Phased Narrowing: A New Process Tracing Method for Decision Making

A new process tracing technique is presented which combines elements of traditional process tracing methods and methods designed to study the pre-screening of choice options and the formation of consideration sets. To demonstrate its usefulness, we provide data from a consumer decision making task in which subjects were asked to narrow the number of options over three successive decision stages from 18 to 6 to 3, and finally to 1. By examining the attribute values of the options selected at each stage, unique insights were gained into how both decision strategies and the impact of each attribute changed during the decision process and how these changes were related to measurable individual difference factors. The method, which we refer to as phased narrowing, is compared to and offered as a supplement to traditional process tracing approaches.     

Validating a new process tracing method for decision making

In this paper, we describe two experiments in which we assessed the validity of phased narrowing, a new process tracing technique designed to help researchers better understand multiattribute evaluation processes. Specifically, in Experiment 1 we examined the distribution of choices across successive decision stages and the attitudes and perceptions of the decision maker. In Experiment 2, we examined a variety of process data generated via a computerized information monitoring program called Mouse-Trace. Comparisons, in all cases, are made between experimental conditions that do and do not require decision makers to narrow their choices across successive stages. Taken together, the data indicate that there is little evidence to doubt the validity of a less restrictive version of phased narrowing which allows subjects to choose their own number of options to include at each stage. These results are encouraging for researchers who plan to use the technique to study decision making in its natural context.     

Choosing what to choose from: Preference for inclusion over exclusion when constructing consideration sets from large choice sets

Decision making is a two‐stage process, consisting of, first, consideration set construction and then final choice. Decision makers can form a consideration set from a choice set using one of two strategies: including the options they wish to further consider or excluding those they do not wish to further consider. The authors propose that decision makers have a relative preference for an inclusion (vs. exclusion) strategy when choosing from large choice sets and that this preference is driven primarily by a lay belief that inclusion requires less effort than exclusion, particularly in large choice sets. Study 1 demonstrates that decision makers prefer using an inclusion (vs. exclusion) strategy when faced with large choice sets. Study 2 replicates the effect of choice set size on preference for consideration set construction strategy and demonstrates that the belief that exclusion is more effortful mediates the relative preference for inclusion in large choice sets. Studies 3 and 4 further support the importance of perceived effort, demonstrating a greater preference for inclusion in large choice sets when decision makers are primed to think about effort (vs. accuracy; Study 3) and when the choice set is perceived as requiring more effort because of more information being presented about each alternative (vs. more alternatives in the choice set; Study 4). Finally, Study 5 manipulates consideration set construction strategy, showing that using inclusion (vs. exclusion) in large choice sets leads to smaller consideration sets, greater confidence in the decision process, and a higher quality consideration set.     

Imperfect Information in Pre-choice Screening of Options

Three experiments examined decision makers′ use of imperfect information in screening of decision options. It was found that: (1) when specific information about options was missing the absence was treated as a violation of the related decision criterion in the manner described by image theory (Beach, 1990; Beach & Mitchell, 1987) - rejection of options was a function of both the number of violations and the amount of missing information; (2) general paucity of information about options prompted rejection over and above the effects of violations, but paucity had about half the impact of violations or of missing information; (3) information about the probability that an option′s outcomes actually will occur were it the final choice was integrated additively with other information in screening, as predicted by image theory, and was integrated multiplicatively with other information in choice, as predicted by expected utility theory. Together with the results of previous research, these results support the image theory view of decision making as a two-stage process, screening followed by choice, and demonstrate once again the pivotal role of screening in this process.     

