Intuitive Political Theory: People's Judgments About How Groups Should Decide

Societies must make collective decisions even when citizens disagree, and they use many different political processes to do so. But how do people choose one way to make a group decision over another? We propose that the human mind contains an intuitive political theory about how to make collective decisions, analogous to people's intuitive theories about language, physics, number, minds, and morality. We outline a simple method for studying people's intuitive political theory using scenarios about group decisions, and we begin to apply this approach in three experiments. Participants read scenarios in which individuals in a group have conflicting information (Experiment 1), conflicting interests (Experiment 2), and conflicting interests between a majority and a vulnerable minority who have more at stake (Experiment 3). Participants judged whether the group should decide by voting, consensus, leadership, or chance. Overall, we find that participants prefer majority‐rule voting over consensus, leadership, and chance when a group has conflicting interests or information. However, participants' support for voting is considerably diminished when the group includes a vulnerable minority. Hence, participants showed an intuitive understanding of Madison's concerns about tyranny of the majority.     

Exploring personality preferences in relation to psychological career resources among managerial staff in the Western Cape fast food industry

The study explored the relationship between individuals' personality preferences (as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Form M) and their psychological career resources (as measured by the Psychological Career Resources Inventory) and whether the personality types differed significantly in terms of their psychological career resources. The participants were a non-probability sample (N?=?81; females?=?74%, blacks?=?78%) of managerial-level staff from five fast food franchise restaurants in the Western Cape, South Africa. Quantitative statistical procedures were used to explore the association between the participants' personality preferences and psychological career resources. Findings suggest introverted and extraverted personality type preferences to be significantly associated with the participants' psychological career resources. Major differences were observed for the introverted sensing feeling perceiving (ISFP), extraverted sensing feeling judging (ESFJ), introverted sensing feeling judging (ISFJ), extraverted sensing thinking judging (ESTJ) and introverted sensing thinking judging (ISTJ) personality types in their relationship to the career preference of variety/creativity, need for career growth/development, their self/other skills and social connectivity.     

Distortion of probability and outcome information in risky decisions

Substantial evidence indicates that information is distorted during decision making, but very few studies have assessed the distortion of probability and outcome information in risky decisions. In two studies involving six binary decisions (e.g., banning blood donations from people who have visited England, because of “mad cow disease”), student and nonstudent participants distorted their evaluations of probability and outcome information in the direction of their preferred decision alternative and used these biased evaluations to update their preferences. Participants also evaluated the utilities of possible outcomes more positively when the outcomes could follow only from the preferred alternative and more negatively when they could follow only from the competing alternative. Such circular reasoning is antithetical to the normative consequentialist principles underlying decision analysis. Presenting numerical information as precise values or as ranges of values did not significantly affect information distortion, apparently because the manipulation did not affect perceived ambiguity as intended.     

Leader‐driven distortion of probability and payoff information affects choices between risky prospects

Research indicating that decision makers often distort new information to favor nascent preferences has focused primarily on riskless choice rather than risky choice. In addition, the critical assumption that information distortion mediates the link between the initially preferred alternative and the final choice has not been tested in a compelling manner. In an experiment designed to fill these gaps, participants made six choices involving pairs of hypothetical three‐outcome monetary gambles. We manipulated initial preferences by varying the order in which gamble features were presented. Multilevel regressions indicated that participants distorted their evaluations of precise probabilities and payoffs in the direction of their emerging preferences and that they used their biased evaluations to update those preferences. As expected, information distortion mediated the effect of initial preferences on final choices and final preference strength. In a follow‐up experiment, we compared a standard measure of information distortion (based on comparisons to mean ratings in a no‐choice control task) to a more personalized measure (based on participants' own ratings in the control task) and found the mean‐based measure to be superior for the probability and payoff information in question. Other findings in Experiment 2 corroborated the results of Experiment 1. In both studies, the distortion of quantitative inputs in a simple task highlights the non‐normative circularity of the choice process. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shaping Medical Students' Attitudes Toward Ethically Important Aspects of Clinical Research: Results of a Randomized,Controlled Educational Intervention

