How to Make Decisions in An Uncertain World: Heuristics,Biases, and Risk Perception

From the seventies onward a large quantity of theoretical and empirical studies have investigated the heuristic principles and cognitive strategies that individuals use to deal with risky and uncertain situations. This research has shown how the explicative and predictive shortcomings of normative risk analysis depend in many respects on undervaluing the continuous interaction between the individual and the environment. There are factors that, day by day, represent significant obstacles to decision making.     

Doing as they would do: How the perceived ethical preferences of third-party beneficiaries impact ethical decision-making

Although unethical behavior often benefits third-parties not directly complicit in the misconduct, not all beneficiaries welcome these ill-gotten benefits. We investigate whether actors consider the ethical preferences of potential beneficiaries or rely solely on their own ethical predispositions when making decisions that affect others. Three studies demonstrate that the perceived ethical preferences of these beneficiaries can substantially influence the likelihood that actors behave unethically on their behalves. These studies show that actors consider the ethical preferences of beneficiaries only when their own ethical disposition is outcome-based.     

复杂问题解决：探索人们如何控制复杂动态系统

复杂问题解决研究的目的是探索人们如何处理复杂、动态任务。Dorner作为该领域的先驱,将计算机模拟情境作为研究工具,后来的研究者从不同的角度进行复杂问题解决研究。本文介绍了复杂问题解决研究的发展历史,总结了复杂问题解决情境的特征,包括动态性、复杂性、模糊性以及时间滞后性,进一步比较了复杂问题解决与自然决策和动态决策的差别。在此基础上,从控制系统的个体要求以及系统特征等方面总结了在Dorner的个体差异比较范式下复杂问题解决研究的进展。最后提出复杂问题解决研究的展望。     

The physician values in practice scale: Construction and initial validation

Measures of values typically appraise the construct globally, across life domains or relative to a broad life domain such as work. We conducted two studies to construct and initially validate an occupation- and context-specific values measure. Study 1, based on a sample of 192 medical students, describes the initial construction and item analysis of the physician values in practice scale (PVIPS), which produced a 15-factor model. Study 2 reports on a further analysis and refinement of the instrument with a national sample of 644 medical students. Results supported the basic psychometric properties of the PVIPS items. Exploratory factor analysis in Study 2 extracted six factors consistent with a theoretical model of values (Dawis, 1991) and accounting for 61% of the variance: Prestige, Service, Autonomy, Lifestyle, Management, and Scholarly Pursuits. The PVIPS shows promise as a values measure for medical students and physicians encountering career specialty and medical practice style decisions. Interested researchers may construct similar scales for other occupations to promote contextualized appraisals of values.     

Group transformation: How demonstrability promotes intra-group cooperation in social dilemmas

Intra-group cooperation in a social dilemma is increased after a group has discussed and reached a decision, especially if the dilemma is easily understood (‘demonstrable’). This paper examines how demonstrability affects the decision of a group that consists entirely of participants who are initially non-cooperative. Thirty-eight 6-person groups with unanimous prior preference for cooperation or non-cooperation discussed a prisoner’s dilemma before making a group decision. When demonstrability was low groups reflected the prior (either cooperative or non-cooperative) preferences of their members. When demonstrability was high we found that groups showed no effect of prior preference. Specifically, groups of prior non-cooperators made more cooperative group decisions and subsequently their members remained cooperative when asked to express preferences individually. The combined advantages of group process and high demonstrability for facilitating optimal cooperation are discussed.     

Inherent biases in decision support systems: the influence of optimistic and pessimistic DSS on choice,affect, and attitudes

This study investigates the influence of a decision aid on decision makers' model‐based choices, emotions during the use of the model, and attitudes towards the model. A time allocation decision model was biased to purposefully provide optimistic or pessimistic criterion levels, on which subjects based their allocations. The results of our experiment indicate that the degree of “optimism” and “pessimism” inherent in the decision model had a significant impact on the decision maker's choices of criterion values, with optimism leading to higher criterion level choices and pessimism to lower levels. Furthermore, compared to pessimistic models, optimistic models significantly improved the decision makers' emotional states and, to some degree, their attitudes towards the decision aid. The implications of these conscious and sub‐conscious influences on decision makers' choices, emotions, and attitudes are discussed and the need for model‐builders and users to be aware of them is highlighted. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lateralized goal framing: How health messages are influenced by valence and contextual/analytic processing

