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WORKING PAPERS
Zaw, S., Wallace, L. E., & O'Brien, E. (forthcoming at Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). Insights into growth mindsets over time: People with growth versus fixed mindsets grow increasingly negative in their reactions to others' repeated failures. [email for copy]
Hong, S., & O'Brien, E. (conditionally accepted at Journal of Consumer Research). Repeatedly soliciting hedonic reactions exacerbates hedonic adaptation. [email for copy]
Wang, J., & O'Brien, E. (revise and resubmit at Journal of Consumer Research). Perceiving permanence in an evolving marketplace. [email for copy]
Roberts, A. R., & O'Brien, E. (revise and resubmit at Journal of Consumer Psychology). I should work, you can play: A self-other asymmetry in advised time use. [email for copy]
Zaw, S., Kirgios, E., & O'Brien, E. (revise and resubmit at Organization Science). Evaluators devalue overcoming adversity when stakes increase. [email for copy]
Hong, S., & O'Brien, E. (under review at Journal of Experimental Social Psychology). Simply looking to learn boosts enjoyment and slows hedonic adaptation. [email for copy]
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
O'Brien, E. (2026). One's actions "aging poorly": An integrative egocentric framework for understanding impression management errors and the challenge of temporal impression management. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 30(2), 216-246. [link]
Hagen, L., & O'Brien, E. (2025). Lost time undermines return behavior. PNAS Nexus, 4(6), pgaf156. [link]
Hagen, L., & O'Brien, E. (2025). When did they post it? How temporal markers influence the persuasiveness of online reviews. Psychology & Marketing, 42(4), 1035-1050. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2024). A flexible threshold theory of change perception in self, others, and the world. Psychological Review, 131(6), 1435-1458. [link]
Klein, N., & O'Brien, E. (2023). Threshold violations in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(2), 284-315. [link]
Li, X., Hsee, C. K., & O'Brien, E. (2023). "It could be better" can make it worse: When and why people mistakenly communicate upward counterfactual information. Journal of Marketing Research, 60(2), 219-236. [link]
Winet, Y. K., & O'Brien, E. (2023). Ending on a familiar note: Perceived endings motivate repeat consumption. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(4), 707-734. [link]
Weingarten, E., Duke, K. E., Liu, W., Hamilton, R. W., Amir, O., Appel, G., Cerf, M., Goodman, J. K., Morales, A. C., O'Brien, E., Quoidbach, J., & Sun, M. (2023). What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 33(1), 97-106. [link]
Kardas, M., Schroeder, J., & O'Brien, E. (2022). Keep talking: (Mis)understanding the hedonic trajectory of conversation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(4), 717-740. [link]
Wald, K. A., & O'Brien, E. (2022). Repeated exposure to success harshens reactions to failure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 103(1), 1-18. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2022). Losing sight of piecemeal progress: People lump and dismiss improvement efforts that fall short of categorical change—despite improving. Psychological Science, 33(8), 1278-1299. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2022). The "next" effect: When a better future worsens the present. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13(2), 456-465. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2021). A mind stretched: The psychology of repeat consumption. Consumer Psychology Review, 4(1), 42-58. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2020). When small signs of change add up: The psychology of tipping points. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(1), 55-62. [link]
Kristal, A. C., O'Brien, E., & Caruso, E. M. (2019). Yesterday's news: A temporal discontinuity in the sting of inferiority. Psychological Science, 30(5), 643-656. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2019). Enjoy it again: Repeat experiences are less repetitive than people think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(4), 519-540. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Kassirer, S. (2019). People are slow to adapt to the warm glow of giving. Psychological Science, 30(2), 193-204. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Smith, R. W. (2019). Unconventional consumption methods and enjoying things consumed: Recapturing the "first time" experience. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(1), 67-80. [link]
Klein, N., & O'Brien, E. (2018). People use less information than they think to make up their minds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(52), 13222-13227. [link]
Kardas, M., & O'Brien, E. (2018). Easier seen than done: Merely watching others perform can foster an illusion of skill acquisition. Psychological Science, 29(4), 521-536. [link]
O'Brien, E., Kristal, A. C., Ellsworth, P. C., & Schwarz, N. (2018). (Mis)imagining the good life and the bad life: Envy and pity as a function of the focusing illusion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 75(1), 41-53. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Roney, E. (2017). Worth the wait? Leisure can be just as enjoyable with work left undone. Psychological Science, 28(7), 1000-1015. [link]
Klein, N., & O'Brien, E. (2017). The power and limits of personal change: When a bad past does (and does not) inspire in the present. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 210-229. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Klein, N. (2017). The tipping point of perceived change: Asymmetric thresholds in diagnosing improvement versus decline. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(2), 161-185. [link]
Chopik, W. J., O'Brien, E., & Konrath, S. H. (2017). Differences in empathic concern and perspective taking across 63 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48(1), 23-38. [link]
