Overcoming focusing failures in competitive environments

This paper attacks one of the chief limitations of the field of behavioral decision research—the past inability to use this literature to improve decision making. Building on the work of Thompson, Gentner, Loewenstein and colleagues (Loewenstein, Thompson, & Gentner, 1999; Thompson, Gentner, & Loewenstein, 2000; Gentner & Markman, 1997), the current paper finds that it is possible to reduce bias in one of the most robust problems in the decision literature, the Acquiring a Company Problem (Samuelson & Bazerman, 1985). Past research has shown that individuals make suboptimal offers as a result of the failure to think about the decisions of others and to incorporate a clear understanding of the rules of the game. In the current study, we find that by allowing study participants to see and understand differences in seemingly unrelated decision problems—versions of the Monty Hall Game (Nalebuff, 1987; Friedman, 1998) and Multiparty Ultimatum Game (Messick, Moore, & Bazerman, 1997; Tor & Bazerman, 2003)—study participants can learn to focus more accurately on the decisions of other parties and the rules of the game, the keys to solving the Acquiring a Company Problem. This research offers a new piece of evidence that comparative and analogical processes may be a successful direction for improving decision making. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Model and interactive algorithm of bi‐level multi‐objective decision‐making with multiple interconnected decision makers

Furthering a prior research on two‐person bi‐level multi‐objective decision‐making problems of the leader‐follower Stackelberg game, we present an extended model of bi‐level multi‐objective decision‐making with multiple interconnected decision makers at the lower level. In the model, the upper level decision maker acts as a leader and the lower level decision makers behave as the followers, and inter‐connections and interactions exist among these followers in decision‐making scenarios. Following the rules of leader‐follower Stackelberg game, we develop an interactive algorithm of the model for solving multi‐objective decision‐making problems and reflecting the interactive natures among the decision makers. Finally, the authors exemplify the model and algorithm, and draw a conclusion on points of contributions and the significance of this study in decision‐making and support. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

One Night of Sleep Loss Impairs Innovative Thinking and Flexible Decision Making

Recent findings with clinically oriented neuropsychological tests suggest that one night without sleep causes particular impairment to tasks requiring flexible thinking and the updating of plans in the light of new information. This relatively little investigated field of sleep deprivation research has real-world implications for decision makers having lost a night's sleep. To explore this latter perspective further, we adapted a dynamic and realistic marketing decision making “game” embodying the need for these skills, and whereby such performance could be measured. As the task relied on the comprehension of a large amount of written information, a critical reasoning test was also administered to ascertain whether any failure at the marketing game might lie with information acquisition rather than with failures in decision making. Ten healthy highly motivated and trained participants underwent two counterbalanced 36 h trials, sleep vs no sleep. The critical reasoning task was unaffected by sleep loss, whereas performance at the game significantly deteri orated after 32–36 h of sleep loss, when sleep deprivation led to more rigid thinking, increased perseverative errors, and marked difficulty in appreciating an updated situation. At this point, and despite the sleep-deprived participants' best efforts to do well, their play collapsed, unlike that of the nonsleep-deprived participants.     

The impact of sleep deprivation on decision making: a review

Few sleep deprivation (SD) studies involve realism or high-level decision making, factors relevant to managers, military commanders, and so forth, who are undergoing prolonged work during crises. Instead, research has favored simple tasks sensitive to SD mostly because of their dull monotony. In contrast, complex rule-based, convergent, and logical tasks are unaffected by short-term SD, seemingly because of heightened participant interest and compensatory effort. However, recent findings show that despite this effort, SD still impairs decision making involving the unexpected, innovation, revising plans, competing distraction, and effective communication. Decision-making models developed outside SD provide useful perspectives on these latter effects, as does a neuropsychological explanation of sleep function. SD presents particular difficulties for sleep-deprived decision makers who require these latter skills during emergency situations.     