The effects of research ethics training on medical students' attitudes about clinical research are examined. A preliminary randomized controlled trial evaluated 2 didactic approaches to ethics training compared to a no-intervention control. The participant-oriented intervention emphasized subjective experiences of research participants (empathy focused). The criteria-oriented intervention emphasized specific ethical criteria for analyzing protocols (analytic focused). Compared to controls, those in the participant-oriented intervention group exhibited greater attunement to research participants' attitudes related to altruism, trust, quality of relationships with researchers, desire for information, hopes about participation and possible therapeutic misconception, importance of consent forms, and deciding quickly about participation. The participant-oriented group also agreed more strongly that seriously ill people are capable of making their own research participation decisions. The criteria-oriented intervention did not affect learners' attitudes about clinical research, ethical duties of investigators, or research participants' decision making. An empathy-focused approach affected medical students' attunement to research volunteer perspectives, preferences, and attributes, but an analytically oriented approach had no influence. These findings underscore the need to further examine the differential effects of empathy-versus analytic-focused approaches to the teaching of ethics.     

The gap between medical and monetary choices under risk persists in decisions for others

Decisions under risk in the medical domain have been found to systematically diverge from decisions in the monetary domain. When making choices between monetary options, people commonly rely on a decision strategy that trades off outcomes with their probabilities; when making choices between medical options, people tend to neglect probability information. In two experimental studies, we tested to what extent differences between medical and monetary decisions also emerge when the decision outcomes affect another person. Using a risky choice paradigm for medical and monetary decisions, we compared hypothetical decisions that participants made for themselves to decisions for a socially distant other (Study 1) and to recommendations as financial advisor or doctor (Study 2). In addition, we examined people's information search in a condition in which information about payoff distributions had to be learned from experiential sampling. Formal modeling and analyses of search behavior revealed a similarly pronounced gap between medical and monetary decisions in decisions for others as in decisions for oneself. Our results suggest that when making medical decisions, people try to avoid the worst outcome while neglecting its probability—even when the outcomes affect others rather than themselves.     

Reactions to Creative Problem Solving Training: Does Cognitive Style Make a Difference?

Creative Problem Solving (CPS), a well‐documented methodology for developing creative‐thinking skills, has often been the focus of studies that have examined the impact of creativity training. The purpose of the present study was to extend this line of research in two ways. The first objective was to evaluate participants' reactions to specific elements of a CPS course. Here participants were asked to rate the CPS components, stages, principles, and tools for enjoyment and future value. The second objective was to examine whether participants' reactions to the CPS training varied in accordance to their cognitive style preferences. The inventory used to measure cognitive style is called FourSight. FourSight identifies respondents' preferences in terms of four key elements of the creative process: problem identification (i.e., Clarifier), idea generation (i.e., Ideator), solution development (i.e., Developer), and implementation (i.e., Implementer). Eighty‐four participants were enrolled in various graduate and undergraduate courses in CPS. Participants completed FourSight at the beginning of their respective course and at the conclusion they responded to a survey in which they evaluated various aspects of CPS for enjoyment and value. Overall evaluation of the CPS courses indicated that participants associated the greatest enjoyment and future value with tools, principles, and stages that were primarily orientated towards divergent thinking. Analysis of participants' reactions in light of their FourSight preferences revealed two distinct types of reactions to the course content. One form of response was labeled true‐to‐type, for example, individuals who expressed high Clarifier preferences found learning the Gather Data stage of CPS to be more enjoyable than those with low Clarifier preferences. The second type of reaction was referred to as a complementary relationship. This type of relationship between the course and the participant's style seemed to indicate a desire to develop a skill that is perhaps outside of one's style preference. For example, participants with strong Ideator preferences were more likely to associate higher levels of future value with the Prepare for Action component of the CPS process. The implications of these and other findings are discussed.     

