Take-the-best in expert-novice decision strategies for residential burglary

We examined the decision strategies and cue use of experts and novices in a consequential domain: crime. Three participant groups decided which of two residential properties was more likely to be burgled, on the basis of eight cues such as location of the property. The two expert groups were experienced burglars and police officers, and the novice group was composed of graduate students. We found that experts’ choices were best predicted by a lexicographic heuristic strategy called take-the-best that implies noncompensatory information processing, whereas novices’ choices were best predicted by a weighted additive linear strategy that implies compensatory processing. The two expert groups, however, differed in the cues they considered important in making their choices, and the police officers were actually more similar to novices in this regard. These findings extend the literature on judgment, decision making, and expertise, and have implications for criminal justice policy.     

Limitations to the deficit attenuation hypothesis: Aging and decision making

The deficit attenuation hypothesis is the proposal that age related declines in basic cognitive functions often result in compensatory changes in decision making strategies. However, the patterns of cognitive changes across the adult life span are complex: Many cognitive abilities change across the adult life span while others do not. Some of the cognitive changes will be detrimental to decision making, others will have no impact and still others may actually improve decision making. We illustrate the complexity of the impact of cognition on aging and decision making with examples from working and long-term memory and use these to suggest boundary conditions for the deficit attenuation hypothesis.     

Field and Experience Influences on Ethical Decision Making in the Sciences

Differences across fields and experience levels are frequently considered in discussions of ethical decision making and ethical behavior. In the present study, doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences completed measures of ethical decision making. The effects of field and level of experience with respect to ethical decision making, metacognitive reasoning strategies, social-behavioral responses, and exposure to unethical events were examined. Social and biological scientists performed better than health scientists with respect to ethical decision making. Furthermore, the ethical decision making of health science students decreased as experience increased. Moreover, these effects appeared to be linked to the specific strategies underlying participants' ethical decision making. The implications of these findings for ethical decision making are discussed.     

Pseudotaxonicity in MAMBAC and MAXCOV analyses of rating-scale data: turning continua into classes by manipulating observer's expectations

Taxometric procedures such as mean above minus below a cut and maximum covariance can determine whether a trait is distributed as a discrete latent class. These methods have been used to infer taxonic structure in several personality and psychopathology constructs, often from analyses of rating scale data. This is problematic given (a) well established biases in ratings, (b) the human tendency to think categorically, and (c) implicit typological models of personality and psychopathology among expert raters. Using an experimental method in which the cognitive sets of raters were manipulated as dimensional versus categorical, it is demonstrated that pseudotaxonicity can be created readily with rating scale measures. This suggests that researchers avoid an exclusive reliance on rating scales when conducting taxometrics investigations.     

The relationship between indecisiveness and eye movement patterns in a decision making informational search task

Indecisiveness is a trait‐related general tendency to experience decision difficulties across a variety of situations, leading to decision delay, worry, and regret. Indecisiveness is proposed (Rassin, 2007) to be associated with an increase in desire for information acquisition and reliance on compensatory strategies—as evidenced by alternative‐based information search—during decision making. However existing studies provide conflicting findings. We conducted an information board study of indecisiveness, using eye tracking methodology, to test the hypotheses that the relationship between indecisiveness and choice strategy depends on being in the early stage of the decision making process, and that it depends on being in the presence of an opportunity to delay choice. We found strong evidence for the first hypothesis in that indecisive individuals changed shift behavior from the first to the second half of the task, consistent with a move from greater to lesser compensatory processing, while the shift behavior of decisive individuals suggested lesser compensatory processing over the whole task. Indecisiveness was also related to time spent viewing attributes of the selected course, and to time spent looking away from decision information. These findings resolve past discrepancies, suggest an interesting account of how the decision process unfolds for indecisive versus decisive individuals, and contribute to a better understanding of this tendency. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biases and Heuristics in Decision Making and Their Impact on Autonomy

Cognitive scientists have identified a wide range of biases and heuristics in human decision making over the past few decades. Only recently have bioethicists begun to think seriously about the implications of these findings for topics such as agency, autonomy, and consent. This article aims to provide an overview of biases and heuristics that have been identified and a framework in which to think comprehensively about the impact of them on the exercise of autonomous decision making. I analyze the impact that these biases and heuristics have on the following dimensions of autonomy: understanding, intentionality, absence of alienating or controlling influence, and match between formally autonomous preferences or decisions and actual choices or actions.     

