Post on 03-Jan-2016
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The Psychology of Judgment and Decision MakingScott Plous Wesleyan University, 1993
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Overview
Compendium that aggregates decades of research on judgment and decision making
Primarily from Psychology, but pulls in a few other fields
Our approach today: Complete the Reader survey as a class Walk through each chapter
Describe the concepts Discuss examples from reader survey Discuss application to MIS research
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Section IPerception, Memory, and Context
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Ch1: Selective Perception
There is no such thing as immaculate perception. What you see depends upon what you thought before you looked.-Myron Tribus
There is no such thing as context-free decision making. All judgments and decisions rest on the way we see and interpret the world.-Scott Plous
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Ch2: Cognitive Dissonance
We are motivated to reduce or avoid psychological inconsistencies
Self-perception theory Dissonance has more to do with how people infer their beliefs from watching
themselves behave
The brain wants the world to make sense and will create explanations such that it does i.e. if I perform a task for a small amount of money, I must derive enjoyment from
the task, but if I was highly compensated, I was motivated by the money.
Can be pre-decisional or post-decisional
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Ch2: Cognitive Dissonance
Relevance to MIS
System design
User behavior
Deception detection Induces physiological changes
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Ch3: Memory and Hindsight Biases
What is memory? Not copies of experiences on deposit in a data bank Reconstructive, dependent upon contextual factors
Hindsight bias Tendency to view what has already happened as inevitable and obvious without
recognizing that retrospective knowledge is influencing one’s judgment Strategies to avoid
Stop to consider reasons why the results may have turned out differently
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Ch3: Memory and Hindsight Biases – survey examples
Memory is reconstructive and highly dependent upon contextual factors:
(34a) "The ants ate the jelly which was on the table."
Did this sentence appeared before or not? Confidence rating: ___
(34b) "The ants in the kitchen ate the sweet jelly which was on the table."
Did this sentence appeared before or not? Confidence rating: ___
(34c) "The ants ate the sweet jelly."
Did this sentence appeared before or not? Confidence rating: ___
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Ch3: Memory and Hindsight Biases
Relevance to MIS
System design
System adoption
Acceptance of technology
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Ch4: Context Dependence
Contrast effects Our perceptions can be different based upon the context in which they occur Hot, cold, warm water
Primacy effect Characteristics appearing early influence impressions more than ones appearing later
Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent vs.
Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious
Recency effect Able to remember more recent information more readily than older information
Halo effect Tendency to treat a set of characteristics in a similar manner – all high, all low – even when they should
not necessarily be related
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Ch4: Context Dependence
Relevance to MIS
System design
How interfaces are perceived (contrast/halo)
Efficiency – what do you look at first and how does that impact context/decisions
Recency – what does the system expect the user to remember (use/training)
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Section IIHow questions affect answers
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Ch5: Plasticity
Plasticity: Malleability of responses based on situation
Order effects The order in which questions are asked can influence the perceived context and as a result influence
responses
Pseudo-opinions When people are familiar with an issue, context and order produce marginal changes of opinion When people have little familiarity, they are more easily influenced If they know nothing, sometimes they will still offer a “pseudo-opinion” Can drastically influence political affairs
Inconsistency Discrepancy between two related attitudes or between an attitude and a corresponding behavior Can illustrate cognitive dissonance and also that situational factors can introduce complications –
abstract attitudes can bear little relation to specific actions
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Ch5: Plasticity
Relevance to MIS
System design Order effects in UI
Adoption Pseudo-opinions and inconsistency can impact project success
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing
It’s not what you askIt’s how you ask
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing (cont.)
Word choice, safe vs. safer
Forced choice (e.g., faster vs. slower) vs. middle category (e.g., faster vs. same as now vs. slower)
Open (fill in the blank) vs. closed (a, b, c, and or d, etc.)
Norbert Schwarz et al. noted “Response scales are not simply ‘measurement devices’ that respondents use to report their behaviors. Rather . . . respondents may use the range of behaviors [emphasis added] described in the response alternatives as a frame of reference in estimating and evaluating their own behavior [emphasis added]” (as cited in Plous 1993, p. 67).
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing (cont.)
Social desirability – some answers may be more socially desirable than others
Allowing vs. forbidding Types of speech Peep shows, X-rated movies “Framing”
Tversky and Kahneman stated a decision frame [emphasis added] is “the decision maker's conception of the acts, outcomes, and contingencies associated with a particular choice” (as cited in Plous 1993, p. 69).
Very, very important in information security, gain security or lose freedom
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing (cont.)
Deductive logic “Extra” taxes for childless families, not tax deductions for families with children
Psychological accounting Psychological accounting requires some notion of reference points/accounts. We just saw an MIS Speaker Series on Mental Accounting (without reference).
Before relying on results from survey research [emphasis added] and other studies of judgment and decision making [emphasis added], it is important to consider how people's answers would have changed as a function of factors such as:
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing (cont.)
