work provided initial empirical evidence for a link between counterfactual
thinking and creative cognition and, more generally, clarified ambiguities
in the literature regarding the nature of the relationships between
counterfactual mind-sets, creativity, and problem solving.
Recent Publications:
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Books: |
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Markman,
K.D., Klein, W.M.P., & Suhr, J.A. (in press). The handbook
of imagination and mental simulation. New York: Psychology
Press. |
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Journal
Articles: |
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Hirt,
E.R., & Markman, K.D. (1995). Multiple explanation: A consider-an-alternative
strategy for debiasing judgments. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 69, 1069-1086. |
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Markman,
K.D., Gavanski, I., Sherman, S.J., & McMullen, M.N. (1993).
The mental simulation of better and worse possible worlds. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 87-109. |
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Markman,
K.D., & Guenther, C.L. (2007). Psychological momentum: Intuitive
physics and naïve beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 33, 800-812. |
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Markman,
K.D., Lindberg, M.J., Kray, L.J., & Galinsky, A.D. (2007). Implications
of counterfactual structure for creativity and analytical problem
solving. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33,
312-324. |
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Markman,
K.D., & McMullen, M.N. (2003). A reflection and evaluation model
of comparative thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
7, 244-267. |
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Markman,
K.D., McMullen, M.N., & Elizaga, R.A. (2008). Counterfactual
thinking, persistence, and performance: A test of the Reflection
and Evaluation Model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
44, 421-428. |
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Markman,
K.D., Mizoguchi, N., & McMullen, M.N. (2008). “It would
have been worse under Saddam:” Implications of counterfactual
thinking for beliefs regarding the ethical treatment of prisoners
of war. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44,
650-654. |
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Markman,
K.D., & Tetlock, P.E. (2000). Accountability and close-call
counterfactuals: The loser who nearly won and the winner who nearly
lost. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1213-1224. |
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McMullen,
M.N., & Markman, K.D. (2002). Affective impact of close counterfactuals:
Implications of possible futures for possible pasts. Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 64-70. |
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McMullen,
M.N., & Markman, K.D. (2000). Downward counterfactuals and motivation:
The "wake-up call" and the "Pangloss" effect.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 575-584. |
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Book
Chapters: |
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Markman,
K.D., Karadogan, F., Lindberg, M.J., & Zell, E. (in press).
Counterfactual thinking: Function and dysfunction. In K.D. Markman,
W.M.P. Klein, & J.A. Suhr (Eds.), The handbook of imagination
and mental simulation. New York: Psychology Press. |
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Courses Taught:
Undergraduate:
Introduction to
Psychology; Social Psychology
Graduate:
Advanced Research Methods
in Social Psychology
Imagination and Mental Simulation
Social Cognition
Affiliations:
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