P1-1. Lehman BENSON III, Markus GROTH, & Lee Roy BEACH (The University of Arizona)
In pursuit of a model of perceived time pressure.
The relationship between time constraints for
task completion and reported perceptions of time pressure were
examined. The first experiment found that rated perceived time
pressure (PP) was a function of the ratio, Rr/Ra, of required time (Rr)
and available time (Ra), and that two alternative measurement methods
yielded highly similar ratings. The second experiment showed that the
importance of the task can be represented as PP = (Rr/Ra) + i, where i
represents task importance. Implications and suggestions for future
research are discussed.
P1-2. David H. EBENBACH, Colleen F. MOORE, & Jessica GERSHAW (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
Assuming the worst: Environmental decisions in the context of missing information.
Across 2 studies,
participants made decisions in environmental dilemmas. In each study,
complete or incomplete information was given about three factors (local
effects, ecosystem risks, economic effects, etc.). Participants also
rated the importance of factors, and their assumptions about incomplete
information. Results indicated that participants' assumptions about
missing information strongly affected the way they used available
information, as well as their ultimate decisions. Our findings imply
that people facing difficult environmental problems may base decisions
not only on available facts, but also on important but missing
information.
P1-3. Cheryl Brown TRAVIS, Danny S. MOORE (Univ. of Tennessee), & Bruce E. TONN (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Building a tool for environmental decision making.
The
Environmental Problem Inventory is a tool devised by researchers at the
NSF National Center for Environmental Decision Making Research to
assist in the first steps of environmental decision making. Dimensions
of the inventory include ecological impact, health effects, economic
considerations, identification of stakeholders, and regulatory issues
as well as other factors. Results of a factor analysis of the
Environmental Problem Inventory encompassing over 500 environmental
problems at the local, state, and regional level indicated that
information from both the natural and social science realms is
necessary for issue diagnosis and problem characterization.
P1-4. Osvaldo F. MORERA (Survey Research Laboratory, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago)
A psychometric assessment of the divide and conquer principle in multiattribute decision making.
The
principle of "divide and conquer" (DAC) suggests that decomposing
multiattribute decisions enhances decision quality relative to holistic
decision making (Ravinder & Kleinmuntz, 1991; Fischer 1977;
Ravinder, 1992). Other evidence suggests that this generalization is
dependent upon the choice of the criterion variable (Cornelius &
Lyness, 1980; Lyness & Cornelius, 1982). A new comprehensive
experimental framework designed to test the validity of the DAC
principle was developed. Results from a recent study using the SMARTS
procedure (Edwards & Barron, 1994) indicate that the generality of
the DAC principle is indeed dependent upon the choice of the criterion
variable.
P1-5. Holly ARROW (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Oregon), & Jonathan A. RHOADES (Dept. of Psychology, New York Univ.)
Face-to-face and computer-mediated decision-making in established groups.
This study examines the role of
membership change and communication medium in group decision-making.
Thirty established groups completed a hidden profile task either face
to face or via computer. Each group had a "guest" member visiting from
another established group. First, members individually reviewed
materials on 20 job applicants, took notes, and decided which
candidates fit their assigned criterion best. Next, the group
discussed the candidates and made final recommendations. Results
indicate that guests showed performance deficits similar to those
observed for gender tokens (Lord & Saenz, 1985). Information
processing strategies differed across communication media, but
performance quality did not.
P1-6. Xiao-Ping CHEN (Dept. of Management of Organizations, Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology)
The effects of past group performance and the provision of public goods: Perceived criticality, group identity, and conformity.
This study investigated the effects of other
members' behavior in the past on new members' cooperative choice in a
step-level public goods dilemma. A newly developed experimental
paradigm enabled us to test three major hypotheses in explaining high
cooperation rates in social dilemmas: the group identity hypothesis,
the perceived criticality hypothesis, and the conformity hypothesis.
168 business students participated in a laboratory experiment. The
results suggest that (1) perceived criticality is more effective than
group identity or perceived group norm in inducing cooperation; (2)
group identity is necessary but not sufficient in evoking cooperation;
and (3) group identity moderates the effect of perceived group norm on
members' choices: Members conform to group cooperative norms when they
highly identify with their group. The implications of these findings
are discussed.
P1-7. Daniel GIGONE (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
Group discussion and small group decision making: Effects of task and subjective meaning of information.
The
study explores issues related to the assumption that discussion content
affects group decisions: What determines discussion content and what is
the relationship between discussion content and decisions? The study
also explored task differences. Groups judged fictional candidates.
Members rated the value and weight of facts before and after each group
decision. Task differences were few. Groups discussed facts with high
weight ratings and facts about which members disagreed. After
discussion, members agreed about facts which were discussed.
Discussion did not predict group judgments, controlling for members'
judgments. The findings are related to a model of group discussion and
decisions.
P1-8. Joann L. KRAUSS (Dept. of Management & Systems, Washington State Univ.)
Improving individual decision-making during organizational crisis: A preliminary investigation.
Organizational crises are unexpected events
that require an urgent decision. The characteristics of a crisis,
urgency, ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity, increases individual
stress and hampers an individual's ability to make a decision. This
poster session will examine two alternative methods of improving
individual decision-making during crisis. It is hypothesized that
individuals who receive training in either method will perform better
on a crisis decision task than individuals who receive no training. It
is further hypothesized that individuals who receive training in
creative analysis will perform better on a crisis decision task than
individuals who receive training in crisis management planning.
P1-9. R. Scott TINDALE (Loyola Univ. Chicago), Joseph FILKINS (DePaul Univ.), & Susan SHEFFEY (Jewish Vocational Services)
Perceptions of processes in decision-making groups.
Certain models of group decision making imply that some aspects of
group process (e.g., majority effects) stem from shared norms about how
groups operate. Two studies were conducted to assess whether potential
group members had accurate perceptions of group processes. Results
indicated that participants underestimated the power of faction size
for juries and underestimated the power of correct alternatives for
problem-solving groups.
P1-10. George CVETKOVICH, & Ryan O. MURPHY (Dept. of Psychology, Western Washington Univ.)
The asymmetry principal of trust: Disconfirming evidence.
Trust occurs when an individual allows another person or
organization to make decisions for him/her. Slovic (1993) indicates
that trust is asymetrical -- it is easier to loose it than to gain it.
"Trust-increasing" and "trust decreasing" events used by Slovic were
paired together. The asymmetry principal leads to the expectation, not
confirmed in this study, that two-event descriptions, since they
contain a trust decreasing event, should produce lower trust judgments
than do single trust-increasing descriptions. The present evidence
suggests that a trust impression, once initiated, tends to affect the
meanings given to subsequently learned information.
P1-11. Maurice SCHWEITZER (Dept. of Management, Sch. of Business Administration, Univ. of Miami)
Omission, friendship, and fraud: Lies about material facts in negotiations.
Deception poses
a particularly important problem for negotiations. Negotiators
typically possess asymmetric information and can gain an advantage by
misleading others. While some types of lies have been condoned, such
as lies about reservation prices, both ethicists and legal scholars
have classified lies about materially relevant facts as unacceptable.
Results from this work, however, reveal that lies about material facts
are pervasive in negotiations. Negotiators are more likely to lie by
omission than commission, are more likely to lie to strangers than
friends, and are particularly likely to lie to strangers who do not ask
probing questions.
P1-12. David J. WEISS (California State Univ., Los Angeles), & Anthony D. ONG (Univ. of Southern California)
The truth is in there.