The Humpty Dumpty blues: Disaggregation bias in the evaluation of tax systems

Three experiments carried out on the World Wide Web assessed the consistency of attitudes toward various tax regimes that differed in their overall levels and degrees of tax rate graduation in the presence of framing manipulations. The regimes had two components: an income and a payroll tax. One frame involved aggregation. Subjects were asked either to design a single, global tax system or to vary one component of a tax system (payroll or income tax) with the other component held constant. The idea was to replicate the effects of income tax reform given a constant payroll tax system. Consistent with the experimental hypothesis—though not with “rational” decision making—subjects focused on the component they were asked to manipulate and did not respond fully to changes in the other component, across conditions, reflecting an under-adjustment bias as well as a framing effect. The results are akin to Thaler’s “mental account” model for personal financial behavior. A second manipulation involved a “metric” frame: whether putative tax burdens were given in dollars or percent terms. Once again consistent with the experimental hypothesis, subjects preferred higher rates of graduation when matters were stated in percent terms. The results point to the lability of public opinion about important questions of public finance, and they illustrate a specific category of biases concerning disaggregation.     

Change seeking and shock choices

According to sensation-seeking theory, people have characteristic optimal levels of arousal and are motivated to vary stimulus input to reach that level. Self-report studies suggest that seeking changes in stimulation may be one way people control their level of stimulation. The present study tested this hypothesis with a controlled laboratory experiment, using the shock choice procedure. Subjects were asked to choose between a 3-s shock to the wrist immediately or a 1-s shock to the wrist delayed 30 s. “Change seeking” was measured as the number of changes, from trial to trial, between immediate and delayed choices. In order to test change seeking at two levels of arousal, half the subjects were relaxed before making shock choices and half were not. As predicted, subjects who scored high on two subscales of sensation seeking, Boredom Susceptibility and Experience Seeking, made more shock-choice changes during the relaxed condition than subjects who scored low on these two subscales.     

Should you Sleep on it? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference‐based Choice

Conventional wisdom and studies of unconscious processing suggest that sleeping on a choice may improve decision making. Although sleep has been shown to benefit several cognitive tasks, including problem solving, its impact on everyday choices remains unclear. Here we explore the effects of ‘sleeping on it’ on preference‐based decisions among multiple options. In two studies, individuals viewed several attributes describing a set of items and were asked to select their preferred item after a 12‐hour interval that either contained sleep or was spent fully awake. After an overnight period including sleep, individuals showed increases in positive perceptions of the choice set. This finding contrasts with previous research showing that sleep selectively enhances recall for negative information. In addition, this increase in positive recall did not translate into a greater desire to purchase their preferred item or into an overall benefit for choice satisfaction. Time‐of‐day controls were used to confirm that the observed effects could not be explained by circadian influences. Thus, we show that people may feel more positive about the choice options but not more confident about the choice after ‘sleeping on’ a subjective decision. We discuss how the valence of recalled choice set information may be important in understanding the effects of sleep on multi‐attribute decision making and suggest several avenues for future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deep thoughts and shallow frames: on the susceptibility to framing effects

This paper examines the occurrence of framing effects when more thought is given to problems. In Study 1, participants were presented with one of two frames of several decision problems. Participants' Need for Cognition (NC) scores were obtained, and half the participants were asked to justify their choices. Substantial framing effects were observed, but the amount of thought purportedly given to a problem, whether manipulated by justification elicitation or measured by NC scores, did not reduce the incidence of framing effects. In Study 2, participants responded to both frames of problems in a within‐subjects design. Again, NC scores were unrelated to responses on the first frame encountered. However, high‐NC, compared to low‐NC, participants were more consistent across frames of a problem. More thought, as indexed here, does not reduce the proclivity to be framed, but does promote adherence to normative principles when the applicability of those principles is detectable. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eye Movements in Risky Choice

We asked participants to make simple risky choices while we recorded their eye movements. We built a complete statistical model of the eye movements and found very little systematic variation in eye movements over the time course of a choice or across the different choices. The only exceptions were finding more (of the same) eye movements when choice options were similar, and an emerging gaze bias in which people looked more at the gamble they ultimately chose. These findings are inconsistent with prospect theory, the priority heuristic, or decision field theory. However, the eye movements made during a choice have a large relationship with the final choice, and this is mostly independent from the contribution of the actual attribute values in the choice options. That is, eye movements tell us not just about the processing of attribute values but also are independently associated with choice. The pattern is simple—people choose the gamble they look at more often, independently of the actual numbers they see—and this pattern is simpler than predicted by decision field theory, decision by sampling, and the parallel constraint satisfaction model. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Reducing fears and increasing assertiveness: The role of dissonance reduction

