The Distortion of Information during Decisions

During a decision might a preexisting preference lead to the distortion of new information in favor of the preferred alternative? An experiment that furnished one alternative with a prior preference found such predecisional distortion. It was also found that in the absence of any initial preference, a developing preference for one alternative led to the distortion of new information so as to favor that leading alternative. The distortion from both sources, preexisting and developing preferences, exceeded the postdecisional distortion from cognitive dissonance reduction.     

Elastic Justification: How Tempting but Task-Irrelevant Factors Influence Decisions

This research is concerned with task-oriented decision situations where the decision maker faces two options, one superior on a factor directly related to the given task (called the A factor) and the other superior on a factor not central to the accomplishment of the task but tempting to the decision maker (called the B factor). According to the elastic justification notion, the decision maker may find it unjustifiable to choose the B-superior option over the A-superior option if there is no uncertainty in the A values of the two options, but will construct a justification and become more likely to choose the B-superior option if there is uncertainty. In support of this proposition, two experiments employing a simulated decision situation found that subjects were indeed more likely to choose the B-superior option when there was uncertainty in the A factor than when there was not, no matter whether the uncertainty resided in one of the options (Experiment 1) or in both options (Experiment 2).     

A parameter analysis method for the weight‐set to satisfy preference orders of alternatives in additive multi‐criteria value models

In the context of the additive multi‐criteria value model, this paper investigates how the set of criteria weights (weight‐set hereafter) can be determined according to the preference orders of alternatives given by the decision maker. A construction method is proposed for the weight‐set for different intervals of β, where β is a differential amount of value between the preference information on two alternatives. The results of this paper are important for sensitivity analysis in multi‐criteria decision making (MCDM) problems and multi‐criteria group decision analysis. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiation and consolidation theory of human decision making: A frame of reference for the study of pre- and post-decision processes

Differentiation and Consolidation Theory of decision making models human decision making as an active process in which one alternative is gradually differentiated from other available alternatives. The theory is based on the assumption that it is not sufficient to choose the best alternative, but that a decision involves the selection and creation of a candidate that is sufficiently superior for a decision. This is achieved in differentiation processes which are wholistic, structural or process related. To exemplify, structural differentiation includes both facts and attractiveness restructuring. Following a decision, the theory predicts consolidation processes which work in favor of the chosen alternative. Both differentiation and consolidation are driven by the fact that through experience with the impredictability of the future, a decision maker has learned to prepare for threats against the chosen alternatives. The further this alternative has been differentiated and consolidated, the less the risk of post-decision ambiguity, regret or decision reversal. The study is concluded with references to othee decision theories some of which are viewed as subtheories of Differentiation and Consolidation Theory.     

On the Decision to Explore New Alternatives: The Coexistence of Under‐ and Over‐exploration

The decision whether to explore new alternatives or to choose from familiar ones is implicit in many of our daily activities. How is this decision made? When will deviation from optimal exploration be observed? The current paper examines exploration decisions in the context of a multi‐alternative “decisions from experience” task. In each trial, participants could choose a familiar option (the status quo) or a new alternative (risky exploration). The observed exploration rates were more sensitive to the frequent outcome from choosing new alternatives than to the average outcome. That is, the implicit decision whether to explore a new alternative reflects underweighting of rare events: Over‐exploration was documented in “Rare Disasters” environments, and insufficient exploration was evident in “Rare Treasures” environments. In addition, the results reveal a decrease in exploration of new alternatives over time even when it is always optimal and some exploration even when it is never reinforcing. These results can be captured with models that share a distinction between “data collection” and “outcome‐driven” decision modes. Under the data collection mode, the decision maker collects information about the environment, to be used in future choices. Under the outcome‐driven mode, the decision maker relies on small samples of previous experiences with familiar versus unfamiliar alternatives, before the selection of a specific alternative. The predictive value of a two‐parameter “explorative sampler” quantification of these assumptions is demonstrated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information distortion in self-other decision making

In both organizational and social arenas, individuals make decisions for themselves and for other individuals. But research in decision making has provided little input into whether or how these decisions are psychologically different. In this paper, I propose that decisions—depending on whom they are for—vary according to the extent of information distortion, such that, individuals who choose for themselves demonstrate more postdecisional distortion, yet less predecisional distortion than individuals who choose on behalf of others. To test this hypothesis, participants in an experiment made a decision between two restaurants. Attributes about each restaurant were presented sequentially, and preferences were measured following each attribute. As expected, participants who chose for themselves experienced more postdecisional distortion. However, among participants who chose on behalf of others, greater distortion of predecisional attribute information was observed. These findings shed light on the differences in self-other decision making, as well as on research concerning information distortion.     