In estimating the
frequencies of behaviors not carried out in public view, researchers
accept the accuracy of respondents' reports. We explored two factors
expected to influence the decision to reveal, anonymity vs.
confidentiality and framing the question so that a behavior is
reputedly commonplace or rare. A key feature was the inclusion in our
survey of a socially disapproved behavior (cheating) for which we had
validational information. The privacy variable had an enormous impact;
of those who had cheated, 25% acknowledged having done so under
confidentiality, but 74% admitted the behavior under anonymity.
Question framing had no effect.
P1-13. Lyn M. VAN SWOL (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
The effects of task type, interaction type, and expertise on acceptance of advice.
Study examines effects of task type
(intellective[math]/judgmental[movie review]), advisor expertise
(high/low), and interaction (face-to-face/through writing) on a
decision-maker's (DM) acceptance of an advisor's advice. Advisor's
confidence was highly correlated with DM's acceptance of advice, and
DM's matched advisor's advice significantly more when the advisor had
high expertise, especially for the intellective task. When interacting
face-to-face, participants had higher group identity, and DM's had more
trust and confidence in advisors and thought advisors were more honest
and competent. DM's had a significantly harder time understanding
advice when it was given through writing by a low-expertise
advisor.
P1-14. Russell S. COOPER, & Susan LEVENE (Dept. of Psychology and Family Studies, United States International Univ.)
Cultural effects on confidence and information search in decision-making.
Past research demonstrated that consensus
(or lack thereof) among information sources affects the information
search process (Cooper and Sniezek, 1995) such that less information is
sought and confidence is higher. The current study considers the
effect of the cultural variable of individualism/collectivism
(Hofstede, 1980). The prediction is one of an interaction between
consensus and individualism and collectivism. Specifically, the
normative influence of consensus will have greater effect on people who
adhere to collectivistic values. The study was a quasi-experimental
design with consensus manipulated and individualism/collectivism
assessed for each participant. Results and implications are
discussed.
P1-15. Seth HAMMER (Dept. of Accounting, Coll. of Business and Economics, Towson Univ.)
Ambiguity and safe harbors: Determining whether to claim a home office deduction.
An experiment was conducted which found that under high
ambiguity tax reporting conditions, tax professionals perceive that
clients would be decreasingly likely to claim a home office deduction
as dollar levels of the expense increased, even where the expenditures
are believed to have met the Internal Revenue Service's "realistic
possibility of success" standard, which precludes the imposition of
penalties against either taxpayers or preparers. The study provides
findings consistent with Howard Raiffa's argument (1961) that under
conditions of high ambiguity, decision making is based largely on
individual temperament.
P1-16. Matthew H. OLSON, & Emily STARK (Dept. of Psychology, Hamline Univ.)
Personality factors and decision making.
80 undergraduate students completed
the NEO-PI personality assessment, and scores on traits of neuroticism,
extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness were
recorded. Two weeks later, all participants indicated their answers to
decision scenarios involving risk aversion, risk seeking, likelihood
estimation, susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy, and belief in
"good luck." Results indicated that personality factors, particularly
extraversion-introversion, may help to account for some but not all
variability commonly observed in judgment and decision data.
P1-17. Michael SIEPMANN, Jonathan BARON, Karen STEINBERG, & John SABINI (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
Individual differences in attitudes toward one's own wishful thinking.
Subjects
judged the probabilities of eight desirable and eight undesirable
statements about their future, and then indicated the probabilities
they would have assigned if they thought the way they would ideally
like to think. They also provided reasons for discrepancies between
initial and ideal probabilities, and indicated how strongly they wanted
each statement to be true or false. Some subjects consistently felt
they would ideally think more optimistically; some more
pessimistically. We explored correlations with psychological
well-being, and distinctions among subjects' ideals of accuracy,
effective goal achievement, and psychological well-being.
P1-18. Karen STEINBERG (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
Regret-proneness and decision style: Evidence for individual differences.
These studies examined whether people's degree
of regret over their decisions and difficulty making them varies
dispositionally, not just situationally. Subjects completed the
Decision-Style Questionnaire (DSQ)--a measure that operationalizes
regret-proneness and decision style through questions about
hypothetical decision scenarios--and answered DSQ-based questions about
actual decisions to take a particular course and to attend a particular
college. Regret-proneness and decision style were consistent over a
1-month period and across the assessed domains, suggesting that they
may constitute a stable individual difference.
P1-19. David A. WASHBURN (Center of Excellence for Res. on Training, Morris Brown Coll., and Dept. of Psychology, Georgia State Univ.), Harold H. GREENE (Center of Excellence for Res. on Training, Morris Brown Coll.), & R. Thompson PUTNEY (Center of Excellence for Res. on Training, Morris Brown Coll., and Dept. of Psychology, Georgia State Univ.)
Individual differences in attention and shoot/don't-shoot judgment skills.
Students were tested with a battery of 18 tasks to
determine individual differences across basic dimensions of attention,
and on a series of shoot/don't-shoot scenarios in a firearms training
simulator. The sensitivity of threat detection (d') was reliably
predicted by measures of scanning (RSVP and visual search), decision
time, and dual-task disruption. Response bias was significantly
predicted by workload measures and the continuous performance task.
Each regression model accounted for over half of the respective
variance. Thus, accurate shoot/don't-shoot judgments were reliably
associated with rapid scanning of visual attention, fast mental speed,
and sustained attention.
P1-20. Rebecca J. WHITE, Nancy E. BRIGGS, & Ching-Fan SHEU (DePaul Univ.)
Gender effect in judging self-performance.
This study investigates how
individuals evaluate their performance as well as that of others in a
group. Participants individually worked on three crossword puzzles in
a room with seven other people. The groups varied in gender
composition. The puzzles varied in film categories. This task is
chosen in contrast to previous research on self-evaluation of academic
performance. Participants estimated how many items they completed, as
well as the average number the group completed. Preliminary results
show participants over-estimated their performance, males more so than
females. We found no effect for gender on group composition or task
content.
P1-21. Gwen GRAMS, Robert TRACY, Ching-Fan SHEU, & Fred HEILIZER (DePaul Univ.)
Self deception in perception of personal appearance.
This study examines three hypotheses:
(1) that people create favorable self deceptions or illusions given
motive and opportunity; (2) that this tendency is associated with
healthy psychological functioning; and (3) that deception will decrease
when the level of perceptive distortion required by the task exceeds a
noticeable difference. To test these suppositions, each experimental
participant was asked to rate a series of photographs that included an
original, unaltered photo of the participant with six other photos that
were altered to be either more or less attractive than the original.
Results showed participants disproportionately rated both the altered
and the unaltered photos as "less attractive" than themselves; and
these differences were associated with higher self esteem and
depression scores. Further, participants tended to give unaltered
("real self") photos higher attractiveness ratings (relative to the
altered photos), than did independent observers. Yet, many
participants attenuated use of
P1-22. Janet A. SCHWARTZ (Dept. of Psychology, Rutgers Univ.), & William P. NEEDHAM (Dept. of Psychology, Purchase Coll., SUNY)
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning and formal operations: A reinvestigation of Wason's THOG task.
Recent research has suggested that performance on
concrete versions of Wason's abstract classic THOG task might be
mediated by cognitive development, as well as contextual presentation.