In the research paradigm known as effort justification, people engage in an effortful activity in order to attain a goal. As a result, the goal becomes more attractive. Two experiments were conducted to test the notion that the effort justification sequence can account for the positive changes that result from psychotherapy. In the first experiment, subjects who were afraid to approach a snake underwent one of two types of effortful therapy. One was a modified form of an anxiety-producing therapy known as “implosive therapy”; the other was merely a set of physical exercises. It was reasoned, on the basis of cognitive dissonance theory, that the expenditure of effort would lead to a positive change in the ability to approach the snake but only under conditions of high decision freedom. Half of the subjects in each of the therapy conditions participated with high choice; the other half with low choice. Subjects' improvement in their approach to snakes was assessed. A main effect for decision freedom was predicted and found independently of the type of effort that subjects expended. A second experiment conceptually replicated the findings of the first experiment. Subjects who wanted to become more assertive participated in an effortful, physical exercise therapy or in a modified form of the standard treatment for fear of assertiveness. The results of the 2 × 2 factorial experiment again showed a main effect for decision freedom such that high choice subjects became more assertive. The findings were discussed in terms of dissonance and attribution theories as well as for implications for future consideration of psychotherapy.     

Some factors affecting response in recognition tests

Experiments were designed to investigate some of the factors which might affect a subject's responses in a recognition test. Two experiments are described. In the first, subjects were shown 12 similar photographs. They were then given a recognition test of 12 photographs, of which a number varying from o to 12 had been shown in the original display. All the photographs were sufficiently alike to render some guessing essential. It was found that subjects tended to select approximately 50 per cent. as having been seen previously and to reject 50 per cent. When a second and similar display and recognition test followed immediately, there was a tendency for subjects to make more “yes” responses, without any improvement in accuracy. The effect of giving serial presentation first was to increase the number accepted not only in that test but also in a test using simultaneous presentation which succeeded it. It was also shown that when a correct decision was possible but difficult a positively correct response (in this case recognizing something seen before) was easier than a negatively correct one (rejecting something not seen before).

In the second experiment subjects were shown a picture and were then asked to describe it from memory. Immediately afterwards half the group was given a multiple-choice recognition test while the other half was given a single-choice recognition test. It was found that accuracy and certainty of decision varied with the nature of the choice situation. The results are discussed in relation to a theory of adaptation levels.     

Reliance on Numerical Precision: Compatibility between Accuracy versus Efficiency Goals and Numerical Precision Level Influence Attribute Weighting in Two‐Stage Decisions

This research examines how the weighting of an attribute is jointly affected by attribute precision and decision stage. Building on prior work suggesting (a) that less (more) precise numerical values are easier to process (more accurate), (b) that decision‐makers' motivation to be efficient (accurate) is greater when creating a consideration set (making a final choice), and (c) that decision‐makers tend to overweight information that is compatible with their goals, we hypothesize that when creating a consideration set (making a choice) participants tend to assign greater weight to less (more) precise attributes. Five studies (two of them reported in the Appendix S1) offer triangulating evidence for these predictions. Overall, this work contributes to research on numerical cognition, efficiency versus accuracy trade‐offs, attribute weighting, and two‐stage decisions.     

Seeing the Forest or the Trees: Implications of Construal Level Theory for Consumer Choice

Like many important theories that were originally tested in one domain, construal level theory has broadened the notion of temporal distance to psychological distance and examined the wide ranging implications of this construct on evaluation and behavior. This commentary seeks to take a step back to admire the “forest” that has been created and suggest additional extensions and implications along the different stages of consumer decision making: goal pursuit, evaluation by way of consideration‐set formation and receptivity, and finally choice influenced by context, comparability of options, and post‐choice happiness and regret.     