决策风格的理论发展及建构：基于信息加工视角

决策风格是人们在决策中表现出来的习惯性或独特的行为模式, 对决策、管理等领域均有重要影响。近年兴起的决策风格理论主要基于个体信息加工策略, 如基于双加工理论和基于后悔情绪的决策风格模型等。决策风格对个体决策的影响表现在决策策略与偏差、情绪和无意识加工等方面。该领域在诸如决策风格的主要理论、测量工具和理论检验等方面亦取得积极进展, 未来研究方向应注意基于双加工理论和进化心理学建构决策风格理论。     

Self–other differences in multiattribute decision making: Compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies

When making decisions where options involve multiple attributes, a person can choose to use a compensatory, utility maximizing strategy, which involves consideration and integration of all available attributes. Alternatively, a person can choose a noncompensatory strategy that extracts only the most important and reliable attributes. The present research examined whether other‐oriented decisions would involve greater reliance on a noncompensatory, lexicographic decision strategy than self‐oriented decisions. In three studies (Mturk workers and college students), the difference in other‐oriented versus self‐oriented decisions in a medical decision context was explained by a subsample of participants that chose the death minimizing operation on all 10 decisions (Study 1) and a subsample of participants who self‐reported that they used a strategy that minimized the chance of death on every decision (i.e., a lexicographic mortality heuristic; Study 2). In Study 2, tests of mediation found that self‐reported use of the mortality heuristic completely accounted for the self–other effect on decisions. In Study 3, participants were more likely to report prospectively that they would adopt the mortality heuristic when making decisions for others than for themselves, suggesting that participants were not mistakenly inferring a lexicographic decision strategy from their past behavior. The results suggest that self–other effects in multiattribute choice involve differential use of compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies and that beyond this group difference, individual differences in the use of these strategies also exist within self‐oriented and other‐oriented decisions.     

“Piensa” twice: On the foreign language effect in decision making

In this article, we assess to what extent decision making is affected by the language in which a given problem is presented (native vs. foreign). In particular, we aim to ask whether the impact of various heuristic biases in decision making is diminished when the problems are presented in a foreign language. To this end, we report four main studies in which more than 700 participants were tested on different types of individual decision making problems. In the first study, we replicated Keysar et al.’s (2012) recent observation regarding the foreign language effect on framing effects related to loss aversion. In the second section, we assessed whether the foreign language effect is present in other types of framing problems that involve psychological accounting biases rather than gain/loss dichotomies. In the third section, we studied the foreign language effect in several key aspects of the theory of decision making under risk and uncertainty. In the fourth study, we assessed the presence of a foreign language effect in the cognitive reflection test, a test that includes logical problems that do not carry emotional connotations. The absence of such an effect in this test suggests that foreign language leads to a reduction of heuristic biases in decision making across a range of decision making situations and provide also some evidence about the boundaries of the phenomenon. We explore several potential factors that may underlie the foreign language effect in decision making.     

Interactive decision-making: effects of consultation before personal decisions on postdecision consolidation

Pre- and postdecision processes were studied in triads of participants, dyads of participants, and for individual decision-makers in two experiment (N = 57 and 50). Participants were students volunteering to take part in the study (21 men and 36 women with a mean age of 24 yr. and 25 men and 25 women with a mean age of 27 yr.). The purpose was to examine how much interactive versus individual social interaction (consultation with others before making a personal decision) affects postdecision consolidation. Predecision differentiation and postdecision consolidation have been defined as attractiveness changes over time in favour of the chosen alternative. Participants were coded into three categories (noncompensatory, compensatory, and nonclassified) according to their different decision strategies. For Exp. 1, postdecision consolidation effects were significant for participants who used a noncompensatory (no comparisons across attributes) decision strategy. For Exp. 2, postdecision consolidation effects were significant for participants who made a personal decision but not those who made an interactive decision. The differing results in these two experiments were discussed.     

An Evaluation of Equivalence in Body Dissatisfaction Measurement Across Cultures

We evaluated gender-based and cross-cultural equivalence of the Body Dissatisfaction Scale of the Body Change Inventory in a sample of 4,005 adolescents from 7 cultures that represent diverse body image ideals and response styles. Results of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated equivalence of the scale across gender but not across cultures. Follow-up analyses identified small but significant cross-cultural differences in response styles (specifically, acquiescence and middle response option endorsement) as the source of this noninvariance. We recommend use of this scale for gender-based comparisons but caution that researchers should evaluate the presence of response biases before making substantive conclusions about cross-cultural differences in body dissatisfaction.     

Computer-assisted judgment: defining strengths and liabilities

Clinicians often fail to recognize limitations in their own subjective judgments, make use of well-developed mechanical-prediction methods, or carefully evaluate which computer-based aids warrant their consideration. This article addresses issues regarding computer-based test interpretations (CBTIs) and computer-based decision making. Comments highlight conclusions reached by other contributors to this Special Section, additional literature bearing on these observations, and implications for consumers of computer-assisted techniques and researchers developing or evaluating these methods. The future of computer-assisted assessment depends on educating clinicians and researchers to be better consumers of existing as well as emerging technologies in this domain.     