The purpose of this study was to reinvestigate Wason's question with
the classic THOG task and ask whether hypothetico-deductive reasoning
ability is related to formal operations. Seventy-two undergraduates
completed the classic THOG task, the Executioner problem (Needham &
Amado, 1995), and six formal reasoning tasks. A significant
correlation between formal operations score and performance on the THOG
tasks was found, indicating that performance on the THOG task is
mediated by both contextual presentation and cognitive development.
P1-23. Marcelle A. SIEGEL (Graduate Group in Science and Mathematics Education, Univ. of California at Berkeley)
Teaching high school students with Convince Me software: Decision as scientific theory building.
High school students in an issue-oriented
science class (SEPUP) learned to make decisions using Convince Me (CM)
software. CM possesses a connectionist model of explanatory coherence
theory. Students entered "hypotheses" and "evidence" and linked these
with positive or negative weights. CM assisted students in
constructing a scientific argument while providing them with
simulation-based feedback about the coherence of their decision. CM
students significantly distinguished between hypotheses and evidence.
They improved the structure of their arguments after receiving feedback
from CM. Student work was also compared with a SEPUP control class
which did not use CM.
P1-24. Julie GOLDBERG (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of California, Berkeley), & Baruch FISCHHOFF (Dept. of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon Univ.)
Perceived and experienced risks and benefits of potentially addictive activities.
Young people face an array of
potentially addictive activities. Their decisions regarding these
activities may depend on their judgments of the probabilities and
magnitudes of possible positive and negative consequences. This study
examined whether misperceptions about the experience of addiction
influence the decision to use drugs. Survey results indicate that
underestimation of both the risk of addiction and the pleasure of using
drugs is related to problematic drug-use. Similarly, beliefs about the
consequences of engaging in potentially addictive activities were
related to judgments about actual drug-use. These findings provide
insight into the potential positive and negative effects of
informational interventions.
P1-25. Christine M. CAFFRAY, & Sandra L. SCHNEIDER (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of South Florida)
Enhancing positive and reducing negative affective states as motivators in adolescent risky behaviors.
Adolescents
decide to participate in many risky behaviors that may have
life-altering consequences. Adolescents' outcome expectations about
the desired states that may be achieved or avoided by engaging in risky
behaviors represent important precursors to these decisions. We found
that a group of adolescents who chronically engaged in risky behaviors
held stronger beliefs that the reduction of several negative affective
states (e.g., depression, boredom) and the enhancement of positive
affective states (e.g., good time) motivated their participation in
risky behaviors. In contrast, the group who were less inclined to
participate in risky behaviors were more focused on the negative
consequences of those behaviors.
P1-26. Janis E. JACOBS (Pennsylvania State Univ.)
Developmental changes in the use of base rates and heuristics.
Earlier studies with children
have shown that the use of the representativeness heuristic increases
across middle childhood (e.g., Davidson, 1995; Jacobs & Potenza,
1991). The current study extended that work by manipulating the base
rate ratios to determine the conditions under which children would use
quantitative versus heuristic information. In a sample of 200 subjects
of ages 4, 6, and 8, we found that judgments of the youngest children
were not significantly affected by changes in ratio or instruction, but
that those of the older children were significantly affected by both,
so that they gave the most accurate judgments when they looked at
disparate ratios and heard the base rate instructions.
P1-27. Ambrocio Mojardin HERALDEZ, Charles J. BRAINERD, & Valerie F. REYNA (Univ. of Arizona)
Children's spontaneous false memories.
Six-, nine-, and twelve-year-olds listened to a
series of sentences and received immediate, one-week, and one-month
delayed recognition tests. Test items included targets and three types
of distractors with different degrees of semantic relationship to
targets. Prior memory tests both preserved true memories (hits) and
created false memories (false alarms) on later tests. False memories
were more persistent over time than true memories. All effects
increased with age. These results are interpreted in terms of
fuzzy-trace theory's analysis of judgement processes in children
eyewitness testimony.
P1-28. Lilian M. STEIN, & Valerie F. REYNA (Univ. of Arizona)
False memories and judgments in a juror-type situation: Fuzzy-trace theory analysis.
Theorists have made contradictory predictions about effects of
repetition on memory for narratives. These contradictions are
explained by fuzzy-trace theory. To test this explanation, a
juror-type situation was created where participants were presented with
either one, two or eight witnesses' versions of the same event. Two
events were presented, counterbalancing order. As predicted,
contradictory effects of repetition were obtained on recognition tests
for decisions about verbatim statements versus implications made either
consistently or inconsistently by different witnesses about the same
event. Applications of fuzzy-trace theory to false memories and
judgment processes will be discussed.
P1-29. Ronald L. WOODARD, & Valerie F. REYNA (Informatics and Decision Making Lab., Univ. of Arizona)
Memory-reasoning independence in covariation judgment: A fuzzy-trace theory analysis.
This study investigates the
relation between memory and reasoning using a covariation estimation
task of alpha-numeric stimuli, followed by a memory probe for the input
information. Stimulus pairs are of targets and distractors that are
consistent, ambiguous, or inconsistent with regard to the overall
relation of the stimuli. Memory performance was such that the
proportion of affirmative responses was greater for consistent pairs
than for inconsistent pairs across targets and distractors
(reconstruction from gist), and greater for targets than for
distractors across consistent and inconsistent pairs (verbatim memory
for the input information), supporting predictions of Fuzzy Trace
Theory.
P1-30. Michael R. P. DOUGHERTY (Univ. of Oklahoma), Rickey P. THOMAS (Kansas State Univ.), Charles F. GETTYS, & Eve E. OGDEN (Univ. of Oklahoma)
The conjunction error as a memory retrieval phenomenon.
This research examined MINERVA-DM's
account of the conjunction error. Participants were trained on the
frequency of various traits in a population of fictitious animals. The
probability of each trait characteristic was determined a priori.
Participants rated the probability of each trait individually, e.g.,
P(A), P(B), and the conjunctions, e.g., p(A&B). Experiment 1 found
that people commit the conjunction error when judgments are based on
memory. Participants in experiment 2 made either frequency estimates
(frequency format) or probability estimates (probability format). The
frequency format decreased, but did not eliminate, the number of errors
made, even when participants reported using their memory. Results of
both experiments support MINERVA-DM.
P1-31. H. David SMITH (Middlebury Coll.), Mark F. STASSON (Virginia Commonwealth Univ.), & William G. HAWKES (Sch. of Medicine, Univ. of Maryland)
Diagnosticity and the dilution effect: Is more diagnostic information less prone to dilution?
The addition of
nondiagnostic to diagnostic information yields less extreme judgments -
a phenomenon known as the "dilution effect." The influence of highly
vs. moderately diagnostic information as a possible moderator of this
effect on judgments of student grade point averages (GPA) was
investigated. Judgments of fictitious student profiles were
significantly affected by the type of diagnostic information presented,
and less extreme judgments of GPA were noted when nondiagnostic
information was included. Findings were consistent with the dilution
effect and generalized across both types of diagnostic
information.
P1-32. Noel E. WILKIN (Univ. of Mississippi), & Glenn J. BROWNE (Texas Tech Univ.)
The influence of argument-based evidence on degree of belief.
Extending the theory that beliefs are constructed using
arguments and judgments, this research evaluates the influence of
argument type on subjects' degrees of belief. Subjects were presented
with argument and/or information-based assertions with the intent of
manipulating degrees of belief. Assertion type, order, and direction
(for or against) were manipulated. Degrees of belief were evaluated
using likelihood and support measures. It is hypothesized that degree
of belief is (1) influenced more by causal arguments than authoritative
arguments; (2) influenced more by argument-based evidence than simple
information-based evidence; and (3) not affected by argument order and
direction.