Analytic Confidence and Political Decision‐Making: Theoretical Principles and Experimental Evidence From National Security Professionals

When making decisions under uncertainty, it is important to distinguish between the probability that a judgment is true and the confidence analysts possess in drawing their conclusions. Yet analysts and decision‐makers often struggle to define “confidence” in this context, and many ways that scholars use this term do not necessarily facilitate decision‐making under uncertainty. To help resolve this confusion, we argue for disaggregating analytic confidence along three dimensions: reliability of available evidence, range of reasonable opinion, and responsiveness to new information. After explaining how these attributes hold different implications for decision‐making in principle, we present survey experiments examining how analysts and decision‐makers employ these ideas in practice. Our first experiment found that each conception of confidence distinctively influenced national security professionals' evaluations of high‐stakes decisions. Our second experiment showed that inexperienced assessors of uncertainty could consistently discriminate among our conceptions of confidence when making political forecasts. We focus on national security, where debates about defining “confidence levels” have clear practical implications. But our theoretical framework generalizes to nearly any area of political decision‐making, and our empirical results provide encouraging evidence that analysts and decision‐makers can grasp these abstract elements of uncertainty.     

Consequences of Regret Aversion 2: Additional Evidence for Effects of Feedback on Decision Making

We discuss the effects of anticipated and experienced regret on decision making under uncertainty. In previous research, using the standard, context-free, gamble paradigm, we found that decision makers anticipate the regret they can experience as a result of post-decisional feedback on forgone outcomes (Zeelenberg, Beattie, van der Pligt, & de Vries, 1996). In the present research we move away from the gamble paradigm, on to richer contexts. In Experiments 1 and 2, involving investment decision making and decision making in the ultimatum game, it is shown that the expectation of feedback on forgone outcomes influences decision making and can promote more risk seeking behavior. Experiment 3 focused on effects of retrospective regret and shows that actual feedback on foregone outcomes influences the experience of regret and subsequent decision making. The results of these studies support our earlier work on regret aversion.     

Moral Hazard in Pediatrics

“Moral hazard” is a term familiar in economics and business ethics that illuminates why rational parties sometimes choose decisions with bad moral outcomes without necessarily intending to behave selfishly or immorally. The term is not generally used in medical ethics. Decision makers such as parents and physicians generally do not use the concept or the word in evaluating ethical dilemmas. They may not even be aware of the precise nature of the moral hazard problem they are experiencing, beyond a general concern for the patient's seemingly excessive burden. This article brings the language and logic of moral hazard to pediatrics. The concept reminds us that decision makers in this context are often not the primary party affected by their decisions. It appraises the full scope of risk at issue when decision makers decide on behalf of others and leads us to separate, respect, and prioritize the interests of affected parties.     

A dynamic objective–subjective structure for forest management focusing on environmental issues

In this paper a decision-making process is applied to a Chilean forestry firm that must deal with a host of environmental variables as well as profit making. At the core of this process is a ‘dynamic objective–subjective structure’ founded on the approach that decision making is about comprehending the preferences of the various parties involved and expanding the set of alternatives open to the decision makers. This is in contrast to many models that aim at finding the ‘best alternative’ and to decision analysis approaches that focus on presenting preferences via value functions. The paper describes in chronological order, following the sessions of a decision-making process, how the various components of the structure emerged. In doing so it demonstrates how the process led to an understanding of the real effects of dealing with the environment and how comprehending the preferences led to the introduction of new decision variables. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contingent Weighting in Self-Other Decision Making

Three studies are presented that examine the decision-making processes that lead advisors to have preferences distinct from personal decision makers (Kray & Gonzalez, 1999). Advising and personal decision making were hypothesized to invoke different interpersonal frames, which lead to different weighting of decision attributes. Alternatively, advisors might simply exert less effort in decision making for others than do personal decision makers. In Study 1, the contingent weighting of attributes was examined in two decision-making tasks (choice vs. matching). Advisors were more likely to choose in a manner consistent with "what most people would prefer" than personal decision makers, but no differences in preferences were observed in the matching task. Advisors subsequently reported experiencing less regret and blame and more strongly preferred the chosen alternative than did personal decision makers. In Study 2, advisors considered more decision attributes to be important in the abstract compared to personal decision makers, and the choice pattern of Study 1 was replicated. In Study 3, advisors and personal decision makers generated more considerations when making a decision compared to individuals making decisions in the abstract. Finally, the preferences of personal decision makers were more consistent with their reported attribute importance judgments than were those of advisors. In total, the results suggest advisors incorrectly infer others' preferences, rather than suffer from a deficit of motivation, when giving advice. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Rethinking the focusing effect in decision-making