Adaptive learning and risk taking

Humans and animals learn from experience by reducing the probability of sampling alternatives with poor past outcomes. Using simulations, J. G. March (1996) illustrated how such adaptive sampling could lead to risk-averse as well as risk-seeking behavior. In this article, the author develops a formal theory of how adaptive sampling influences risk taking. He shows that a risk-neutral decision maker may learn to prefer a sure thing to an uncertain alternative with identical expected value and a symmetric distribution, even if the decision maker follows an optimal policy of learning. If the distribution of the uncertain alternative is negatively skewed, risk-seeking behavior can emerge. Consistent with recent experiments, the model implies that information about foregone payoffs increases risk taking.     

Robustness of Additive Value Function Methods in MCDM

A simulation model is constructed of choice between a discrete number of non-dominated alternatives. The long-run goals of the decision maker are assumed to be consistent with a hypothetical preference structure which satisfies assumptions of completeness, transitivity and additive independence for an ideal set of criteria. The use of additive value functions to aid the decision maker in this choice is simulated for a variety of contexts and under a number of non-idealities such as the omission of criteria, confounding of criteria and inconsistent responses. It is found that ideal preference orderings are well identified by additive value functions provided that the non-idealities are moderate and that sufficient effort is put into modelling changing marginal values for different levels of performance. One of the potentially most sensitive areas is that of shifts in the decision maker's reference points as a result of the types of preference information asked.     

Limiting predecisional distortion by prior valuation of attribute components

Predecisional distortion is the pre-choice biasing of attribute evaluations to favor the option that is leading in a decision maker’s mind. It is proposed that predecisional distortion of product attributes results from the biased construction of attribute component valuations during the choice process. An implication of this component valuation hypothesis is that consumers who value relevant attribute components before the choice process will exhibit less predecisional distortion than those who do not. This prediction was examined in two preferential choice studies. Data from Study 1 revealed that consideration of a component list prior to choice reduced predecisional distortion to negligible levels. Study 2 examined predecisional distortion during a real choice between two bottles of wine. Results showed that participants did not distort attributes based on components they had previously valued, but did distort attributes based on components they had not previously valued. Data from both studies revealed that participants who were exposed to attribute components before the choice process were less confident in the leading option during the choice process. The paper concludes with a discussion of how prior valuation of attribute components might be used to ameliorate other choice anomalies.     

自我框架、风险认知和风险选择

对行为决策中“框架效应”(Framing Effect)的研究进行了拓展：探讨了自我框架对风险决策的影响及其机制。面对运用图示方法表示的管理,健康,及投资方面的风险决策问题,参与者自主地选择对方案的描述（自我框架）。研究有四个主要发现：1）自我框架对风险选择的效应部分显著,而且对风险选择的影响方向因情境的不同而不同;2）机会威胁认知是自我框架效应的一个中介变量;3）自我框架在情绪语气上的差异对风险决策有显著影响：决策者对一个备选方案（确定性或风险性方案）相对于另一个备选方案的自我描述的情绪语气越积极正面,这个方案被选择的可能性越大;4）决策者的机会-威胁认知是这一自我框架效应的部分中介变量。也就是说,对备选方案的自我描述语气作为一种对决策信息的编码影响了风险（机会和威胁）认知,进而影响决策者的风险偏好和选择     

Multicriteria approval: application of approval voting concepts to MCDM problems

Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods generally require information that is difficult and expensive to obtain. It is shown in this paper that given an ordering of criteria by importance, and whether each alternative is above the average evaluation of the alternatives for each criterion, considerable information can be extracted concerning the overall rankings of the alternatives. This is done by recognizing the similarity between criteria in MCDM, and voters in social choice theory. Multicriteria approval, proposed in this paper, is an MCDM adaptation of approval voting which can be used to classify decisions into one of several categories, depending on whether, and the manner in which, a superior alternative can be identified. An exhaustive examination of all possible decision situations of tractable size is made to measure the applicability of multicriteria approval, and the approach is demonstrated in an industrial procurement case. In addition to requiring minimal information from a decision maker, multicriteria approval satisfies several desirable criteria for MCDM techniques. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Water use scenarios assessment using multicriteria analysis