P1-33. Daniel G. GOLDSTEIN, & Gerd GIGERENZER (Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, Germany)
Recognition: How to exploit your own lack of knowledge.
The recognition principle is a fundamental heuristic for inference.
This heuristic advises considering only recognized alternatives when
choosing among several. From this principle is deduced a
counter-intuitive state of affairs wherein certain incomplete knowledge
states allow one to make better inferences than more complete knowledge
states. The conditions necessary for this less-is-more effect are
stated. Through experiment and computer simulation, a less-is-more
effect in a real-world environment is demonstrated.
P1-34. Laura MARTIGNON, Gerd GIGERENZER (Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich), & Kathryn LASKEY (Dept. of Systems Engineering, George Mason Univ.)
Evaluating fast and frugal choice heuristics.
Fast and frugal heuristics are evaluated
against subtle and mighty Laplacean Demons. The question concerning
the real nature of Laplacean Demons is debated (the metaphor used by
Gigerenzer and Goldstein is a slightly modified version of Laplaces
omniscient creature: she does not have all information but operates
optimally on the available information). Multiple Regression is only
one of the candidates Demon may use. What characterizes Demon is the
flexibility to use one or the other strategy according to each
environment. Good candidates in Demon's toolkit are well specified
Bayesian Networks and Classification Trees. But if an analysis of
computational costs is performed by Demon, she may well end up choosing
a simple and more frugal algorithm like Take The Best, whose accuracy
does not fall too far behind that of mightier algorithms.
P1-35. Michael SCHMITT (Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Technische Universitaet Graz, Austria), & Laura MARTIGNON (Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich)
Improving the performance of satisficing cognitive algorithms.
We
investigate a family of cognitive algorithms that has been proposed
recently by Gigerenzer and Goldstein (1996) to model a kind of human
behavior - known as one-reason decision making - in the task of
comparing two objects as to which scores higher on a given criterion
based on binary cue information. How should the cues be ranked in
order to achieve the largest number of correct decisions? We provide a
theoretical framework for studying this question by analyzing the
approximation capabilities of satisficing cognitive algorithms. We
introduce an algorithm that has not been considered before and show
that it can be used to improve the performance of any cue-based
algorithm in many cases. We also exhibit a relation between the
comparison task and a class of problems that is studied in the area of
machine learning.
P1-36. Ryan O. MURPHY (Dept. of Psychology, Western Washington Univ.)
Stability of calibration biases over time.
Recent research in judgment and decision making
(Yates, 1989) indicates that there are significant cross-national
differences in levels of miscalibration biases (suboptimal resolution
and overconfidence). However, investigations of miscalibration biases
are based on an implicit assumption that has yet to be empirically
validated. The researchers assumed that individuals have a relatively
stable level of judgment biases on the same task over time. Ongoing
research indicates that this previous assumption is valid. The
distribution of miscalibration biases are also reported.
P1-37. Todd R. DAVIES (Koc Univ., Istanbul)
Effects of available time on confidence following choice.
Previous experiments indicated that subjects' generic
confidence is reduced by the "half-range method" of probability
assessment, which forces the subject to make a binary choice between
propositions prior to expressing a probability. Further experiments by
Davies (1995) indicated that this effect can be eliminated (and
possibly reversed) when subjects reflect sufficiently on the binary
choice and gain insight through this process. New studies in Turkey
and the U.S. show that manipulating the time available for assessment
is sufficient to induce reduction in confidence following choice. With
enough time, the effect of choice on confidence depends systematically
on propositional content.
P1-38. Jack SOLL (INSEAD, France), Joshua KLAYMAN (Graduate Sch. of Business, Univ. of Chicago), Claudia GONZALEZ-VALLEJO (Ohio Univ.), & Sema BARLAS (Direct Marketing Technology)
An unbiased test of the hard/easy effect.
The hard/easy
effect is a well-known yet disputed result in probability judgment
tasks: People are overconfident for hard items and underconfident for
easy ones. Several authors have illustrated how the traditional method
of dividing questions by difficulty leads to artifactual results.
Random sampling methods are also problematic. We employ a
"split-sample" technique that provides an unbiased test. The hard/easy
effect disappears when comparing domains, but reappears when comparing
people. Participants who are less accurate or more overconfident on
one sample of questions tend to be more overconfident on another
sample. We discuss several possible explanations.
P1-39. Gregory L. BRAKE, Michael E. DOHERTY (Dept. of Psychology, Bowling Green State Univ.), & Gernot D. KLEITER (Univ. of Salzburg)
A lens model approach to calibration.
The calibration
task used in the present studies was designed with Brunswik's
strictures concerning representative design in mind, and conceptualized
within a Lens Model framework as well as a calibration framework.
Twenty subjects who were knowledgeable about baseball predicted winners
of rich but incomplete descriptions of 150 randomly sampled baseball
games, making half-scale probability judgments that the predicted teams
would win. In a replication, 20 additional subjects were run, ten
making half-scale judgments and ten full-scale judgments. In both
experiments, substantial underconfidence was found in the great
majority of subjects. The relationship between calibration accuracy
measures and the Lens Model indices is explored.
P1-40. Paul C. PRICE (Dept. of Psychology, California State Univ., Fresno)
Wishful thinking about sporting event outcomes is reduced by a relative-frequency elicitation question.
College sports
fans judged the likelihood that one team would beat another in various
football and basketball games. Some answered a probability question:
"What is the probability that Team A will beat Team B?" Others
answered a relative-frequency question: "Out of 100 games like this one
in all important respects, how many times would Team A beat Team B?"
The positive correlation between the judged likelihood that Team A
would win and the stated desire that Team A would win (wishful
thinking) was reduced or eliminated in the relative-frequency
condition.
P1-41. Alan SANFEY, & Reid HASTIE (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)
Judgment of events: Are we influenced by frequency or probability?
Many everyday judgments and
decisions are based on an evaluation of previously acquired
information. This study examined the influence of both frequency and
probability of event occurrence on judgments of event likelihood.
Participants saw a series of election poll results for various
candidates. Each candidate's frequency of winning was varied
independently of the their probability of winning, enabling a
determination of whether win frequency or win probability influenced
subjects' predictions of the winner of the election. Experiment 1 used
a new context to replicate Estes' (1976) finding. Experiment 2
addressed some methodological limits of experiment 1.
P1-42. Peter MCGRAW, & Barbara MELLERS (The Ohio State University)
Anticipation of value and the endowment effect.
Good
decision making requires the ability to make accurate predictions of
value. This study investigates how well people predict the values they
later assign to objects. First we ask people to predict the value they
would attach to a coffee mug if they were given one. Then half receive
a mug, and half do not receive a mug. For those given a mug, we assess
the minimum selling price they would be willing to accept for the mug
(WTA). Those without a mug are given a choice between a mug and a
range of cash amounts. The minimum price they would accept in lieu of
a mug is defined as their maximum buying price or their willingness to
purchase a mug (WTP). Actual WTA value is greater than anticipated
value, and actual WTP value is less than anticipated. Discrepancies
were in a self-serving direction despite both groups awareness of their
initial valuation.
P1-43. Pia WENNERHOLM, & Peter JUSLIN (Dept. of Psychology, Uppsala Univ., Sweden)
Base-rate inverse and base-rate neglect in categorization: A test of the elimination hypothesis.