The effectiveness of health messages has been shown to vary due to the positive or negative framing of information, often known as goal framing. In two experiments we altered, the strength of the goal framing manipulation by selectively activating the processing style of the left or right hemisphere (RH). In Experiment 1, we found support for the contextual/analytic perspective; a significant goal framing effect was observed when the contextual processing style of the RH – but not the analytic processing style of the left hemisphere (LH) – was initially activated. In Experiment 2, support for the valence hypothesis was found when a message that had a higher level of personal involvement was used than that in Experiment 1. When the LH was initially activated, there was an advantage for the gain- vs. loss-framed message; however, an opposite pattern – an advantage for the loss-framed message – was obtained when the RH was activated. These are the first framing results that support the valence hypothesis. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these experiments.     

Risk and rationality: the influence of decision domain and perceived outcome control on managers' high‐risk decisions

The issue of when managers will undertake different forms and amounts of risk in their new business creation decisions is still not fully understood. To address one facet of this issue, this paper advances the proposition that decision domain and perceived outcome control interact to impact managers' new‐product introduction decisions. Employing a causal method, a nested experimental design and indicators of risk's probability of loss and magnitude of loss elements, the study's results demonstrate that the manager's level of perceived outcome control combines with decision domain to determine subsequent levels of risk taking that are specific to each element of risk. Implications for theory, including prospect theory, and practice, especially firms wanting to pursue today's high‐risk new‐economy based initiatives, are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

It Was a Most Unusual Time: How Memory Bias Engenders Nostalgic Preferences

Nostalgic preferences are widespread—people believe past movies, music, television shows, places, and periods of life to have been better than their present counterparts. Three experiments explored the cognitive underpinnings of nostalgic preferences. Participants rated past experiences to have been superior to similar present and recent experiences. These nostalgic preferences appeared to be due to the belief that the atypically positive experiences that participants recalled at the time of judgment were more representative of their past experiences than of their present experiences. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structuring Case-Based Ethics Training: How Comparing Cases and Structured Prompts Influence Training Effectiveness

This study examined how structuring case-based ethics training, either through (a) case presentation or (b) prompt questions, influences training outcomes. Results revealed an interaction between case presentation and prompt questions such that some form of structure improved effectiveness. Specifically, comparing cases led to greater sensemaking strategy use and decision-ethicality when trainees considered unstructured rather than structured prompts. When cases were presented sequentially, structuring prompts improved training effectiveness. Too much structure, however, decreased future ethical decision making, suggesting that there can be too much of a good thing when structuring case-based ethics education. Implications for designing ethics training programs are discussed.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Individuals are frequently forced to make decisions from among undesirable choice-sets. Raise taxes or cut social services? Lay off workers or go bankrupt? Go deep in debt or forgo a college education? The research presented here suggests that in such situations, decision-makers are often evaluated negatively regardless of the choice they make. In Experiment 1, participants read about a judge deciding which of two seemingly unfit parents to award sole custody in a real-life divorce case. In Experiment 2, participants were led to believe that their partner in the experiment was forced to pick one of two unpleasant tasks for the participant to perform. In both cases, the decision and decision-maker were evaluated negatively regardless of the alternative chosen–and regardless of the fact that they were the only options in the choice-set. Discussion focuses on the source, scope, and consequences of this phenomenon.     

Individual differences in the response to forgone payoffs: an examination of high functioning drug abusers

This study evaluates the effect of forgone payoffs in decision‐making tasks used for studying individual differences. We investigate whether the disclosure of forgone payoffs (defined as payoffs associated with un‐chosen alternatives) has selective effects for drug abusers. Evidence suggests that drug abusers are hypersensitive to signals of positive reward. Accordingly, because the forgone payoffs of risky high‐variability options include rewarding outcomes, this may create a distraction and lead drug abusers to make more risky choices. In a controlled experiment, we examined the behavior of high‐functioning drug abusers and healthy controls using the Iowa gambling task. The results showed that in a forgone payoff condition, drug abusers made more risky choices. The results demonstrate that adding information about forgone payoffs can be useful for studying individual differences, and that studying individual differences can be valuable in evaluating the effects of forgone payoffs. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Malleable conjoint partworths: How the breadth of response scales alters price sensitivity