Water management is a fertile terrain for research, and can be investigated using several methodological instruments and approaches. Multipurpose water resources, which allow for the contemporary presence of in‐stream (fishing, swimming, etc.) and off‐stream uses (agriculture, household, etc.), are particularly difficult to management due to increasing water demand and the conflict between consumptive and not consumptive uses. New scenarios in agricultural policy (Reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy) and new requests from local stakeholders (recreational activities, rising household water demand, etc.) involve use of decision support methods to find a balance between multiple potential uses. This study describes the application of multicriteria decision aid for choosing the best project for water management and local development among a set of alternatives, using the regime method. The regime method can integrate quantitative data with quality judgement and preference index. The study aims to verify if the regime approach is understandable for the decision maker and if it is suitable for use in ambiguous situations where no quantitative information is available. It is not always possible to get the ‘best alternative’ in multicriteria evaluation: in this study we found two top‐rank alternatives, with minor differences, to submit to the decision maker. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conflict and Loss Aversion in Multiattribute Choice: The Effects of Trade-Off Size and Reference Dependence on Decision Difficulty

Two experiments assess the type and amount of conflict influencing decision difficulty in hypothetical scenarios where subjects chose between two alternatives made to appear relatively attractive (approach–approach conflicts) or relatively unattractive (avoidance-avoidance conflicts), each involving attribute trade-offs across alternatives (embedded approach–avoidance conflicts). In Experiment 1, independent of information processing demands, decisions are more difficult when alternatives are unattractive and/or attribute trade-offs are large. Reference states that change the relative attractiveness of the alternatives increase or decrease decision difficulty in a manner consistent with loss aversion: Superior reference states increase decision difficulty more than inferior reference states reduce it. Experiment 2 further tests the reference dependence of decision difficulty by varying the nature of the reference state (stated comparators, as in Experiment 1, or endowments) as well as its extremity. Endowed reference states affect decision difficulty more than reference states that are stated comparators. Moreover, consistent with loss aversion, inferior reference states that are twice as extreme as superior reference states reduce decision difficulty about as much as the superior reference states increase it. The results demonstrate that decisions can be made easier or harder by way of reference dependence, and that the loss aversion so prevalent in preference formation generalizes to perceptions of decision difficulty in multiattribute settings.     

Preference for oddity: uniqueness heuristic or hierarchical choice process?

Traditional economic theories assume decision makers in multialternative choice tasks "assign" a value to each option and then express rational preferences. Here, I report an apparent violation of such rationality in gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis). I tested the jays' preference in a quaternary choice task where three options were the same color and the fourth option was a different color. All options offered an identical food reward and so the strictly rational expectation was that subjects would choose the odd-colored option in 25% of choices. In clear disagreement, every subject chose the odd option more frequently than expected. I speculate as to how this surprising preference for oddity might have been ecologically rational: by using a unique-choice heuristic, the jays might have been able to bypass a deliberative phase of the decision process and devote more attention to scanning for predators. Alternatively, it is conceivable that the jays did not prefer oddity per se. Instead, they might have used a hierarchical process, assigning options to color categories and then choosing between categories. If so, their behavior matches expectation after all (on average, subjects chose the odd option 50% of the time). It should be straightforward to test these competing hypotheses. The current results can be viewed as a new example of how simple mechanisms sometimes produce economically puzzling yet ecologically rational decision making.     

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.     

The effect of “irrelevant” variables on decision making: Criterion shifts in preferential choice?

In decision research, it is widely assumed that decision makers have subjective experiences which indicate definitively, albeit with random fluctuations, whether or not one alternative is preferable to another. Further, it is assumed that subjects' choices reflect this underlying preference order. It follows from this position, as a logical consequence rather than an empirical observation, that if a manipulation affects people's choices, it does so by changing the way people subjectively experience the alternatives (presumably via people's encoding or combination of attribute information). In psychophysics, an analogous theoretical position has been relinquished. Specifically, it is no longer believed that observers in a detection experiment have subjective experiences which indicate definitively, albeit with error, whether a signal has been perceived. Rather, according to signal detection theory, the observer's sensory experience can be portrayed as a quantifiable sensation that must be converted into an overt report of “signal present” or “signal absent” by comparing the sensation with a criterion. In this paper, we describe two models of preferential choice, the lexicographic criterion model and a probabilistic criterion model, that replace the notion of definitive preference with an analogue of signal detection theory. In the models, the decision maker is represented as having quantifiable inclinations, rather than definitive preferences, that must be converted into an overt choice by comparing the inclinations with a criterion. By attributing the effects of experimental manipulations to shifts in the criterion, rather than to changes in people's inclinations, the model offers a testable alternative to the proposition that altered choices imply altered preferences.     