A new explanation of the
base-rate inverse effect (Medin & Edelson, 1988) and
base-rate neglect (Gluck & Bower, 1988) in the
categorization literature is tested. This explanation rests on two
assumptions: (1) At the early stages of learning, a high-level
reasoning process referred to as elimination operates, leading
to base-rate inverse, (2) After further training, with more trials than
in previous experiments, participants change into exemplar-based
processing and learn to appreciate base rates. Two experiments, which
partly replicate the studies by Medin and Edelson (1988) and Gluck and
Bower (1988) reveal a pattern consistent with the elimination
hypothesis.
P1-44. Ralph HERTWIG (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany), Peter SEDLMEIER (Univ. of Paderborn, Germany), & Gerd GIGERENZER (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany)
Judgments of letter frequencies: Are they systematically biased due to availability?
How do humans estimate whether a particular letter is more
frequent in the first versus in a later position in written words? We
tested four hypotheses, two of them precise versions of the
"availability heuristic," a third that assumes that frequency
processing occurs on the level of the phonological classes of vowels
and consonants, and a fourth--the regressed-frequencies
hypothesis--that assumes an (imperfect) monitoring of individual
letters. The results are closest to the predictions of the
regressed-frequencies hypothesis. They are inconsistent with Tversky
and Kahneman's (1973) conclusion that judgments of letter frequencies
are systematically biased due to availability.
P2-1. Tiffany BARNETT (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
Making tough decisions that count: The moderating role of trust on information processing in complex decision making.
In this
study, we investigate the impact of trust on consumers' information
processing and search behavior in high stakes, complex decisions. The
study addresses the following questions: Does having a trustworthy
service provider to share decision making responsibilities with
significantly impact the amount and depth of processing in which
consumers engage (i.e., are consumers more likely to rely on
heuristics)? If so, is the importance of trust more or less meaningful
as decisions become less complex? Lastly, how does the impact of
established trust in a service relationship differ when there is no
trust or an active element of distrust.
P2-2. Marlene MORRIS (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
Effects of product innovation and decision-related emotion on consumer decision avoidance.
The focus of the present research is on the
effects of affective influences (decision-related emotion, attitudes)
and product innovativeness on consumer decision making and likelihood
of decision avoidance. Two proposed contributions of this research
are, first, an examination of the construct of product innovativeness,
identifying two distinct categories: newness of the product and degree
of continuous innovation. A second contribution will be an examination
of the effects of decision-related emotion on conflict and decision
avoidance. Possible interactions between product innovativeness and
decision-related emotion are predicted and will be examined.
P2-3. Sue O'CURRY (Dept. of Marketing, DePaul Univ.), & Ching-Fan SHEU (Dept. of Psychology, DePaul Univ.)
Reference price formation: Which variables matter?
We report the
results of several studies designed to explore reference price
formation. Using an experimental approach derived from psychophysics,
we presented subjects with price sequences varying in regularity,
proportion of time on discount, depth of discount, shape of sequence,
and presence or absence of brand name. We elicited reference prices
and ranges of normal price. The data indicate that depth of price cut
has a significant impact on estimates of price. In addition, branding
leads to higher estimates of the least upper bound of the price range,
pointing to a significant role for non-price information in reference
price formation.
P2-4. Carla C. CHANDLER, Leilani A. GREENING, & Leslie ROBISON (Dept. of Psychology, Washington State Univ.)
How base rates frame personal risk judgments.
When women
judge their risk of getting osteoporosis, their estimates tend to be
much lower than the stated base rate (50%) because they believe that
they have a better-than-average family history. In contrast, risk
judgments tend to match the stated values if the base rates are
contingent on family history (e.g., the risk is 55% for those who have
a family history of osteoporosis and 45% for those who do not). While
contingent base rates provide a frame that constrains risk judgments,
they do not make women more worried about osteoporosis and thus may not
influence personal decisions.
P2-5. Judith L. REESE, Sandra L. SCHNEIDER, Theresa E. HNATH-CHISOLM, & Harvey B. ABRAMS (Univ. of South Florida)
Message framing and intervention approach to encourage hearing aid use.
Hearing aid use can reduce the
handicapping effects of hearing loss and improve quality-of-life in
older, hearing impaired individuals; yet, hearing aids are
underutilized by this group. A counseling intervention to persuade
them to use hearing aids was assessed. Both message frame (i.e.,
negative, positive or minimal) and intervention approach (i.e.,
prescribed treatment or optional service) were manipulated. Results
suggest that the negatively framed message with either approach was
especially influential in getting participants to keep their hearing
aids, as was the prescribed treatment approach when combined with a
minimal message. The positively framed message was generally
ineffective.
P2-6. Celia E. WILLS (Coll. of Nursing, Michigan State Univ.), & Colleen F. MOORE (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
Judgments of likelihood and confidence for antidepressant medication acceptance.
Students (N=89) rated
likelihood and confidence for accepting an antidepressant medication
based on efficacy and risk of nausea information presented in
hypothetical consent-for-treatment forms. Ratings were made for four
different formats of nausea base rate risk information for positive and
negative frames. A framing effect occurred for likelihood ratings for
positive versus negative frames. Students who made ratings for only
one frame were more likely to have zero variability in likelihood and
confidence ratings than students who made ratings for both frames.
Likelihood and confidence ratings were correlated positively.
Implications for health risk communications and informed consent will
be described.
P2-7. Kristina G. GORBATENKO-ROTH (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Stout), & Irwin P. LEVIN (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Iowa)
Capturing patients' judgment policies in weighting different domains of quality of life.
The goal
was to determine how individual differences in weighting the following
domains of quality of life account for overall differences in patients'
evaluation of medical outcomes: physical functioning, emotional
functioning, and role (job) functioning. "Policy capturing"
methodology was used in which medical patients rated their anticipated
satisfaction with each of a series of hypothetical scenarios defined by
varying levels of functioning on each of the three domains. Regression
analysis showed that a model which incorporated individual differences
in domain weighting significantly outperformed a model which placed
equal weight on each of the three domains of quality of life.
P2-8. Mandeep K. DHAMI, & Peter AYTON (Dept. of Psychology, City Univ., London)
A policy capturing study of magistrates' bail decision making.
The policy capturing method developed
in social judgement theory was used to examine magistrates' bail
decisions. A sample of magistrates made bail decisions upon
hypothetical cases and then ranked the cues according to their relative
importance in making their decisions. Policy capturing research has
consistently found that: (a) linear models can quite accurately
represent the judge; (b) judges utilise a small number of cues; (c)
judges are inconsistent; (d) there are inter-individual differences in
policies; and (e) judges lack insight into their policies. The results
of this study are discussed in relation to these findings. The
practical implications are also discussed.
P2-9. Patrik N. JUSLIN (Dept. of Psychology, Uppsala Univ., Sweden)
Judgment analysis of emotional communication in music performance.
Music performers are able to communicate specific emotions to
listeners. The performers use a number of cues in the performance to
generate the emotional expression, and listeners employ the same cues
in their judgments of the expression. However, to improve the
communicative process it is necessary to relate encoding to decoding
aspects. In this study, multiple regression was applied to the
relationships between (a) the performer's intention and the cues, and
(b) the listener's judgment and the cues. The two systems were related
using the Lens Model Equation. The results show how performers can
become better at communicating emotions to listeners.