Misperceptions of feedback in dynamic decision making

In recent years laboratory experiments have shed significant light on the behavior of economic agents in a variety of microeconomic and decision-theoretic contexts such as auction markets, portfolio choice, and preference elicitation. Despite the success of experimental techniques in the micro domain, there has been relatively little work linking the behavior of decision makers to the dynamics of larger organizations such as corporations, industries, or the macroeconomy. This paper presents a laboratory experiment in which subjects manage a simulated economy. Subjects must invest sufficient capital plant and equipment to satisfy demand. Subjects were given complete and perfect information regarding the structure of the simulated economy, the values of all variables, and the past history of the system. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of the subjects generate significant and costly oscillations. A simple decision rule based on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic is shown to simulate the subjects' decisions quite well. Several distinct sources of the subjects' poor performance are identified and termed “misperceptions of feedback.” The decision rule is related to various models of economic fluctuations; implications for experimental investigation of dynamic decision making in aggregate systems are explored.     

Decision Making When the Acceptable Options Become Unavailable

Research examined what decision makers do when, after screening out unacceptable options in preparation for making a choice from among the acceptable survivors, they find that all of the survivors have become unavailable and that no new options are forthcoming. Subjects were presented options in the form of rooms to rent and were required to screen them to prepare a "short list" from which a choice could be made. They also rated the importance of the room′s characteristics. Then they were told that the rooms on the short list all had been rented, and that no new rooms had become available so they would have to create a new short list from among the previously rejected rooms. Then they rescreened the rejected options and rerated the importance of the characteristics of the rooms. It was found that nearly 90% of the subjects would prefer to begin again with new options rather than rescreen rejected options. It also was found that when forced to rescreen rejected options, subjects reduced their ratings of the importance of the options′ characteristics, apparently in an effort to compensate, at least in part, for having to select options that, only moments before, had been regarded as unacceptable. Efforts to discourage ratings reductions proved futile. Implications of the results for screening and choice are discussed.     

模拟网络信息主动增加特征的决策过程研究

与传统信息不同,网络信息具有可以主动增加的互动特征,本研究探讨这种特征对网络情境下决策加工过程的影响。通过改进的信息板技术追踪决策过程。实验一设置可否“主动增加信息”两种情境进行对照研究,发现引入主动增加功能后被试的搜索深度降低,先前知识的水平影响信息加工的模式;实验二设置可以连续要求增加信息的连续任务,比较不同的增加路径和选择阶段的影响,发现被试的搜索深度逐步降低,更多采用非补偿性的策略。两个实验均有超过半数的被试要求增加信息,连续任务有着32%的回头率,研究者推论在信息不断增加的情况下,被试的信息搜索行为更具选择性。     

Effect propensity

In a choice between two options, decision makers can often be roughly divided into three groups: those who strongly prefer the first option, those who strongly prefer the second option, and those whose choices are most sensitive to the specific conditions (Switchers). In any reference state, such as the experimental control, Switchers’ choices are unlikely to be exactly equally divided between the options, which potentially creates a ceiling effect among those most susceptible to influence by the particular conditions or experimental manipulations. The limited growth potential of the option favored by Switchers in the reference state can produce “effect propensity,” whereby any condition or manipulation applied to the reference state is more likely to increase the share of the other option. We test this proposition in a series of studies in the context of choices between safe and risky options and between lower-price/quality and higher-price/quality options. The results indicate that a large majority of conceptually unrelated manipulations tend to increase the choice share of risky and higher-price/quality options. This effect propensity can be reversed when the risky and higher-price/quality options are the status quo alternatives or asymmetrically dominating in the reference state. Alternative explanations for effect propensity are examined. We discuss the implications of effect propensity for the interpretation of research findings, the selection of controls, and theory tests.