Ear Decomposition for Pair Comparison Data

An efficient graph-theoretical decomposition technique is introduced that treats inconsistencies in behavioral data as systematic adaptations rather than random errors. This technique, which is known as ear decomposition, reduces inconsistencies in any binary data set to a basis of directed cycles. Such a basis characterizes the data set in terms of inconsistencies and its size offers an improved measure of internal consistency. In two examples it is illustrated how different implementations of the ear decomposition technique can help to identify choices that are critical for violations of transitivity.     

Self-Other Discrepancies in Waiting Time Decisions

Both anecdotal evidence and recently reported research suggest that people are risk-averse when faced with waiting time decisions. Four studies investigate whether there is a self-other discrepancy in how people make waiting time decisions themselves and how they predict others will make similar decisions. People are found to believe that others have valuations of time similar to their own. However, when faced with alternatives that involve risk in the duration of the wait, the results point to a self-other discrepancy, in that people report greater risk-aversion themselves than they think others would. Further, when faced with waiting time gains, people are themselves more risk-averse than they think others would be. Conversely, when faced with waiting time losses, people are themselves more risk-seeking than they think others would be. Overall, the results are consistent with the recently proposed risk-as-feelings hypothesis.     

An experimental analysis of decision channeling by restrictive information display

This study focuses on the effect of restrictive information display on decision performance. Specifically the study examines whether two‐channeled and one non‐channeled computerized information display systems result in significant differences in decision accuracy. The two‐channeled information display systems are designed to encourage two general information processing patterns commonly observed in the experimental literature examining multi‐alternative, multi‐attribute choice decisions: information processing by alternative and information processing by attribute. An information display program was developed which used restrictive information display to operationalize the channeled versus non‐channeled manipulation. Channeling was implemented either by displaying information only by alternative or by displaying information only by attribute. The task was an operations scheduling problem that subjects completed under three levels of time pressure. The results indicate statistically significant effects on decision accuracy for both the type of information display and time pressure manipulations. The highest decision accuracy was observed when information was displayed by alternative and when subjects were under highest levels of time pressure. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness

The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features (hormone markers). Evolutionary psychology proposes that these characteristics all pertain to health, suggesting that humans have evolved to view certain features as attractive because they were displayed by healthy individuals. However, the question remains how single features that are considered attractive relate to each other, and if they form a single ornament that signals mate quality. Moreover, some researchers have recently explained attractiveness preferences in terms of individual differences that are predictable. This article briefly describes what is currently known from attractiveness research, reviews some recent advances, and suggests areas for future researchers' attention.     

Tomorrow's consumer — the shifting balance of power

What are the prospects for consumerism? Often despised as self‐indulgent, consumers are frequently motivated by altruism and their needs to express their identity, to build relationships, to obtain fulfilment and even to find a substitute for religion. Mass‐customisation is producing fundamental change, revolutionising attitudes to choice, with a key role for agents (human and online) in helping people choose. Consumer power will grow and brands will be under pressure from rising consumer expectations. While retailers fight back with targeted marketing and special offers, brands will need to serve consumer needs as much as suppliers. Online shopping could transform consumer behaviour, driven by cost saving and convenience and spurred on by competition. Will retailers protect their traditional channels or go online because they are afraid not to? ‘Etailing’ will need to create consumer trust, so regulation will be critical, possibly leading to legal responsibilities for quality on Internet service providers (ISPs) and portals and with systems to help new entrants build a track record of reliability, thereby increasing competition, choice and consumer power. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Risk perception and risky choice: Situational, informational and dispositional effects

We investigated how situational (gain–loss), informational (opportunity–threat framing) and dispositional (achievement motive and avoidance motive) variables affected opportunity–threat perception and risky choice in managerial decision-making contexts. In Study 1, the risk preference of the participants showed a reflection effect due to situational differences (gain or loss) and a partial framing effect caused by presenting the same choice information in terms of either opportunities or threats. However, both effects were in the opposite direction of predictions from prospect theory. Gains and positive framing enhanced risk-seeking preference whereas losses and negative framing augmented risk-averse preference. Risk-seeking choices were mediated by opportunity perception whereas risk-averse choices were mediated by threat perception. In Study 2, the participants high in achievement motive perceived greater opportunities in a negative situation, and the participants high in avoidance motive perceived greater threats in a positive situation, suggesting that ambition (achievement motive) operates more significantly in the face of adversities whereas cautiousness (avoidance motive) functions more significantly in prosperity.     

Quantum Mechanics and "Song of Myself": Getting a Grip on Reality

Most recent writing linking science and literature has concerned itself with challenges to the epistemological status of scientific knowledge in an attempt to demonstrate its contingency, arguing in the more radical efforts that the structures of science are no more than useful fictions. This essay also includes an epistemological comparison between science and literature, but instead of making grand or meta–statements about the nature of knowing generally in the two fields, mine is a much narrower aim. My exploration entails two tasks. First, I provide a close–up look at a particular type of experiment, called the delayed–choice experiment, which clearly reveals the strangeness of the quantum world. In connection with this experiment, I discuss wave functions—mathematical expressions used by physicists to describe quantum behavior and predict the outcome of experiments involving quanta. Second, I look at Walt Whitman's “Song of Myself” focusing on the meaning of the “self” in the poem. My aim is to treat the object of study in each field as a “text” and to assert and demonstrate a parallel in the strategies of thought and response between physicists (“readers”) pondering the meaning and status of a wave function and poem readers pondering the meaning and status of the poem's self. In Whitman's “Song” we find an attempt to understand complex aspects of human experience that are said to transcend ordinary reality, an effort for which I believe there are parallels in the attempts of modern physicists to understand complex, nonintuitive aspects of the subatomic world. While not making the kind of broad claims eschewed above, I do suggest that this focused study has interesting implications since both the wave function and the poem's self force their respective sets of “readers” to confront questions of ultimacy—to consider, that is, epistemological and ontological issues of more than passing interest to students of science as well as those of metaphysics and theology.     

Prospective and retrospective evaluations of experiences: how you evaluate an experience depends on when you evaluate it

Prior research (cf. Soman & Shi, 2001 ) has shown that obstacles and periods of low progress in an experience reduce the evaluation of that experience. In this research, we propose that the temporal distance between the obstacle and the time of making the evaluation moderates the effect of the obstacle. Consequently, an early (late) obstacle reduces prospective (retrospective) evaluation more significantly than a late (early) obstacle. In two experiments, we find support for this temporal proximity hypothesis. Further, differences between prospective and retrospective evaluations disappeared when the data were analyzed in terms of temporal distance, suggesting that the judgment policies underlying prospective and retrospective evaluations were the same. We also show that it is possible to create pairs of paths such that one of the two paths would be preferred when viewed in prospect, but the other path might be preferred in retrospect. Copyright © 2002 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.