P2-10. Ellen PETERS (Univ. of Oregon), & Paul SLOVIC (Univ. of Oregon and Decision Research)
Impact of emotional information in complex decisions.
Emotional information is predicted to loom
larger in complex than simple decisions, particularly for individuals
who tend to be high in emotional processing. Subjects are presented
with simple and complex pairs of options. One option - the emotional
option - is preferred for noninstrumental, emotional reasons while the
other option - the analytical option - is preferred for instrumental
reasons. Complex decisions include additional attribute information.
Emotional information weighed more heavily in complex decisions - the
emotional option was chosen more often in complex than simple
decisions. Individuals high (as compared to low) in tendency towards
emotional processing showed this effect more strongly.
P2-11. Lisa J. ABENDROTH (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
Regrettably so: The effects of justification, action, and outcome knowledge on regret.
This research examines how reasoning
during the decision process interacts with action/inaction and outcome
knowledge to influence regret. The first experiment found that
action/inaction distinctions had no effect on the justifiability of
reasons and that the valence of an outcome affected bad reasons only.
Results of the two main experiments indicated that good reasoning
provides insulation against regret only when the more favorable,
alternative outcome is unknown. In addition to replicating the
commission bias when no reasons were provided, results from the third
experiment revealed that perceived effort may mediate the effect action
has on regret.
P2-12. Monica D. BARNES, & Sandra L. SCHNEIDER (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of South Florida)
The relationship between omission and status quo biases and affective reactions to lottery outcomes.
218 subjects participated in
a lottery where they had the opportunity to win or lose a small prize.
Prior to the lottery, participants could either move (act) or stay
(fail to act) and either switch their endowed status quo prize (change
status quo) or keep it (maintain status quo). Using a questionnaire,
participants' affective reactions were assessed both immediately and
one week after the lottery. No effects were found for regret, but
there was an omission bias for satisfaction. Results are discussed in
comparison to previous anticipatory scenario studies of regret and
satisfaction.
P2-13. Léonie E. M. GERRITSEN, & Gideon B. KEREN (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands)
How does information about choice options influence regret and disappointment?
In a series of experiments, we examined how
pre- and postdecisional information influences the intensity of
experienced regret and disappointment. Results show that predecisional
information, a manipulation of whether a negative outcome was
foreseeable or not, only influenced the intensity of regret.
Postdecisional probabilistic information, given a negative outcome,
influenced the intensity of both regret and disappointment, although in
opposite ways. Results will be discussed in the context of regret and
disappointment theories.
P2-14. Gal ZAUBERMAN, & Dan ARIELY (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
The moderating role of evaluation goals on sequential effects: The relationship between hedonic and informational evaluation.
This work examines
the effects of the evaluation goals (Hedonic and Informational) on the
final retrospective evaluation of experiences. Specifically, we
examine different characteristics of the experience's pattern and their
role in impacting its overall evaluation under these two goals. The
pattern parameters used are, Initial information, Peak intensity, Final
information, and Rate of change. Different intensity patterns were
used in order to estimate the effect of these parameters. The results
indicate that evaluations under the two modalities are different with
respect to the parameters noted above. In other words, the evaluation
mode systematically impacts the way information over time is
integrated.
P2-15. Carla M. KMETT (Univ. of Dayton), Hal R. ARKES (Ohio Univ.), & Steven K. JONES (Air Force Academy)
The influence of two decision aids on high school students' satisfaction with their college choice.
Recent research
suggests that examining the bases of one's decisions can lower
subsequent satisfaction with the outcome of those decisions. We
predicted the contrary result in a field study using high school
students' college choice. Some students used no decision aid, some
used a pro/con list, and some used a computer program in making their
actual college choice. The two aids resulted in significantly higher
outcome satisfaction when assessed after one college term. However
this result was found only among those students whose initial bases for
their decision were less accessible on a subsequent memory test.
P2-16. Laura HUTZEL, & Hal R. ARKES (Dept. of Psychology, Ohio Univ.)
Regret may be a fuel for inaction inertia.
Some participants reported their propensity to buy shoes for $90 after
missing an initial opportunity to buy them for either $80 or $40.
Other participants reported the amount of regret they felt over missing
the initial opportunity. The availability of the initial opportunity
varied by three locations: Columbus, Ohio; St. Louis; or Southeast
Asia. When the missed deal was great and available, regret was high
and propensity to buy was low. When the missed deal was not so great
and/or not available, regret was low and the propensity to buy was
high. We hypothesize that regret fuels inaction inertia.
P2-17. Hal R. ARKES, & Laura HUTZEL (Dept. of Psychology, Ohio Univ.)
The role of probability of success estimates in the sunk cost effect.
Arkes and Blumer (1985) demonstrated that
those who want to continue investing in a failing course of action
inflate its estimated probability of success [p(s)]. Participants
rated a project's p(s) either before or after making an investment
decision. The latter group manifested a significantly higher p(s) than
the former, suggesting that inflating the p(s) retroactively
"rationalizes" the prior investment decision rather than mediates the
investment decision. Also, compared to participants who didn't want to
invest, those who did thought that such an investment would be
significantly more influential in promoting the project's success.
P2-18. Elmer Anita THAMES (John Carroll Univ.)
The effect of mental accounting, endowment, and sex on the sunk-cost effect.
This study examined how sunk-cost effects vary with mental
accounting, endowment, and sex. Subjects' decision to reinvest,
decision confidence, annoyance at paying the reinvestment cost, and
disappointment at missing the investment event were assessed. There
were significant effects for sunk-cost and mental-accounting
manipulations as well as an interaction between them. Decision makers'
sex also produced significant effects. Endowment manipulations did not
reach significance.
P2-19. Bennett CHERRY, Lisa ORDÓÑEZ, & Stephen GILLILAND (Dept. of Management and Policy, Univ. of Arizona)
Grade expectations: The effects of expectations on fairness and satisfaction.
Subjects judged
the satisfaction and fairness of grades in either a hypothetical,
laboratory context or in an actual classroom situation. Expectations
of grades were manipulated in the lab study and measured in the field
study. The results indicate that, contrary to Equity Theory, grades
exceeding expectations were judged to be equally fair as grades meeting
expectations. However, lower than expected grades were judged to be
unfair. Satisfaction judgments for the same stimuli showed loss
aversion.
P2-20. Lisa ORDÓÑEZ, Terry CONNOLLY, & Richard COUGHLAN (Dept. of Management and Policy, Univ. of Arizona)
Multiple reference points in pay satisfaction assessments.
MBA students judged the satisfaction and
fairness of salary offers given to a hypothetical MBA graduate.
Subjects were presented with information about offers received by one
or two other graduates with similar backgrounds as well as the offer to
the focal graduate. Both satisfaction and fairness ratings were
consistent with subjects comparing the offer with other offers one at a
time and then combining the feelings associated with these
comparisons.
P2-21. Michael E. WALKER (Ohio State Univ.), & Osvaldo F. MORERA (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago)
Disparate WTA/WTP disparities? The influence of human vs. natural causes.
Contrary to predictions of economic theory,
evidence suggests the value associated with willingness to accept
compensation (WTA) for a product far exceeds the value to pay (WTP) for
that object (Knetsch and Sinden, 1984). In the context of compensation
for damage, cause of damage (human versus naturally-occurring)
influences estimates for both WTA (Ritov and Baron, 1990) and WTP
(Kahneman, Ritov, Jacowitz, and Grant, 1993). In this study, subjects
provided WTA and WTP judgments in scenarios where cause of damage was
either human or natural. Results suggest interactions between type of
value judgment and context may influence WTA/WTP disparities.