According to Legrenzi et al. [Cognition 49 (1993) 37], in making a choice people consider only the alternatives explicitly represented in their mental model of the decision situation. Their idea has found empirical support in the "focusing effect": Individuals focus on the alternatives explicitly stated in the problem context, and do not take into account other possibilities. In their original study, Legrenzi and colleagues considered only one factor to account for the explicit representation of an alternative--i.e., its explicit verbal formulation in the decision problem. Recent theories of relevance and information gain can help articulate their original idea, suggesting that individuals explicitly represent relevant alternatives, whether or not they are explicitly formulated in the decision problem. In three experiments we first replicated Legrenzi et al.'s original experiment, and then showed that the explicit verbal mention of an alternative is neither sufficient nor necessary to focus on it. The results suggest that individuals are able to consider relevant alternatives, even when they are not made explicit in the verbal formulation of a decision problem.     

Unraveling the Aging Skein: Disentangling Sensory and Cognitive Predictors of Age‐related Differences in Decision Making

Age‐related differences in sensory functioning, processing speed, and working memory have been identified as three significant predictors of the age‐related performance decline observed in complex cognitive tasks. Yet, the assessment of their relative predictive capacity and interrelations is still an open issue in decision making and cognitive aging research. Indeed, no previous investigation has examined the relationships of all these three predictors with decision making. In an individual‐differences study, we therefore disentangled the relative contribution of sensory functioning, processing speed, and working memory to the prediction of the age‐related decline in cognitively demanding judgment and decision‐making tasks. Structural equation modeling showed that the age‐related decline in working memory plays an important predictive role, even when controlling for sensory functioning, processing speed, and education. Implications for research on decision making and cognitive aging are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Short-term gains, long-term pains: How cues about state aid learning in dynamic environments

Successful investors seeking returns, animals foraging for food, and pilots controlling aircraft all must take into account how their current decisions will impact their future standing. One challenge facing decision makers is that options that appear attractive in the short-term may not turn out best in the long run. In this paper, we explore human learning in a dynamic decision making task which places short- and long-term rewards in conflict. Our goal in these studies was to evaluate how people’s mental representation of a task affects their ability to discover an optimal decision strategy. We find that perceptual cues that readily align with the underlying state of the task environment help people overcome the impulsive appeal of short-term rewards. Our experimental manipulations, predictions, and analyses are motivated by current work in reinforcement learning which details how learners value delayed outcomes in sequential tasks and the importance that “state” identification plays in effective learning.     

Iowa Gambling Task Modified for Military Domain

One key component of optimal military decision making is that the decision maker demonstrates reinforcement learning. The modification of psychological tasks gives insight into understanding how to effectively train military decision makers and how experienced decision makers arrive at optimal or near optimal decisions. We developed a task modeled after the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) to measure military decision making performance. This new task focuses on high stakes and uncertain environments particular to military decision making conditions. Thirty-four U.S. military officers from all branches of service completed the tasks yielding decision data for validation. The new task retains essential characteristics of the foundational task and gives insight into reinforcement learning of military decision makers. Results indicate that the additional metric of regret defines higher performance at a trial-by-trial level, and clustering by multiple metrics defines high performance groups.     

