The emergence of coherence over the course of decision making.

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that decision making is accompanied by an increase in the coherence of assessments of the factors related to the decision alternatives. In the present study, the authors investigated whether this coherence shift is obtained before people commit to a decision, and whether it is obtained in the course of a number of other processing tasks. College students were presented with a complex legal case involving multiple conflicting arguments. Participants rated agreement with the individual arguments in isolation before seeing the case and after processing it under various initial sets, including playing the role of a judge assigned to decide the case. Coherence shifts were observed when participants were instructed to delay making the decision (Experiment 1), to memorize the case (Experiment 2), and to comprehend the case (Experiment 3). The findings support the hypothesis that a coherence-generating mechanism operates in a variety of processing tasks, including decision making.Many decisions people are faced with require the integration of multiple inferences. Tasks such as deciding which job offer to accept, or what candidate to support in an election, involve sets of inferences that tend to be ambiguous, contradictory, and complex. Holyoak and Simon (1999) examined such inference-based decision making in a laboratory analog of judicial decision making, in which college students were asked to render a verdict in a complex legal case. The principal finding was that the decision-making process was accompanied by a systematic change in the evaluation of the inferences toward a pattern of coherence with the emerging decision. Assessments of inferences spread apart increasingly, with those supporting the chosen decision growing stronger as those supporting the rejected alternative waned. This shifting of inferences suggests that the participants' reasoning processes operated bidirectionally: The decisions seemed to be based on the inferences made from the provided information, and at the same time, the emerging decisions worked backwards to alter the strength of the inferences, yielding even stronger support for the decision. Evidence of this bidirectional influence was provided by a manipulation of the favorability of 1 of the 12 inferences inDan Simon, School of Law, University of Southern California; Lien B. Pham, Quang A. Le, and Keith J. Holyoak, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles.A preliminary report of the findings was presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Los Angeles, November 1999. This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants SES-0080424 and SES-0080375.This article benefited from the comments of Tom Lyon, Steve Read, David Boninger, and Jay Russo. We thank Andre Der-Avakian, Mercedes Barajas, Vera Cha, Humberto Iglesias, Mimi Lin, Diana Lucero, Annahita Palar, Suzette Viemes, and Kristine Vuong for assisting in running the experiments and Sean McAuliffe for preparing figures.Correspondence concerning thi...

Sizing up information distortion: Quantifying its effect on the subjective values of choice options

“…Preference formation . Risk When people choose between alternatives that vary on a number of attributes, an early preference for one alternative can lead to the distortion of later information in the direction of the tentative favorite (Brownstein, 2003;DeKay, Patiño-Echeverri, & Fischbeck, 2009b;Holyoak & Simon, 1999;Russo, Medvec, & Meloy, 1996;Russo, Meloy, & Medvec, 1998;Simon, Krawczyk, & Holyoak, 2004;Simon, Pham, Le, & Holyoak, 2001;Simon, Snow, & Read, 2004). This predecisional information distortion occurs in decisions that do not explicitly involve risk (e.g., Russo et al, 1996Russo et al, , 1998Simon, Krawczyk, & Holyoak, 2004) and in those that do (DeKay et al, 2009b;DeKay, Stone, & Miller, 2011;Glöckner & Herbold, 2011;Russo & Yong, 2011).…”

“…This predecisional information distortion occurs in decisions that do not explicitly involve risk (e.g., Russo et al, 1996Russo et al, , 1998Simon, Krawczyk, & Holyoak, 2004) and in those that do (DeKay et al, 2009b;DeKay, Stone, & Miller, 2011;Glöckner & Herbold, 2011;Russo & Yong, 2011). It results from a motivation or unconscious inclination to achieve consistency (Glöckner, Betsch, & Schindler, 2010;Holyoak & Simon, 1999;Russo, Carlson, Meloy, & Yong, 2008;Simon et al, 2001) and mediates the effects of initial preferences on final choices and confidence judgments (DeKay et al, 2011).…”

Confirmation Bias and Related Errors

“…These findings were smaller in size and narrower in scope than expected (see Limitations of internal validity from manipulation problems for a discussion) as the consistent effects found in the dissonance theory paradigm (Frey, 1981(Frey, , 1986Ditto & Lopez, 1992;Pinkley, et al, 1995;Frey, et al, 1996;Johnston, 1996;Russo, et al, 1996;Luce, et al, 1997;Lundgren & Prislin, 1998;Schulz-Hardt, et al, 2000;Simon, et al, 2001), despite the parallel situations. This failed to extend dissonance theory paradigm to the Bayesian conditionals selection paradigm.…”

“…Research under this paradigm has consistently found that people select and read more information that agrees with their existing beliefs (Jonas, Schulz-Hardt, Frey, & Thelen, 2001). Recent research in this paradigm has found the same bias in information search prior to commitment, for alternatives that have emerged as promising (Russo, Medvec, & Meloy, 1996;Luce, Bettman, & Payne, 1997;Simon, Pham, Le, & Holyoak, 2001) As previously noted, this paper will use the term "predictor selection bias" to refer to this phenomenon of search biased in favor of variables expected to be confirmatory. (See page 4 for an explanation of this term).…”

“…Literature Review 32 Platt & Griggs (1993) Wason rule discovery studies Wason (1960); Klayman & Ha (1987); Klayman & Ha (1989); Kareev & Halberstadt (1993) Classification studies Trope & Bassok (1982); Snyder & Swan (1978); Skov & Sherman (1986) Covariation and causation studies Shaklee & Goldston (1989) Smedslund ( Shaklee & Hall (1983) Dissonance theory studies Frey (1981);Frey (1986); Ditto & Lopez (1992);Pinkley, et al (1995);Frey, et al (1996);Johnston (1996);Russo, et al (1996);Luce, et al (1997); Lundgren & Prislin (1998);Schulz-Hardt, et al (2000); Simon, et al (2001) Literature Review 33…”