The own-anchor effect concerns the assimilation of judgments of other people's external characteristics such as age, weight, and height toward the estimator's own characteristics. The phenomenon is related to theories of social projection and classical anchoring. It has previously been described as an estimation bias in studies of eyewitness accuracy and has been measured by the correlation between the estimates and the participants' own corresponding characteristics. We suggest that the term own-anchor effect should be reserved for cases when the estimate and the estimator's own value both are bigger than the target person's value, or when both are smaller than the target person's value. Two subtypes of own-anchoring and their association to different target persons of different ages and sizes are also described. A new index of own-anchoring based on the deviation between the estimate and the target persons' values is introduced, and differences between the two measures are discussed, as well as the implications for moderation by gender. 

The main purpose of this thesis was to study the circumstances under whichanchoring biases occur for estimation of age, weight and height. Paper Iinvestigated accuracy and biases in age estimates made by salespersons withexperience in age estimation, compared to a control group without any similarexperience. The accuracy in age estimates of young target persons (15-24 yearsold) made by salespersons was higher than that of control persons. Moreover,the salespersons demonstrated less overestimation of the age of youngertarget persons, and whereas the control group own-anchored in their ageestimates, the salespersons did not. Paper II and IV investigated genderdifferences in the tendency to own-anchor in within- and cross-genderestimates of age, weight and height. Both papers found that women ownanchorspontaneously both within and across gender, whereas men for themost part own-anchor only in their estimates of other men. Paper IV alsoinvestigated the possibility to increase own-anchoring by priming theparticipants’ use of their own characteristics in their estimation of age, weightand height. Elaborated similarity priming (asking the participants to statetheir estimates in relation to their own characteristics) did influence theestimates, by increasing the participants’ tendency to own-anchor. Paper IIIaimed to investigate whether standard anchoring effects (i.e., assimilationtowards explicit, experimenter-provided comparison values) occur forestimations of age and quantities – estimations based on visual stimuli andmade with a higher degree of certainty as compared to the judgmentstraditionally used in the standard anchoring paradigm. Anchor effects werefound for both age estimations and quantity estimations, and were notaffected by neither cognitive load nor source credibility.

Huvudsyftet med denna avhandling var att undersöka under vilkaomständigheter som förankringsbias uppstår vid skattningar av ålder, viktoch längd. Artikel I undersökte korrekthet och bias i åldersbedömningargjorda av butikspersonal med erfarenhet av åldersbedömning, jämfört meden kontrollgrupp utan motsvarande erfarenhet. Butikspersonalen uppvisadehögre korrekthet vid åldersskattningar av unga personer (15-24 år) änpersonerna i kontrollgruppen gjorde. Butikspersonalen uppvisade ocksålägre grad av överskattning av yngre personers ålder, och medankontrollgruppen egenförankrade sina skattningar i sin egen ålder, så gjordeinte butikspersonalen det. Artikel II och IV undersökte könsskillnader ibenägenheten att egenförankra vid skattningar av ålder, vikt och längd inomrespektiveöver könsgränserna. Båda artiklarna fann att kvinnoregenförankrar naturligt både inom och mellan könsgränserna, medan män tillövervägande del endast egenförankrar i sina skattningar av andra män.Artikel IV undersökte dessutom möjligheten att öka egenförankringen genomatt primea deltagarnas användning av sina egna egenskaper i bedömningarav ålder, vikt och längd. Elaborerad likhetspriming (där deltagarna ombadsatt göra sina bedömningar i relation till sina egna egenskaper) påverkadeskattningarna genom att öka deltagarnas tendens till egenförankring. ArtikelIII syftade till att undersöka huruvida även klassiska förankringseffekter(d.v.s. assimilation gentemot explicita jämförelsevärden) uppstår förbedömningar av ålder och kvantiteter – bedömningar baserade på visuelltstöd och gjorda med en högre grad av säkerhet jämfört med de bedömningarsom vanligen används inom standardparadigmet. Förankringseffekteruppvisades för bedömningar av både ålder och kvantiteter, och påverkadesinte av manipulationer gällande kognitiv belastning och trovärdighet hosursprunget till jämförelsevärdet.