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。     

迫选规则体验法: 检验规范性和描述性风险决策理论的新尝试

为寻求检验规范性和描述性风险决策理论的通用标准, 本研究以期望价值理论和齐当别抉择模型为例, 探讨了“迫选规则体验法”的适用性。被试为120名大学生, 实验任务为要求被试分别完成自主决策(采用未知规则: 真规则)和规则迫选决策(遵循给定规则: 假规则)任务, 并对决策后的情感和认可程度进行评定。研究发现: (1) 被试在自主决策条件下比在规则迫选条件下体验到的正性情感程度更强, 负性情感的程度更弱; (2) 被试在自主决策与规则迫选决策两种条件下做出的相同决策越多, 该被试对迫选规则更加认可并体验到的正性情感程度越强, 负性情感的程度越弱; (3) 与期望价值理论相比, 齐当别抉择模型可能符合更多决策者的实际决策规则。这些结果表明, 作为检验规范性和描述性风险决策理论的新尝试, 迫选规则体验法可能更有助于回答“决策者实际采用的决策规则是什么”的问题。     

Attention and attribute overlap in preferential choice

Attributes that are common, or overlapping, across alternatives in two-alternative forced preferential choice tasks are often non-diagnostic. In many settings, attending to and evaluating these attributes does not help the decision maker determine which of the available alternatives is the most desirable. For this reason, many existing behavioural theories propose that decision makers ignore common attributes while deliberating. Across six experiments, we find that decision makers do direct their attention selectively and ignore attributes that are not present in or associated with either of the available alternatives. However, they are as likely to attend to common attributes as they are to attend to attributes that are unique to a single alternative. These results suggest the need for novel theories of attention in preferential choice.     

Breaking the rules in perceptual information integration

We develop a broad theoretical framework for modelling difficult perceptual information integration tasks under different decision rules. The framework allows us to compare coactive architectures, which combine information before it enters the decision process, with parallel architectures, where logical rules combine independent decisions made about each perceptual source. For both architectures we test the novel hypothesis that participants break the decision rules on some trials, making a response based on only one stimulus even though task instructions require them to consider both. Our models take account of not only the decisions made but also the distribution of the time that it takes to make them, providing an account of speed-accuracy tradeoffs and response biases occurring when one response is required more often than another. We also test a second novel hypothesis, that the nature of the decision rule changes the evidence on which choices are based. We apply the models to data from a perceptual integration task with near threshold stimuli under two different decision rules. The coactive architecture was clearly rejected in favor of logical-rules. The logical-rule models were shown to provide an accurate account of all aspects of the data, but only when they allow for response bias and the possibility for subjects to break those rules. We discuss how our framework can be applied more broadly, and its relationship to Townsend and Nozawa’s (1995) Systems-Factorial Technology.     

Self‐other decision‐making differences in loss aversion: A regulatory focus perspective

Drawing on a cultural perspective, we examined whether differences in self‐other decision making documented in the West can be replicated in an Eastern context. Study 1 revealed that Chinese participants showed self‐other decision‐making differences in loss aversion similar to those observed in Western participants; loss aversion differed depending on the type of decision recipient, and trait regulatory focus moderated the self‐other decision‐making difference. Study 2 found a mediating effect of situational prevention but not promotion focus on the relationship between decision makers’ roles and loss aversion. Furthermore, both studies revealed that participants did not show a preference for loss aversion, suggesting that the baseline of self‐other decision‐making differences has shifted in China compared to the West.     

Is virtue its own reward? Self-sacrificial decisions for the sake of fairness

We investigate the ways in which concern for fairness influences decision-making. We use a paradigm previously shown to illustrate circumstances under which a decision maker sacrifices some of his or her own potential for financial gain to punish or reward someone who has demonstrated a prior intent to be either unfair or fair to another person. By ruling out alternative hypotheses related to the original finding, we obtain evidence that “virtue is its own reward”: Decision makers make self-sacrificing allocations, despite the absence of short- or long-term benefits for doing so. Extending the generality of this effect, we also identify circumstances under which the desire for virtuous fairness produces decisions that are not self-sacrificial and do reward someone whose motives seemingly include a willingness to exploit others. These special circumstances apparently indicate the decision maker's belief that “two wrongs don't make a right.” Thus, these studies show that the fairness motive and moral concerns can influence decisions that have economic impact. We extend the range of effects in other studies to include condemnation of interactional injustice and we discuss implications of the overall set of studies in terms of three new foci for attention: A focus on the perpetrator, a focus on the victim, and a focus on the offensiveness of the act itself.