In one laboratory study and one field study conducted with a large, representative sample of respondents, we show that seemingly innocuous questions that precede a conjoint task, such as demographic and usage-related screening questions can alter the price sensitivities recovered from the main conjoint task. The findings demonstrate that whether these prior questions use broad response categories (i.e., few scale points) or narrow response categories (i.e., many scale points) systematically influences consumers' price sensitivity in a CBC (Choice Based Conjoint) study. We suggest that this may occur because the narrow (vs. broad) response categories in the prior questions lead to consideration of a greater (vs. fewer) number of attributes during the key conjoint task. Since both groups of consumers readily consider the naturally salient price attribute, responding to previous questions with narrow (vs. broad) response categories leads to a greater (vs. fewer) number of non-price attributes being considered, and consequently, decrease the weight afforded to price and reduce price sensitivity.     

How children with facial differences are perceived by non-affected children and adolescents: Perceiver effects on stereotypical attitudes

Children with a facial difference are presumed to be at risk of social stigmatization. The purposes of this study were twofold: (1) to assess the effect of facial differences on social perceptions by unaffected children and adolescents; and (2) to identify perceiver characteristics that predict stereotypical attitudes toward facial differences. Participants were 344 non-affected children and adolescents, ages 8–17 years. Participants rated digitally altered images of 12 children depicted either with or without a facial difference. Results show that participants attributed less favorable characteristics to children with a facial difference than to those without. Moreover, participants reported less willingness to interact with or befriend a child with a facial difference. Significant predictors of low discriminative attitudes were older participant age and previous contact with someone with a facial difference. Our data call attention to the need for public education programs targeted at reducing negative attitudes toward facial differences.     

Perceived product instrumentality: the process of scale purification and validation

Perceived product instrumentality (PPI) is a new construct that is proposed as a key process component of a general model of family purchasing behaviour. PPI reflects the degree to which consumers, apprehended as actors of social roles, deem a product to be helpful, facilitative of role performance, compatible with role identity and congruent with the self‐concept. The objective of this paper is threefold: (1) assess the PPI unidimensionality and reliability; (2) purify the PPI scale, and (3) assess its validity. First, a pilot survey was administered to a convenience sample of men and women, who filled in four identical lists of 33 items tapping their attitudes towards durables, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted on each set to explore the overall pattern of the items relationships. Five try‐out pools of different sizes (33, 28, 15, 13 and 9 items) were involved in the analysis. The 15‐item scale was retained. Secondly, a large‐scale survey was administered to 500 couples as part of an extensive research involving comprehensive model testing. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the whole sample for reliability and unidimensionality assessment. At times, the analysis is done on men's and women's sub‐samples separately in order to account for eventual differences among both populations. Thirdly, confirmatory factor was conducted, splitting the sample into two random halves: the generation sample and the validation sample. The first half served for the PPI scales purification. In this case, PPI was posited as the latent variable and the scale items were posited as the manifest ones. The second served to validate the PPI theory in a system's framework: PPI was posited as a latent dependent variable while other role orientations variables were posited as latent independent variables. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

The Subtle Influence of Check and X Marks: How Symbolic Markings Influence Judgment

Symbols can exert an influence on how we think, feel, and even behave. Here we examine whether symbolic markings serve as primes and influence how people make judgments. We propose that making either a check or an X mark to indicate an opinion can lead people to process the same information differently, thereby influencing the judgment people make. Across four experiments, we find that the check and X marks carry different symbolic associations; people associate check with good and X with bad. We also find downstream consequences of these mental associations. People who make positively connoted check marks (as opposed to negatively connoted X marks) to indicate their judgments are more agreeable toward familiar, controversial social policies as well as market research survey items on values and life styles. Differential symbolic markings with check and X marks seem to shape how people think and make judgments.     

通过医患沟通引导病人就医行为:美国的做法

病人对病情的理解和对医疗信息的记忆能力是医生影响病人就医的基础。耐心的积极教育是病人自愿同意推荐诊疗计划的必须。在协商时尊重病人和知晓病人的期盼对医生如何影响病人的就医行为是很有帮助的。