It's all good: Children's personality attributions after repeated success and failure in peer and computer interactions

The present study examined children's use of behavioural outcome information to make personality attributions in social and non‐social contexts. One hundred and twenty‐eight 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds were told about a story actor who engaged in primarily successful or primarily unsuccessful interactions with several different people (social context) or several different computers (non‐social context). Subsequently, children made behavioural predictions and trait attributions about the actor. Findings indicated that participants were more likely to use past information to make behavioural predictions and trait attributions when hearing about primarily successful than primarily unsuccessful interactions, although there were age‐related differences in trait attribution as a function of success and trait type. There was no support for differential use of information across contexts, as participants' predictions and attributions were similar regardless of hearing about interactions with computers or humans. Factors involved in the development of impression formation are discussed.     

The Influence of Time Estimation and Time‐Saving Preferences on Learning to Make Temporally Dependent Decisions from Experience

In this paper, we merge research related to experiential learning, temporal perception, and the value of time and money by examining decisions where the timing of action (response) determines the outcome received. We predicted that time‐saving preferences and impatience would decrease maximization (i.e., taking action when it returned the largest reward), and that the constraints of temporal perception would compound their effects. Across three studies, participants undershot on average (i.e., responded earlier than the period of time during which a response would return the maximal reward) showed a preference for shorter‐delay options and often did not find the maximal reward. In addition, participants' reliance on temporal perception increased undershooting, increased preferences for shorter‐delay options, and reduced maximization. Nevertheless, participants who found the maximal reward continued to maximize at a high rate rather than opting for shorter delays and smaller rewards. Thus, while most participants appeared to have a preference for saving time, most behaved as reward maximizers rather than temporal discounters. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The pros and cons of funnel plots as an aid to risk communication and patient decision making

Funnel plots, which simultaneously display a sample statistic and the corresponding sample size for multiple cases, have a range of applications. In medicine, they are used to display treatment outcome rates and caseload volume by institution, which can inform strategic decisions about health care delivery. We investigated lay people's understanding of such plots and explored their suitability as an aid to individual treatment decisions. In two studies, 172 participants answered objective questions about funnel plots representing the surgical outcomes (survival or mortality rates) of institutions varying in caseload, and indicated their preferred institutions. Accuracy for extracting objective information was high, unless question phrasing was inconsistent with the plot's survival/mortality framing, or participants had low numeracy levels. Participants integrated caseload‐volume and outcome‐rate data when forming preferences, but were influenced by reference lines on the plot to make inappropriate discriminations between institutions with similar outcome rates. With careful choice of accompanying language, funnel plots can be readily understood and are therefore a useful tool for communicating risk. However, they are less effective as a decision aid for individual patient's treatment decisions, and we recommend refinements to the standard presentation of the plots if they are to be used for that purpose.     

Action preferences and the anticipation of action outcomes

Skilled performers of time-constrained motor actions acquire information about the action preferences of their opponents in an effort to better anticipate the outcome of that opponent's actions. However, there is reason to doubt that knowledge of an opponent's action preferences would unequivocally influence anticipatory responses in a positive way. It is possible that overt information about an opponent's actions could distract skilled performers from using the advance kinematic information they would usually rely on to anticipate actions, particularly when the opponent performs an ‘unexpected’ action that is not in accordance with his or her previous behaviour. The aim of this study was to examine how the ability to anticipate the outcome of an opponent's actions can be influenced by exposure to the action preferences of that opponent. Two groups of skilled handball goalkeepers anticipated the direction of penalty throws performed by opponents before and after a training intervention that provided situational probability information in the form of action preferences (AP). During the training phase participants in an AP-training group anticipated the action outcomes of two throwers who had a strong preference to throw in one particular direction, whilst participants in a NP-training group viewed players who threw equally to all directions. Exposure to opponents who did have an action preference during the training phase resulted in improved anticipatory performance if the opponent continued to bias their throws towards their preferred direction, but decreased performance if the opponent did not. These findings highlight that skilled observers use information about action preferences to enhance their anticipatory ability, but that doing so can be disadvantageous when the outcomes are no longer consistent with their generated expectations.     