P2-22. David V. BUDESCU, Kristine M. KUHN, Karen KRAMER, James HERSHEY, & Adrian RANTILLA (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Tradeoffs in risk attributes: The joint effects of dimension preference and vagueness.
Previous
research has demonstrated that people are generally averse to
imprecisely specified (vague) probabilities and/or outcomes. The
current research investigated the joint effects of vagueness in
both dimensions. Subjects provided Certainty Equivalents for vague and
precise positive gambles over a wide range of probabilities and
outcomes. Imprecise probabilities and outcomes were equated in terms
of their effects on the gambles' expected values, providing a
meaningful metric for comparison. We found slight vagueness
avoidance for probabilities and quite strong preference for
vague outcomes. A general model of decision making with vaguely
specified attributes that captures this pattern is proposed.
P2-23. Kristine M. KUHN, & David V. BUDESCU (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Reversal of preferences for vagueness in risky decision making.
This
study demonstrates response mode effects in expressed preferences for
vagueness. We analyzed individual and group data from two studies
where subjects evaluated hypothetical risks, of equal expected loss, by
using direct choice and ratings of individual options.
We found (1) a greater tendency to express indifference via ratings,
and (2) stronger vagueness avoidance in ratings than choice. Choice
depends primarily on the mean values of the two dimensions, whereas
ratings are also affected by the relative precision of the
probabilities and outcomes. This suggests that the precision with
which attributes are specified functions as a secondary (less
prominent) dimension.
P2-24. Mary E. HUNEKE, Wendy S. FORBES, Irwin P. LEVIN (Univ. of Iowa), & J. D. JASPER (Univ. of Toronto)
Comparing decision processes in set formation and final choice.
Process tracing measures were derived from an information
search and monitoring task in which some subjects were asked to form a
set of options for later consideration; others made only a final
choice; and others used a "phased narrowing" task in which they first
formed a consideration set and then made a final choice from this set.
The following issues were addressed: 1) Processing differences between
set formation and choice; 2) Inclusion vs. exclusion processes in set
formation; and 3) Trade-offs in effort devoted to set formation and
final choice.
P2-25. Melissa L. FINUCANE (Decision Research), Murray T. MAYBERY, & Dan MILECH (Univ. of Western Australia)
Behavioral decision theories: Competing or complementary?
Typically, decision researchers adopt a priori one model of
individuals' decision strategies, and fit data to the model.
Consequently, over-fitting of the data is common and the relative
explanatory power of alternative models is ignored. Two studies are
reported, demonstrating a technique for directly comparing strategies
from two traditionally competing explanations of decision making:
information integration theory and simplification theory. The findings
showed that different strategies from the two theories are used
reliably, and that the type of decision problem influences strategy
selection. Rather than competing, the theories complement each other
in explaining how individuals make decisions for a range of decision
problems.
P2-26. Murray T. MAYBERY (Univ. of Western Australia), Melissa L. FINUCANE (Decision Research), & Dan MILECH (Univ. of Western Australia)
On the importance of value trees in the evaluation process: Do superstructure and detail matter?
Value trees generated using multiattribute utility technology
are useful in assessing conflict over the importance of different
pieces of decision information. Previous research on the effects of
tree construction confounded the manipulation of superstructure and
detail with changing the surface structure context in which attributes
were weighted. In the present study, relative importance weights were
elicited from 64 participants for attributes organised in trees that
differed in superstructure and detail, but held constant the surface
structure context. The results indicated that weights were influenced
greatly by attribute detail, but only to a limited extent by changes in
superstructure.
P2-27. Linda R. ELLIOTT (Armstrong Laboratories), John R. HOLLENBECK (Michigan State Univ.), & Philip T. DUNWOODY (Univ. of Georgia)
Conflicting information in simultaneous and sequential displays: Patterns of decision error in a multiple-cue threat assessment task.
Complex information is increasingly represented using
visual displays configured to enhance perception, comprehension, and
decision making. In this study, we expected to distinguish patterns of
decision error based on existence of conflicting information and
simultaneous versus sequential display of information. We predicted
that a sequential display of information would be more likely to result
in primacy error, consistent with Anchoring and Adjustment theory. In
contrast, decision making in a simultaneous display condition was
predicated to be characterized by an averaging heuristic, reflecting a
tendency to process information more holistically (Hammond et al.
1987). Results supported hypotheses as predicted.
P2-28. Robert P. MAHAN, Philip T. DUNWOODY (Univ. of Georgia), & Linda R. ELLIOTT (Crew Technology, Armstrong Labs)
Effects of representation fidelity on judgment simulation performance: More is different.
In training simulation research, the more
fidelity achievable, the better the simulation is assumed to depict the
task. However, altering a simulation representation may fundamentally
alter task properties, as well as the responses to the task. This
study demonstrated that a threat assessment simulation presented in a
low fidelity numeric format versus a higher fidelity graphical format
produced two distinct performance profiles. Here, the Numeric format
supported highest performance under low complexity conditions, while,
the graphical version supported highest performance under higher
complexity conditions. The outcomes appear related to the organizing
principles activated by the different formats. The results suggest
that performance measures geared to specific organizing principles
induced by format should be considered integral to any simulation
development program.
P2-29. Robert M. ROE (Purdue Univ.), Stephen E. EDGELL, & William P. NEACE (Univ. of Louisville)
Sequential versus simultaneous presentation of information in a probabilistic, decision-making-like environment.
Three
studies explored the effect of presenting two information dimensions
simultaneously or sequentially in a probabilistic, decision-making-like
environment. With varying presentation order, the utilization of a
single relevant dimension was less with sequential presentation.
However, with a constant order of presentation this effect occurred
only when the irrelevant dimension was presented first. If the pattern
and one dimension were relevant, the effect was small for utilization
of the dimension, but larger for utilization of the pattern.
P2-30. Eric. R. STONE, & Carolyn J. RUSH (Wake Forest Univ.)
Risk communication: The effectiveness of graphical modes depends on the risk magnitude.
Previous research we have
conducted comparing graphical presentational formats to numerical
formats found that, for low-probability risk magnitudes, graphical
formats induced greater professed risk-avoidant behavior than did
numerical formats. In two studies, the present research found that
this effect did not generalize to situations with higher risk
magnitudes. These results suggest that framing effects found in the
risk communication literature may be dependent on the risk level
employed, and in particular may be most common with low-probability
scenarios, perhaps due to people's unfamiliarity with such low
probabilities.
P2-31. Stuart M. SENTER, & Douglas H. WEDELL (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of South Carolina)
Information presentation constraints and judgment accuracy.
Participants judged the attractiveness of apartments under
constraints which forced them to view information either by alternative
or by dimension. Results from previous research on choice under
presentation constraints has shown that dimensionwise constraints
result in more accurate choices and less effort expenditure than
alternativewise constraints. It was found that the dimensionwise
constraint resulted in more accurate judgments within a choice set,
while the alternativewise constraint resulted in more accurate
judgments between sets. Results are discussed in relation to process
tracing methodologies and the findings of previous research utilizing
presentation constraints.
P2-32. Jonathan C. PETTIBONE, & Douglas H. WEDELL (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of South Carolina)
Contextual sensitivity of ideal point preferences.