An evaluation of equivalence in body dissatisfaction measurement across cultures

We evaluated gender-based and cross-cultural equivalence of the Body Dissatisfaction Scale of the Body Change Inventory in a sample of 4,005 adolescents from 7 cultures that represent diverse body image ideals and response styles. Results of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated equivalence of the scale across gender but not across cultures. Follow-up analyses identified small but significant cross-cultural differences in response styles (specifically, acquiescence and middle response option endorsement) as the source of this noninvariance. We recommend use of this scale for gender-based comparisons but caution that researchers should evaluate the presence of response biases before making substantive conclusions about cross-cultural differences in body dissatisfaction.     

当局者迷,旁观者清?自我-他人决策的理性差异及其机制

生活充满抉择,由于知识经验的局限,人们常需寻求他人建议,抑或直接请他人代己决策.诸多研究探讨了自我决策、向他人建议,以及代他人决策之间的差异.探究这种差异的动因之一在于考察何种条件下的决策更优或更“理性”.以往研究表明,自我决策或他人决策(向他人建议或代他人决策)均有可能更易违背理性决策原则,隐含着他人决策优于自我决策的“当局者迷,旁观者清”这一传统智慧有一定的边界条件.研究者一般从认知(建构水平理论)、情绪(类型和卷入度),以及动机(调节聚焦理论)三种视角对自我-他人决策差异进行解释.本文作者提出基于理由的决策(reason-based account)假设来解释自我-他人决策在理性程度上的差异.未来研究可从决策过程及脑机制上深入考察自我-他人决策差异及其机制.     

Effects of ego-depletion on choice behaviour in a multi-attribute decision task

When a choice has to be made between two options and decision-relevant information about the options is completely available, the Take-The-Best (TTB) heuristic only considers the most important information that discriminates between the options and bases its choice on it. Choices in line with TTB thus allow a decision maker to save time and effort, and they may become more likely therefore under conditions of limited self-control strength (ego-depletion). Ego-depletion was manipulated prior to making a series of choices in a multi-attribute decision task. Choices could have been in line with either TTB or more effortful compensatory decision strategies. As predicted, compared with non-depleted participants, ego-depleted participants were more likely to make TTB-consistent choices.     

人事筛选和挑选决策策略的比较

本研究采用了多特征决策研究中的过程追踪技术,对人事筛选和挑选决策的策略进行了单步跳转和多步跳转分析与比较。结果发现,在人事挑选时,被试更多采用基于方案的补偿性策略,并以有关合适人选的心理映像为标准做出决策;而筛选时更多采用基于特征的非补偿策略以减少认知负荷,同时,以方案间比较为目的的补偿性策略也更多使用。这些策略变化体现了决策者的认知适应性。     

专家和新手不确定决策认知过程的比较研究

本研究将风险投资决策作为不确定决策任务,采用专家-新手比较研究范型,通过出声思维法和访谈法,探讨了专家和新手不确定决策认知过程的差异。研究发现,这种差异体现在专家和新手所拥有的关于决策任务的认识和观念、决策信息选择、推理过程和决策策略等方面。     

Bias and Bias Remediation in Creative Problem-Solving: Managing Biases through Forecasting

Although scholars have identified many variables that contribute to creative problem-solving, less attention has been given to variables that might lead to failure in creative problem-solving. One set of variables that might lead to poor performance in creative problem-solving efforts may be found in various decision biases. In this study, the impact of simple and complex decision biases on the production of original, high-quality, and elegant solutions to a creative problem-solving task was examined in a sample of 227 undergraduates attending a large southwestern university. In addition, the value of forecasting instruction as a technique for reducing these decision biases was examined. It was found that both simple and complex decisions biases resulted in problem solutions of lower originality, quality, and elegance. Training in viable forecasting strategies resulted in the production of higher quality problem solutions. The implications of these findings for improving creative problem-solving performance are discussed.     

决策评估中的结果偏差

结果偏差又称结果效应,它是发生在决策评估中的一种偏差式判断,即当决策结果与决策质量不存在实质性联系时,评估者仍根据结果信息评估决策质量.针对这一判断谬误的产生根源,研究者们提出了认知解释和申辩模型.结果偏差的影响因素主要包括动机、情境因素和评估手段等.基于先前研究存在的问题和不足,今后的研究应着眼于改进研究手段,理清与其他现象的关系并提出有效的应对策略.     

Navigation in multiobjective optimization methods

Building on previous work of the authors, this paper formally defines and reviews the first approach, referred to as navigation , towards a common understanding of search and decision‐making strategies to identify the most preferred solution among the Pareto set for a multiobjective optimization problem. In navigation methods, the decision maker interactively learns about the problem, whereas the decision support system learns about the preferences of the decision maker. This work introduces a detailed view on navigation leading to the identification of integral components and features. A number of different existing navigation methods are reviewed and characterized. Finally, an overview of applications involving navigation is given, and promising future research direction are discussed.