The framing heuristic influences judgements about younger and older adults' decision to refuse medical treatment

Three-hundred and one young adults evaluated medical dilemmas in which a patient (1) was portrayed as either 40 or 70 years old, (2) decided to either refuse or consent to a risky treatment for a serious medical disorder, and (3) received either positively or negatively framed information about the potential effectiveness of a proposed medical treatment. Participants' evaluations of the patients' decisions reflected the implementation of a framing heuristic and an age heuristic. The framing heuristic influenced participants' judgements of patients who refused the proposed treatment. Specifically, information which was positively framed resulted in risk-avoiding judgements, while information which was negatively framed resulted in risk-taking judgements. The age heuristic predisposed participants to recommend that 40 year old patients, more so than 70-year-old patients, opt for high-risk medical treatments that could potentially add a large number of years to their lives.     

Am I Abnormal? Relative Rank and Social Norm Effects in Judgments of Anxiety and Depression Symptom Severity

Overdetection and underdetection of depression and anxiety in primary care are common and may partly reflect individuals' misperceptions of the severity of symptoms they experience. Here, we explore how people's judgments about the severity of their own symptoms are influenced by their beliefs about the distribution of symptoms experienced by the rest of the population. We apply the rank‐based decision by sampling cognitive model of judgment to symptom severity. The model proposes that judgments depend on the relative rank of an item within a mental sample of comparable items. It is predicted that judgments of symptom severity will be context dependent and more specifically that an individual's judgments will be invalid to the extent that the individual has inaccurate beliefs about the relevant social context. Two studies found that participants' assessments of symptom severity were rank based. Study 1 elicited participants' beliefs about the social distribution of symptoms and found that participants' judgments of whether they were depressed or anxious were mainly predicted not by their symptoms' objective severity but rather by where participants ranked the severity of their symptoms in comparison with the believed symptoms of others. Study 2 varied symptom distributions experimentally and again found relative rank effects as predicted. It is concluded that the real‐world application of contextual models of judgment requires investigation of individual differences in participants' background beliefs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Role Expectations on Clients' Perceptions of Disclosing and Nondisclosing Counselors

The authors tested the hypothesis that regardless of whether a counselor self-discloses, a client's perceptions will be more favorable when the counselor's behavior is congruent with the client's precounseling expectations than when the client's expectations and the counselor's behavior are incongruent. Before listening to an excerpted interview, participants (a) were led to expect that counselors self-disclose, (b) were led to expect that counselors do not self-disclose, or (c) were given no expectation regarding counselor self-disclosure. Participants then listened to stimulus audiotapes in which the counselor did or did not reveal personal information. Dependent variables were participants' perceptions of the counselor on three social influence dimensions and two therapeutic relationship dimensions. Results indicated that the disclosing counselor was viewed more favorably than was the nondisclosing counselor, participants' expectations notwithstanding.     

Preferences and Children's Use of Gender-Stereotyped Knowledge About Musical Instruments: Making Judgments About Other Children's Preferences

A developmental model of gender-stereotype acquisition (Martin, 1989) proposes that by the age of 8 years children draw upon information about gender-stereotyped interests as well as other children's sex when deciding how much other children would like different activities; younger children rely on sex only when making such decisions. We examined whether the judgments that children made about other children's preferences were different from those that they made about their own preferences for masculine and feminine musical instruments. Three hundred twelve children aged 8–9 years ranked 6 instruments in order of preference, and rated on a 4-point scale how much they would like to play each one. Children were then asked to decide how much other children would like to play each instrument. Only girls' own preferences for feminine instruments differed according to the gender-stereotyping of their most-preferred instrument. Judgments about how much other children would like masculine and feminine instruments did not differ according to those children's gender-stereotyped interest. Children made stereotypical predictions about the preferences of children of unknown sex who played either a masculine or feminine instrument. Implications for a theoretical account of the development of children's gender-stereotypes are discussed.     