The order in which the questions were presented
The context in which the questions appeared
Whether the question format was open or closed
Whether the questions were filtered
Whether the questions contained catch phrases
The range of suggested response alternatives
The order in which response alternatives were presented
Whether middle categories were provided
Whether problems were framed in terms of gains or losses
* More to come
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Ch6: The Effects of Question Wording and Framing
Relevance to MIS
Measures Survey or not, you have to ask questions
System design UI Question wording and framing
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Section IVHeuristics and Biases
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Ch10: The Representativeness Heuristic
The Law of Small Numbers
The Hot Hand
Neglecting Base Rates
Nonregressive Prediction
Clinical Versus Actuarial Prediction
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Ch10: The Representativeness Heuristic
Relevance to MIS
System design What information do we present? How to mitigate heuristic based bias with UI design
Decision making Understanding decision-making heuristics key to interpreting user behavior
Summarization and dashboarding Are we providing the correct context (base rates, etc.)
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Ch11: The Availability Heuristic
Availability Goes A Wry
The Limits of Imagination
Denial Nuclear war
Vividness The Legal Significance of Guacamole
A Disclaimer
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Ch11: The Availability Heuristic
Relevance to MIS
System design What comparisons are people making when they interact with the system?
Experiments and Measures
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Ch12: Probability and Risk
Confusion of The Inverse
It'll Never Happen To Me
Compound Events
Conservatism
The Perception of Risk
Do Accidents Make Us Safer?
Recommendations
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Ch12: Probability and Risk
Relevance to MIS
IT deployment and valuation
User actions
Experiments and Measures
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Ch13: Anchoring and Adjustment
Thinking About The Unthinkable
How Real is Real Estate?
Further Examples of Anchoring
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Ch13: Anchoring and Adjustment
Relevance to MIS
System design
User interface What information is presented as anchor?
IT Deployment and economics
Experiments and Measures
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Ch14: The Perception of Randomness
An Unlikely Development
Luck And Superstition
Recognizing Randomness
Seeing Patterns In Randomness
Can People Behave Randomly?
Learning To Act Randomly
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Ch14: The Perception of Randomness
Relevance to MIS
ADMIT & CAT People can be trained to behave randomly
UI for data analysis and pattern recognition
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Ch15: Correlation, Causation, and Control
Does God Answer Prayers?
Illusory Correlation
Invisible Correlations
Getting By
Causalation
Heads I Win, Tails It's Chance
The Kind Of Help That Doesn't Help
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Ch15: Correlation, Causation, and Control
Relevance to MIS
Experiments and Measures
Data analysis Researcher User
Prescriptive systems and behavior change Perception of control
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Ch16: Attribution Theory
Analysis of Variance Framework The Person - Consensus The Entity – Stimulus The Time – Circumstance
A Lack Of Consensus
Salience
The Fundamental Attribution Error
My Situation Is Your Disposition there is a pervasive tendency for actors to attribute their actions to situational requirements,
whereas observers tend to attribute the same actions to stable personal dispositions.
Trading Places
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Ch16: Attribution Theory – cont.
Clinical Implications For observers, the actor is most salient; for the actor, situational demands are salient
Other Attributional Biases "self-serving" bias "egocentric" biases "positivity effect" is a tendency to attribute positive behaviors to dispositional factors and negative
behaviors to situational factors "negativity effect" disliked others the "ultimate attribution error“ the tendency to ascribe less variability to others than to oneself
Debiasing Pay Close Attention to Consensus: If most people behave similarly when confronted by the same situation, a
dispositional explanation is probably unwarranted. Instead, observers should look to situational factors for an explanation of behavior.
Ask How You Would Have Behaved In The Same Circumstance
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Ch16: Attribution Theory
Relevance to MIS
Experiments and Measures Data analysis
User behavior and prescriptive systems
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Section VThe Social Side of Judgment and Decision Making
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Ch17: Social Influences
Social Facilitation
Social Loafing Scene 1: "Let That Girl Alone!“ Scene 2: Tunnel Vision Scene 3: Picking Up The Pieces
Bystander Intervention
Social Comparison Theory
Taking Cues From Those Who Are Similar
Social Analgesia
Conformity
Minority Influence
Groupthink
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Ch17: Social Influences
Relevance to MIS
Individual behavior when a group is present
Motivation
Experiments and Measures Social desirability
Society and culture
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Ch18: Group Judgments and Decisions
Group Errors and Biases
Group Polarization
Horse Sense
Are Several Heads Better Than One?
The Benefits Of Dictatorship
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Ch18: Group Judgments and Decisions
Relevance to MIS
Group behavior and interactions
System design Group Support Systems Online interaction Social networking
Experimental design
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Section VICommon Traps
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Ch19: Overconfidence
The Case Of Joseph Kidd
Extreme Confidence
When Overconfidence Becomes A Capital Offense
Calibration
The Correlation Between Confidence And Accuracy
How Can Overconfidence Be Reduced? Stop to consider reasons why your judgment might be wrong.
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Ch20: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Guess Again
Self-Perpetuating Social Beliefs
The Pygmalion Effect
In The Minds Of Men
Self-Fulfilling Racial Stereotypes
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Ch21: Behavioral Traps
A Taxonomy Of Traps Time delay traps Ignorance traps Investment traps Deterioration traps Collective traps
Prisoner's Dilemma
How Much Would You Pay For A Dollar?
Knee Deep In The Big Muddy
The Great Escape
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Conclusions
Psychological biases are an intrinsic part of the way humans make judgments and decisions
It is important to take these biases into consideration when conducting MIS research
System Design Experiment Design
Biases impact not just subjects, but researchers themselves