People's beliefs in the actions necessary to reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are important to public policy acceptability. The current paper addressed beliefs concerning how periods of small emission cuts contribute to the total CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, by asking participants to rate the atmospheric CO2 concentration for various time periods and emission rates. The participants thought that a time period with higher emission rates combined with a period of lower emission rates generates less atmospheric CO2 in total, compared to the period with high emission rates alone – demonstrating a negative footprint illusion (Study 1). The participants appeared to base their CO2 estimates on the average, rather than on the accumulated sum, of the two periods' emissions – i.e. an averaging bias (Study 2). Moreover, the effect was robust to the wordings of the problem presented to the participants (Study 3). Together, these studies suggest that the averaging bias makes people exaggerate the benefits of small emission cuts. The averaging bias could make people willing to accept policies that reduce emission rates although insufficiently to alleviate global warming.

Climate changes stress the importance of understanding why people harm the environment despite their attempts to behave in climate friendly ways. This paper argues that one reason behind why people do this is that people apply heuristics, originally shaped to handle social exchange, on the issues of environmental impact. Reciprocity and balance in social relations have been fundamental to social cooperation, and thus to survival, and therefore the human brain has become specialized by natural selection to compute and seek this balance. When the same reasoning is applied to environment-related behaviors, people tend to think in terms of a balance between ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘harmful’ behaviors, and to morally account for the average of these components rather than the sum. This balancing heuristic leads to compensatory green beliefs and negative footprint illusions—the misconceptions that ‘green’ choices can compensate for unsustainable ones. ‘Eco-guilt’ from imbalance in the moral environmental account may promote pro-environmental acts, but also acts that are seemingly pro-environmental but in reality more harmful than doing nothing at all. The current paper suggests strategies for handling this cognitive insufficiency.

Syftet med kartläggningen var att undersöka förekomsten av utsatthet för olika typer av våld i nära relationer bland invånarna i Gävle kommun, med hänsyn till variabler som de utsattas kön och ålder, förövarens kön samt de utsattas relation till förövaren. Kartläggningen syftade även till att undersöka i vilken grad utsatta upplevt olika former av konsekvenser av våldet, gjort polisanmälan eller sökt stöd, samt om det funnits barn med i bilden.

En enkätundersökning med personer folkbokförda i Gävle kommun genomfördes. Urvalet bestod av totalt 3000 slumpmässigt utvalda kvinnor och män, jämnt fördelade i åldersgrupperna 18-33, 34-46, 47-59, 60-72 och 73-85 år. Enkätfrågorna mätte bland annat utsatthet för psykiskt, fysiskt, sexuellt, ekonomiskt, materiellt och latent våld. Totalt 886 personer besvarade enkäten och svarsfrekvensen var 30%. Deskriptiv statistik i form av andelen utsatta för olika typer av våld i olika grupper beräknades. För att analysera skillnader mellan exempelvis kvinnor och män och olika åldersgrupper beräknades konfidensintervall, z-test och t-test. Samband mellan olika variabler samt prediktioner analyserades genom regressionsanalys.

Resultatet visade att omkring var tredje svarande hade varit utsatt för våld i nära relationer under det vuxna livet. Personer i åldrarna 18-35 år hade i högre grad varit utsatta för våld i nära relationer jämfört med personer i åldrarna 36-85 år. Det var vanligast att ha varit utsatt av en partner i en tidigare relation och tre fjärdedelar av allt rapporterat våld hade utövats av män.

Kvinnor hade i signifikant högre utsträckning än män varit utsatta för våld, och det gällde samtliga typer av våld. Våldet mot kvinnor var också i signifikant högre grad upprepat och bidragande till ständig rädsla och minskat livsutrymme hos den utsatta, jämfört med våldet mot män. Utsatta kvinnor upplevde också allvarligare konsekvenser av våldet jämfört med utsatta män.

