Decision Confidence, Information Usefulness, and Information Seeking Intention in the Presence of Disconfirming Information

Abstract

The increasing use of data visualization for displaying information in a transdisciplinary environment raises issues about client information seeking in the decision-making processes. Field experts and individuals with high confidence tend to seek less information for their decisions than non-experts and individuals who are less confident. This work fills a gap about the effect of the information display format, visual or nonvisual, upon the client's decision. In the context of data visualization and confirmation bias, this work provides needed research on computer aided information seeking in a decision-making, informing environment. Guided by the theories of confirmation bias and cognitive fit, we propose and test a model that investigates the impact of apriori decision confidence on seeking more information and information usefulness. Findings indicate that both information presentation type and confirmation bias affect the decision process of the information seeker. Findings also indicate that overall, the higher the confidence, the less likely users will find disconfirming evidence useful.

Effects of information security risk visualization on managerial decision making

“…According to O'Reilly [60], information abundance generally induces higher confidence for decision makers. Furthermore, this finding aligns with research on information seeking intention [61]: When the visual format of information is presented, users are not led to seek information, whereas when information is presented only in textual format, users are led to seek additional information.…”

“…On the other hand, decision confidence can influence interpretation, perception, and ultimately the resulting judgments. Phillips, Prybutok, and Peak [43] point out the correlation between decision confidence and perceived expertise, where higher decision confidence can cause oversight and incorrect interpretation of the information, as individual's preconceptions would overshadow the information presented to them.…”

The Role of Uncertainty, Awareness, and Trust in Visual Analytics

“…Unfortunately, confirmation bias is the tendency to ignore information that does not agree with the user preconception or hypothesis [41]. In a recent study, Phillips et al [62] demonstrate that users of information systems, tend to reduce the perceived usefulness of information that does not reinforce their current premise, which in turn reduces their likelihood to explore the data. Over-confidence and perceived expertise has a similar effect.…”

Framing effect of environmental cost information on environmental awareness among high school students

“…It is related to an individual's internal experience with making decisions and shows the difficulty of choosing among trade-offs in the decision process (Hanselmann and Tanner 2008). Decision confidence is related to information presentation (Phillips, Prybutok, and Peak 2014). People can achieve decision confidence when conflicts in decision making are low (de neys, cormheeke, and osman 2011).…”