Chopik, W. J., & O'Brien, E. (2017). Happy you, healthy me? Having a happy partner is independently associated with better health in oneself. Health Psychology, 36(1), 21-30. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Kardas, M. (2016). The implicit meaning of (my) change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(6), 882-894. [link]
Klein, N., & O'Brien, E. (2016). The tipping point of moral change: When do good and bad acts make good and bad actors? Social Cognition, 34(2), 149-166. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2015). Mapping out past versus future minds: The perceived trajectory of rationality versus emotionality over time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(3), 624-628. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2015). Feeling connected to younger versus older selves: The asymmetric impact of life stage orientation. Cognition and Emotion, 29(4), 678-686. [link]
Chopik, W. J., O'Brien, E., Konrath, S. H., & Schwarz, N. (2015). MLK day and attitude change: Liking the group more but its members less. Political Psychology, 36(5), 559-567. [link]
Konrath, S. H., Chopik, W. J., Hsing, C., & O'Brien, E. (2014). Changes in adult attachment styles in American college students over time: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(4), 326-348. [link]
Campbell, T., O'Brien, E., Van Boven, L., Schwarz, N., & Ubel, P. A. (2014). Too much experience: A desensitization bias in emotional perspective taking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 272-285. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Hagen, L. (2013). The thrill of (absolute) victory: Success among many enhances emotional payoffs. Emotion, 13(3), 366-374. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2013). Easy to retrieve but hard to believe: Metacognitive discounting of the unpleasantly possible. Psychological Science, 24(6), 844-851. [link]
O'Brien, E., Konrath, S. H., Grühn, D., & Hagen, L. (2013). Empathic concern and perspective taking: Linear and quadratic effects of age across the adult lifespan. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 68(2), 168-175. [link]
O'Brien, E., Ellsworth, P. C., & Schwarz, N. (2012). Today's misery and yesterday's happiness: Differential effects of current life events on perceptions of past well-being. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 968-972. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2012). More than skin deep: Visceral states are not projected onto dissimilar others. Psychological Science, 23(4), 391-396. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2012). Saving the last for best: A positivity bias for end experiences. Psychological Science, 23(2), 163-165. [link]
O'Brien, E., Anastasio, P. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). Time crawls when you're not having fun: Feeling entitled makes dull tasks drag on. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 1287-1296. [link]
Konrath, S. H., O'Brien, E., & Hsing, C. (2011). Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(2), 180-198. [link]
Anderson, M. A., Williams, S. A., & O'Brien, E. (2009). Individual differences in the preferred neck-resting position of Caribbean flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber). Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 14(1), 66-78. [link]
BOOK CHAPTERS
O'Brien, E. (2026). Hedonic consumption and enjoyment. In S. Sridhar (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Marketing. Oxford University Press. [link]
Winet, Y. K., & O'Brien, E. (2026). Familiarity seeking: Growing and learning from repeat experiences. In K. E. Vail, D. Van Tongeren, R. J. Schlegel, J. Greenberg, L. A. King, & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of the Science of Existential Psychology (pp. 923-939). Guilford Press. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2024). Things change—but when? A top-down approach to understanding how people judge change thresholds. In K. Taku & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Changes in Human Perceptions and Behaviors (pp. 154-167). Taylor & Francis. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2023). Judging change: A flexible threshold theory. In B. Gawronski (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 68, pp. 223-290). Academic Press. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2022). Look back, not ahead? Time use and the value of revisiting past experiences. In C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, & A. Fernandes (Eds.), Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology (pp. 62-89). Oxford University Press. [link]
Roberts, A. R., & O'Brien, E. (2019). Work well-being. In D. S. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Psychology. Oxford University Press. [link]
Bushman, B. J., & O'Brien, E. (2012). Aggression. In V. S. Ramachandran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (2nd ed., pp. 37-43). Academic Press. [link]
PRACTITIONER ARTICLES
Yoon, J., Whillans, A. V., & O'Brien, E. (2019, July). How to make even the most mundane tasks more motivating. Harvard Business Review. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2019, March). We use less information to make decisions than we think. Harvard Business Review. [link]
Kardas, M., & O'Brien, E. (2018, May). Watching an expert do something makes you think you can do it too. Harvard Business Review. [link]
O'Brien, E. (2017, July). Stop putting off fun for after you finish all your work. Harvard Business Review. [link]
O'Brien, E., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2012, July). Polar opposites: Empathy does not extend across the political aisle. The Jury Expert. [link]
SELECTED MEDIA
Authored public writing: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Fortune, New America, The Conversation, SPSP Character & Context, ISSEP Features.
Podcast/media appearances: NPR Hidden Brain, NPR All Things Considered, NPR Ideas Network, SiriusXM, BBC, Fast Company, Canvas8, Chicago Booth Review, APS Under the Cortex.