The effects of strong belief structures on information‐processing evaluations and choice

Abstract

This study examined the influence of the strength of belief structures on selected aspects of the decision-making process. To examine these issues, a business-acquisition decision scenario was studied in an experiment. Subjects played the role of a CEO of an electronics firm and were asked to evaluate the attractiveness of six potential acquisition candidates and to rate various aspects of the associated decision process. We presented half the subjects with information that the belief structure of their organization was extreme, agreed upon, and clear. The other half was presented with information that there was disagreement about the belief structure and that it was more ambiguous and less extreme. The results clearly showed that the decision process is different for people who were presented with an agreed-upon, extreme, and tightly constructed belief structure when compared to those who received information reflecting a weak and loosely constructed belief structure. A strong belief structure resulted in less positive evaluations, information requested, and money allocated to explore incompatible acquisition candidates (and vice versa for a highly compatible candidate) when compared to subjects using a weak belief structure. In addition, subjects in the strong-belief condition reported that their decision process would be characterized by less doubt, less time, less difficulty, and less conflict compared to subjects in the weak-belief structure condition. Implications for both decision theory and practical decision processes are discussed. KEY WORDS Belief structures Automaticity Decision simplificationWhether one reviews the recent literature on classical decision theory (Stevenson et af., 1990) or the more applied aspects of organizational decision making (Klein and Calderwood, 1992) two common themes emerge. First, decision-making strategies vary from fairly simple heuristics and rules Journal of Behavioral Decision MakingVol. 6, Zss. No. 2to complex information and analytic processes. That is, there are a variety of ways to make decisions. This variety is partly determined by the type of decision involved (e.g. its demands, available information, possible solutions) and the social or organizational context in which it occurs (e.g. extent public, importance, accountability). Strategies will vary across decision types and decision settings (Abelson and Levi, 1985;Beach and Mitchell, 1978;Hammond, 1982; Payne et al., 1988). A second theme is that strategies vary, even for the same decision. Different people bring different experiences, beliefs and personal attributes to a particular decision. For example, experts differ from novices (Shanteau, 1992). People who believe that their life is controlled by external events make decisions differently from those that believe they can control their fate (Strickland, 1989). Risk-averse people differ from risk seekers (MacCrimmon and Wehrung, 1990;Kahneman and Tversky, 1984). Clearly, numerous different factors can influence the way in which a particular person makes a ...

Broadening the Definition of Decision Making: The Role of Prechoice Screening of Options

“…This relationship between violations and rated acceptability, and between either or both of them and rejection or retention of options, has been found in all of the studies my colleagues and I have done, thus supporting the primacy of violations in screening and revealing the existence of a rejection threshold (Beach, Smith, Lundell·, & Mitchell, 1988;Beach & Strom, 1989;Potter & Beach, in press-a, in press-b;Rediker et a!., 1993).…”

“…The relationship between violations and acceptability also has been tested in a different context (Rediker, Mitchell, Beach, & Beard, 1993). M.B.A. students roleplayed a business executive who was seeking to diversify his or her company's services by acquiring a computer firm.…”

Decision making

“…2 The results, summarized in Beach and Connolly (2005) and Beach (1993Beach ( , 2009, demonstrate the existence of rejection thresholds (Beach & Strom, 1989), that they vary depending upon conditions (Ordonez, Benson, & Beach, 1999), and that nondiscrepancies do not contribute to rejection (Beach, Smith, Lundell, & Mitchell, 1988;Potter & Beach, 1994a,b;Rediker, Mitchell, Beach, & Beard, 1993). In addition, the greater the number of discrepancies that have already been discovered, as well as the importance of the features that are discrepant, determines whether a small discrepancy is regarded as trivial or nontrivial (Benson, Mertens, & Beach, 2009).…”

How Objects Believe for Us: Applications in Organizational Analysis

“…suggest any other image when examining the mechanisms of belief, internalization and identification in contemporary employment situations. For example, organization psychology approaches belief as an internal disposition to accept or reject externally available options (e.g., Rediker et al, 1993;Pisnar-Sweeney, 1997;Sparks and Schenk, 2001). Scholarship inspired by cognitive psychology similarly theorizes belief as a mental map that mediates how actors perceive and make sense of their relationship with the organization.…”