Multiattribute Choice for the Lazy Decision Maker: Let the Alternatives Decide!

In this article we present a method of multi-attribute choice, based on an application of linear programming called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The first part of the method, which is straightforward DEA, can be thought of as an idealized process of self-evaluation in which each alternative weights the attributes in order to maximize its own desirability relative to the other alternatives. These weights are taken as defining the preferences of a fragment of the market. The second step is to use each alternative′s optimal weights to reconstruct the entire market and thus to infer the preferences of an average decision maker (DM) who needs to choose from among these alternatives. We show how this process is equivalent to an idealized peer evaluation; each alternative applies its own DEA-derived best weights to each of the other alternatives (alternative cross-evaluation, or AXE), then the average of the cross-evaluations that get placed on an alternative is taken as an index of its overall desirability (i.e., we are "letting the alternatives decide"). We use a large data set to examine the workings of the method and to compare our results with the published results of the data set′s compiler. AXE is also able to make use of partial information about the ordering of importance of the attributes specific to a particular DM. Taking an ecological perspective we argue that the method is sensitive to cues already in the data and uses them to amplify helpful bias and attenuate unhelpful bias. We also show how different kinds sensitivity analysis may be performed to check the robustness of the results.     

Structure Compatibility and Restructuring in Judgment and Choice

The use of different response modes has been found to influence how subjects evaluate pairs of alternatives described by two attributes. It has been suggested that judgments and choices evoke different kinds of cognitive processes, leading to an overweighing of the prominent attribute in choice (Tversky, Sattath, & Slovic, 1988; Fischer & Hawkins, 1993). Four experiments were conducted to compare alternative cognitive explanations of this so-called prominence effect in judgment and choice. The explanations investigated were the structure compatibility hypothesis and the restructuring hypothesis. According to the structure compatibility hypothesis, it was assumed that the prominence effect is due to a lack of compatibility between the required output from subjects and the structure of information in input. The restructuring hypothesis stated that the decision maker uses mental restructuring operations on a representation of decision options to make the options more clearly differentiated. In Experiment 1, a matching procedure was used to provide pairs of equally attractive options (medical treatments) for the following experiments. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4, preferences were elicited with two different response modes, choice and preference rating. Value ranges on the prominent and nonprominent attributes were manipulated to test the structure compatibility hypothesis. Accountability was also subject to manipulation as it was assumed to stimulate restructuring. Since the prominence effect was not restricted to choices, and effects of value ranges were obtained but not of accountability, the results were interpreted in line with the structure compatibility hypothesis.     

A Comparison of Single-Step and Multiple-Step Transition Analyses of Multiattribute Decision Strategies

Evaluating information is a fundamental component of multiattribute decision making that can be guided by one of many cognitive strategies. Considerable research has examined the factors that influence strategy selection; however, the identification of strategies remains problematic. The search sequence or transitions that a decision maker uses when searching a matrix of decision information can provide important clues to the strategy guiding the processing of decision information. The most common form of strategy analysis is to examine each transition from one piece of information to the next to establish whether these transitions are primarily alternative or attribute based. However, the resulting single-step transition indices often restrict strategy identification to a quantitative measure of compensatoriness and were found to provide conflicting results for the same search data. The current paper proposes a multiple-step transition analysis that records more complex, longer transitions to provide a multivariate profile of the strategy. Empirical support for the advantages of a multiple-step transition analysis over single-step transition indices is also provided.     

Single-process versus multiple-strategy models of decision making: Evidence from an information intrusion paradigm

When decision makers are confronted with different problems and situations, do they use a uniform mechanism as assumed by single-process models (SPMs) or do they choose adaptively from a set of available decision strategies as multiple-strategy models (MSMs) imply? Both frameworks of decision making have gathered a lot of support, but only rarely have they been contrasted with each other. Employing an information intrusion paradigm for multi-attribute decisions from givens, SPM and MSM predictions on information search, decision outcomes, attention, and confidence judgments were derived and tested against each other in two experiments. The results consistently support the SPM view: Participants seemingly using a “take-the-best” (TTB) strategy do not ignore TTB-irrelevant information as MSMs would predict, but adapt the amount of information searched, choose alternative choice options, and show varying confidence judgments contingent on the quality of the “irrelevant” information. The uniformity of these findings underlines the adequacy of the novel information intrusion paradigm and comprehensively promotes the notion of a uniform decision making mechanism as assumed by single-process models.