Contextual sensitivity of ideal point preferences has been established
for psychophysical stimuli (Riskey, Parducci, & Beauchamp, 1979)
such as sweetness of a beverage but not for social judgments such as
attractiveness. In three experiments, we explore this issue using
computer generated faces that varied in nose width and eye gap. In
Experiment 1, participants made descriptive and attractiveness
judgments of faces that varied on one feature. In Experiment 2, both
features were manipulated together. In Experiment 3, participants
chose which of three faces was most attractive. Results from all three
experiments support the contextual sensitivity of ideals for
attractiveness.
P2-33. Winston R. SIECK (Univ. of Michigan)
Range and frequency effects on probability judgment.
Two
experiments examined the effects of the range and relative-frequency of
objective probabilities (OP) in the stimulus set on subjective
probabilites (SP). Experiment 1 stimulus sets had either relatively
more or fewer mid-range than extreme OPs (i.e., hard vs. easy
environments). Experiment 2 stimulus sets consisted of either a narrow
or wide range of OPs corresponding to hard and easy environments. The
hard-easy effect was essentially replicated. Results were consistent
with range-frequency theory which suggests that the hard-easy effect
reflects a tendency to assign the same number of presented OPs to each
of the SP categories available.
P2-34. Bridget C. FLANNERY, Stacey A. NEFF, Jeremy D. JOKINEN, & Bruce W. CARLSON (Ohio Univ.)
Judgmental forecasting when changes occur in a time series.
In this study, we investigated how people respond to changes in
the direction of a time series when making forecasts. We found that
people produce forecasts that are too close to the most recent value of
a time series, a result that is consistent with previous research and
that has been described as an anchoring effect. We also found that
this conservatism decreases as people gain experience with a time
series. Finally, we found little evidence that the time to make a
forecast is related to changes in a time series. The implications of
these results are discussed.
P2-35. Ayse ONCULER (Dept. of Operations & Information Management, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania)
Modeling intertemportal choice under uncertainty.
The purpose of this experimental study is to
examine if future uncertainty is treated differently than immediate
uncertainty and future certainty. The findings suggest risk
preferences depend on the time period over which the outcomes are
evaluated. Specifically, risk aversion decreases with respect to
future gains and increases with respect to future losses. Based on the
experimental observations, an intertemporal choice model is constructed
to study the change in the behavior due to future uncertainty.
P2-36. Dilip SOMAN (College of Business, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder)
Virtual progress: The importance of being on the move vs. getting there.
We examine service situations in which
the start and end times are constant but the path characteristics are
manipulated. Subjects indicated a preference for services with lower
idle duration, in which idling occurs in the middle of the interval
rather than at the beginning, and in which there is physical movement
towards the goal for a large part of the interval. Thus, subjects
choose alternatives in which they experience a sense of progress even
though the actual goal might be reached at the same time. We refer to
this as virtual progress. We show that virtual progress influences
choice prior to the service experience but not the satisfaction when
evaluated after the service. Further, virtual progress influences
preferences in situations where the indivdual presonally experiences
the passage of time due to salience.
P2-37. Scott HIGHHOUSE (Bowling Green State Univ.), Susan MOHAMMED (Pennsylvania State Univ.), & Jody R. HOFFMAN (Bowling Green State Univ.)
Temporal discounting of strategic issues: Bold forecasts for opportunities and threats.
Asymmetrical discounting of
strategic issues was found such that students (N = 86) discounted
distant threats more than distant opportunities. In addition, even
though immediate threats were viewed just as likely to occur as
immediate opportunities, distant threats were seen as less plausible
than distant opportunities. Experiment 2 (N = 222) found that a
manipulation of a threat's likelihood of occurring had no effect on the
temporal discounting of the hypothetical threat. However, the
perceived control of threats increased as temporal distance increased.
We conclude that perceived control plays an important role in the
reduced plausibility of distant threats.
P2-38. Michael J. ZICKAR, & Scott HIGHHOUSE (Bowling Green State Univ.)
Examining framing effects using item response theory.
Item response theory (IRT) models were estimated for four risky-choice
problems, answered by students under either a gain or loss frame. IRT
methodology allowed an in-depth examination of several issues that
would be difficult to explore using traditional methodology. Results
support the typical framing finding of risk-aversion for gains and
risk-seeking for losses. However, results suggest that individual
differences in preference-for-risk are more influential in predicting
risky choice than framing condition. Also, these results suggested
that the Asian Disease problem, most often used in framing research,
has anomalous statistical properties when compared to other framing
problems.
P2-39. Laurie ZIEGLER (Univ. of Texas at Dallas)
Risk preferences in strategic decision making: Influences of decision importance.
Research supporting prospect theory's
predictions concerning the effects of gain/loss framing on risk
preferences has focused on very important decisions. However, it has
not systematically examined the effects of decision importance on risk
preferences. The joint effects of gain/loss orientation and decision
importance on managerial risk preferences in strategic decision making
are examined. Experimental results indicate that decision importance
moderates gain/loss framing effects. Subjects' choices were risk
seeking for low importance decisions framed as gains. Consequences of
this study for understanding how decision importance affects risk
preferences are considered.
P2-40. Timothy R. JOHNSON (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
On the (nonlinear) multivariate analysis and representation of subjective probability judgments.
One common form of data in judgment
and decision making research is a n by m array of subjective
probability judgments made by n judges regarding m events. This study
demonstrates the application of multivariate analytical and
representation methods to these arrays based on nonlinear principal
components and biplot displays. In the application and interpretation
of these methods, the distinction is made between half- and full-range
judgments as well as between confidence and forecasting judgment data.
The distinction is also made between absolute and ordinal level
judgment data. The proposed methodology is extensively demonstrated
with an empirical data set.
P2-41. Robert B. BRANSTROM (Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Choice response times and an interactive activation network model of multiattribute choice.
Multiattribute decision models
typically assume that utilities derived from attribute values are based
on fixed utility functions. Alternatively, an interactive activation
network model assumes attribute nodes receive initial activations
related to attribute values, but activations then change dynamically as
the network "settles into" a solution. In a two alternative, two
attribute choice task, this model, like utility based models, correctly
predicts decisions for compensatory and dominated choices. However,
the network model predicts a pattern of decision response times not
predicted by conventional multiattribute models. Empirical results
support the network model's predicted patten of response
times.
P2-42. Kenneth RONA (Fuqua Sch. of Business, Duke Univ.)
Growing decision rules.
This paper presents a computer
simulation that "grows" decision rules according to evolutionary
principles. Decision rules are made up of elementary information
processes with initial rules being randomly generated. A large number
of rules are constructed, presented with a risky choice problem, and
then evaluated based on their performance on some set of goals. Rules
are then selected from the population based on their performance and
combined with each other to create new decision rules to be represented
in the next generation. Rules that are more fit will emerge over time,
thereby identifying the most fit type of rules in a given decision
environment.
P2-43. Marcus O'CONNOR (Univ. of New South Wales, Australia)
The asymmetry of judgemental confidence intervals in time series forecasting.
This study examines the prevalence
and determinants of the symmetry of judgemental confidence intervals
around the forecast in time series forecasting. Most prior research on
judgemental confidence intervals has assumed that the intervals are
symmetrically placed around the forecast. However, this study shows
that people are extremely disposed towards estimating asymmetric
confidence intervals and that many of these intervals are grossly
asymmetric. Results indicate that the placement of the forecast in
relation to the last actual value is a major determinant of the
direction and size of the asymmetry.