En fjärdedel av de svarande hade varit utsatta för våld i nära relationer i barndomen och bland dem var det vanligare att även ha varit utsatta senare, under det vuxna livet. I hälften av fallen där utsatta personer hade barn, hade barnen varit närvarande när den svarande utsattes för våld, och i en tredjedel av fallen hade barnen också blivit utsatta för direkt våld av samma förövare. I nio av tio fall, där barn varit närvarande eller även utsatta för direkt våld, var förövaren en man.

Av de svarande som någon gång utsatts för våld hade en sjundedel varit i kontakt med någon myndighet eller annan enhet med anledning av våldet. Många utsatta beskrev att stödet de fått när de sökt hjälp var bristfälligt i förhållande till deras behov. Endast 6% av de utsatta hade någon gång polisanmält våldet.

The controversy over gender differences in exposure to domestic violence (DV) seems to be a never-ending story. Researchers on one side of the debate argue that men and women are equally victimized (gender symmetry), while researches on the other side of the debate argue that women are victimized to larger extent, and with greater severity (gender asymmetry). Evidence for gender symmetry is based mainly on quantitative data from a plentitude of surveys measuring gender differences in perpetration and exposure to intimate partner violence. The asymmetry perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes investigation of contextual factors (e.g. the impact and meaning of violence) but have been based on studies that to a lesser extent include both men and women. Hence, there are conceptual and methodological differences between studies that find gender symmetry and those that propose gender asymmetry.

We will present a survey performed to measure the prevalence of exposure to DV among men and women in the municipality of Gävle, Sweden. The presentation will highlight the significance of coercive control, temporal aspects, and impact of violence in measurement and understanding of gender differences in exposure to DV. Results from the survey suggest that women had been more exposed than men to all types of violence measured (psychological, sexual, physical, economical-material, latent violence and negligence), that female exposure were more often repeated, and lead to more severe consequences than did male exposure to DV. We also found that having children with the perpetrator, which was more common among women, was a stronger predictor of negative consequences than any single type of violence. We will also present results concerning children of DV victims and experiences of help seeking and reporting violence.

This article investigates effects of anchoring in age estimation and estimation of quantities, two tasks which to different extents are based on visual stimuli. The results are compared to anchoring in answers to classic general knowledge questions that rely on semantic knowledge. Cognitive load was manipulated to explore possible differences between domains. Effects of source credibility, manipulated by differing instructions regarding the selection of anchor values (no information regarding anchor selection, information that the anchors are randomly generated or information that the anchors are answers from an expert) on anchoring were also investigated. Effects of anchoring were large for all types of judgments but were not affected by cognitive load or by source credibility in either one of the researched domains. A main effect of cognitive load on quantity estimations and main effects of source credibility in the two visually based domains indicate that the manipulations were efficient. Implications for theoretical explanations of anchoring are discussed. In particular, because anchoring did not interact with cognitive load, the results imply that the process behind anchoring in visual tasks is predominantly automatic and unconscious.

What reason underpins why people say they prefer eco-labeled over conventional products during direct perceptual comparison? One possibility is that there is no difference in the perceptual experience of the products; the participants just say there is because they wish to gain other’s approval. In this paper, we tested this social desirability account of the eco-label effect by requesting participants to judge grapes that were in truth identical but labeled “eco-friendly” and “conventional” respectively. The eco-label effects were similar in magnitude for an impression management condition (participants were told that their responses were monitored) and a no-instructions control condition, but greater in a moral-instructions condition (the participants were told, amongst other things, that conventional agriculture is harmful). The experiment suggests that people do not say that they prefer eco-labeled products because they seek other’s approval. Social motives may underpin reasons to purchase “green” products at the grocery store, but social motives are not the direct cause of the eco-label effect on the perceptual experience of the products.