Jessica Reif

Jessica Reif, Lecuona, J.R., Cummings, J. N. (2026), Space and Structure: The interplay between proximity, unit boundaries, and supervision in shaping workplace interactions, Organization Science.

Abstract: Organizations commonly colocate employees in the same office to foster collaboration, yet spatial interventions often fail to deliver their intended benefits. Conflicting evidence in the proximity and office design literatures highlights the need for a better understanding of when and how physical space shapes workplace interactions, particularly across organizational units. Drawing on theories of attention, we propose that spatial arrangements and organizational structures intersect to influence employees’ attentional processes. We argue that (1) proximity’s effects on work-related interactions should be stronger for same-unit dyads than cross-unit dyads because organizational relationships determine who is most likely to stand out in a busy office environment, and (2) proximity to supervisors should reduce cross-unit interactions as employees focus on demonstrating unit-focused productivity to nearby authority figures. We find evidence consistent with these hypotheses in a field study in which employees were quasi-randomly assigned to desks following a headquarters relocation, creating exogenous variation in proximity between employees from different units and between employees and their supervisors. This research contributes to the literatures on boundary spanning, physical space, and organizational attention by demonstrating that office design’s impact on collaboration depends critically on the organizational relationships among the employees within the space.

Jessica Reif, Larrick, R.P., Soll. J.B. (2025), What’s accessible is expressible: When advice seekers are more likely to anchor their advisors, Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Abstract: Despite evidence that advice is most beneficial for increasing decision accuracy when advisors form independent judgments, people sometimes undermine this independence by sharing their preliminary conclusions when seeking advice. We propose that following the prescription to think independently before seeking advice paradoxically leads people to make this mistake. Specifically, we argue that deeper engagement with a decision makes one’s own perspective more accessible and likely to be shared during an advice interaction. In two preregistered studies (N = 2,109), we demonstrate that higher levels of engagement with the decision prior to seeking advice increase the likelihood that the seeker will anchor the advisor. This suggests that advice seekers who follow prescriptions to form a judgment prior to seeking advice may inadvertently introduce bias into advice interactions, undermining the independence of the advice they seek. These findings contribute to the advice-seeking literature by revealing a process by which anchors emerge naturally in information exchange.

Jessica Reif, Larrick, R.P., Soll. J.B. (2025), Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using artificial intelligence, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Abstract: Despite the rapid proliferation of AI tools, we know little about how people who use them are perceived by others. Drawing on theories of attribution and impression management, we propose that people believe they will be evaluated negatively by others for using AI tools and that this belief is justified. We examine these predictions in four preregistered experiments (N = 4,439) and find that people who use AI at work anticipate and receive negative evaluations regarding their competence and motivation. Further, we find evidence that these social evaluations affect assessments of job candidates. Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs.

Jessica Reif, Larrick, R.P., Soll. J.B. (2024), The inclusion of anchors when seeking advice: Causes and consequences, . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Abstract: Scholars have devoted considerable research attention to examining how people use advice from others. However, there is much less research exploring the preceding step of how people solicit advice from others. Sometimes advice seekers include their own thinking in their requests for advice, providing anchors that make it difficult for their advisors to access their own independent judgments. Across naturalistic and laboratory samples, we find that advice seekers include anchors when seeking quantitative advice between 20 and 50 percent of the time. In five preregistered studies (N = 6,981), we investigate the causes and consequences of including anchors when seeking advice. We find that impression management motives increase the tendency to include anchors when seeking advice, while a goal of minimizing influence on advisors reduces the tendency to include anchors. We then show that anchors are indeed effective in achieving impression management goals, but that advice seekers who include them benefit less from opinion combination strategies such as averaging because they introduce shared sources of error. This work contributes to the literatures on advice seeking, anchoring, and collective judgments.