Developmental patterns of change in the influence of safe and risky peer choices on risky decision‐making

Adolescents take more risks when peers monitor their behavior. However, it is largely unknown how different types of peer influence affect adolescent decision‐making. In this study, we investigate how information about previous choices of peers differentially influences decision‐making in adolescence and young adulthood. Participants (N = 99, age range 12–22) completed an economic choice task in which choice options were systematically varied on levels of risk and ambiguity. On each trial, participants selected between a safer choice (low variability in outcome) and a riskier choice (high variability in outcome). Participants made choices in three conditions: a solo condition in which they made choices with no additional information, a social condition in which they saw choices of supposed peers, and a computer condition in which they saw choices of a computer. Results showed that participants’ choices conform to the choices made by the peers, but not a computer. Furthermore, when peers chose the safe option, late adolescents were especially likely to make a safe choice. Conversely, when the peer made a risky choice, late adolescents were least likely to follow choices made by the peer. We did not find evidence for differential influence of social information on decisions depending on their level of risk and ambiguity. These results show that information about previous decisions of peers are a powerful modifier for behavior and that the effect of peers on adolescents’ decisions is less ubiquitous and more specific than previously assumed.     

Multiple Determinants of Framing Referents in Tax Reporting and Compliance

Prospect theory's implications for tax reporting have been investigated primarily by examining taxpayers' risk preferences surrounding two potential reference points: their current cash position and their expectations regarding payments and/or refunds due. Evidence has generally supported the role of cash position in framing reporting decisions while failing to support a similar role for expectations. However, most research examining the role of expectations in framing risky choice has experimentally assigned expectations to decision makers. If expectations become meaningful referents via adaptation, the construct validity of experimentally-assigned expectations is suspect. Using participants' own prior tax filings to determine expectations, we find evidence that expectations and cash position jointly frame the filing decision. Further, consistent with adaptation serving as the mechanism through which expectations frame reporting preferences, we find that the severity of the framing effect attributed to expectations was significantly mitigated when time to adapt to variances from those expectations was allowed.     

How a Group Goal May Reduce Social Matching in Group Performance: Shifts in Standards for Determining a Fair Contribution of Effort

Abstract

The authors investigated whether the presence of a specific group goal would reduce social matching (i.e., matching one's own performance to the performance expected from others) by serving as an alternative standard. As predicted, when there was no specific goal, the participants matched their own performance to the performance expected from other group members. When there was a specific group goal, the women no longer engaged in social matching, although that effect did not emerge among the men. Instead, the women's mean personal performance was close to the performance level representing an equal share of the group goal. Moreover, the participants' perceptions of a fair contribution mediated the performance of the men and the women, both in the presence and in the absence of a goal.     

How Hispanic patients address ambiguous versus unambiguous bias in the doctor's office

Two studies examined Hispanic individuals' preferences for using ten different bias reduction strategies when interacting with a doctor whose beliefs about their group were either ambiguous or clearly biased. Consistent with predictions, participants who imagined interacting with a doctor whose beliefs were ambiguous preferred strategies that facilitate positive doctor–patient interactions, whereas participants whose doctor explicitly endorsed negative stereotypes about their group preferred strategies that address stereotype content. The results also revealed that, regardless of whether the doctor's beliefs were ambiguous or clearly biased, stigma consciousness predicted participants' preferences for using strategies that address stereotype content. These findings suggest that both doctors' behavior and individual‐level factors influence how minority individuals choose to behave in a healthcare setting.