Journal of Behavioral Decision Making最新文献

When making complex decisions, such as a medical diagnosis, decision makers typically gather, analyze, and synthesize (integrate) information. In a previous study, we showed that delegating such complex decisions to collaborating pairs increases decision quality substantially compared to that of individuals, without requiring different information gathering. Given the higher costs associated with teamwork, however, it is of great practical interest to understand when in the process the performance benefits of teams may arise, so that particular subtasks can be delegated to teams when most appropriate. We thus conducted an experimental study in which fourth-year medical students (n = 109) worked either in pairs or alone on two separate subtasks of the diagnostic process: (1) analyzing diagnostic test results (e.g., X-rays) and (2) integrating previously interpreted test results into diagnoses. Linear mixed-effects models revealed a small benefit of collaborating pairs over individuals in both subtasks. We conclude that collaborating with a peer may pay off both when analyzing information and when integrating it into a diagnosis as it provides the opportunity to correct each other's errors and to make use of a greater knowledge base. These findings encourage the strategic use of collaboration with a colleague when making complex decisions. Further research into the underlying processes is needed.

Time ambiguity—that is, having partially/fully incomplete information about when an outcome will occur—is common in everyday life. A recent study showed that participants preferred options with time-exact delays over options with time-ambiguous delays, a phenomenon they called time-ambiguity aversion. However, the empirical robustness and boundaries of this phenomenon remain unexplored. We conducted three online studies: Study 2 (n = 118) was a replication of Study 1 (n = 76) using preregistered analyses; Study 3 (n = 202; preregistered) was a follow-up study suggested during review. In Studies 1 and 2, participants completed hypothetical choices between €5 today versus later-but-larger (LL) rewards that systematically varied in their amount, delay, and time-ambiguity level (e.g., for a 180 day delay, time ambiguity varied from 179 to 181 to 0–360 days). Effects of time ambiguity on choice were best encoded in an absolute, dose-dependent manner and depended on delays and amounts: Increasing time ambiguity led to more time-exact LL choices at shorter delays but more time-ambiguous LL choices at longer delays. Additionally, time-ambiguity ranges including today were chosen more frequently than ranges excluding today, akin to the present bias in intertemporal choice. Lastly, evidence suggested that more time ambiguity was preferred for smaller LL amounts yet disliked for larger LL amounts. Study 3 demonstrated that time-risk and time-ambiguity preferences are differentiable by giving participants choices involving hypothetical time-exact, time-ambiguous, and time-risky options. Taken together, our results extend the nascent literature on time ambiguity by showing that (i) time-ambiguity preferences are distinguishable from both time-risk and delay preferences and (ii) time ambiguity is not generally aversive, but its impact depends on delay and amount magnitude.

The 1-in-X numerical format (e.g., 1 in 200) has been found to increase subjective probability evaluations and behavioral intentions in hypothetical scenarios compared with the N-in-NX format (e.g., 5 in 1000). However, it remains unclear whether this format can also bias choices between truly incentivized options. In four online studies (N = 1039), participants were presented with a small endowment (i.e., 1£) and an actual choice between two options: a sure loss of a part of such endowment and a lottery with the chance to lose the entire endowment, presented using either the 1-in-X or the N-in-NX format. In Studies 1–3, where the two options were equivalent in expected monetary value (EV) and the lottery was described with varying degrees of concreteness, participants preferred the lottery option to a lesser extent when the chance of losing the endowment was presented using the 1-in-X format compared with the N-in-NX format. The same effect was replicated in Study 4a when the lottery option had a higher EV than the sure loss, showing that the 1-in-X effect can also lead individuals to deviate from maximizing EV. However, the effect vanished in Study 4b when the difference in EV between the two options increased. Implications for risk communication and a possible interpretation of the results are discussed accordingly.

Early college is a time when eating habits change and subsequent weight gain may occur. Moreover, college students report higher stress levels and poorer sleep quality while enrolled in courses. This study investigated the extent to which stress and sleep quality in college students may be related to delay discounting (DD) for food—a psychological process in which immediate outcomes are preferred over larger, more delayed outcomes. College students (N = 297) completed the Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) and the Monetary Choice Questionnaire (MCQ)—measures of food and monetary DD, respectively. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and measures of subjective hunger, substance use, and demographic variables were also administered. Perceived stress was related to poor sleep quality, alcohol use, substance use, and vaping. Analyses revealed that, when controlling for subjective hunger, perceived stress and poor sleep quality contributed unique variance to food DD, though in opposing directions. Perceived stress uniquely predicted preferences for immediate food, a phenomenon consistent with stress-induced urgent eating. Poor sleep quality uniquely predicted preferences for larger amounts of delayed food, a pattern consistent with eating later in the day. Stress and sleep quality, when controlling for substance use variables, were unrelated to monetary discounting. Stress and poor sleep quality, then, predict independent and opposing discounting processes in college students that are food-specific, as opposed to more general cross-commodity processes.

While previous research has demonstrated the role of decision-making styles in attaining various real-life outcomes, it has neglected to explore the underlying goal-related processes in terms of goal dimensions (ways in which people appraise their goals during goal striving). The present study examines whether the most studied decision-making styles are related to self-reported effort, goal progress, and action crisis as well as other goal dimensions. We conducted 14 studies (mutual conceptual replications) with N_total = 2574 (70% females) which included the General Decision-Making Styles questionnaire and various goal-related scales. The results from the mini meta-analysis showed that the rational and intuitive styles were positively related to the goal dimensions associated with successful goal pursuit (e.g., goal commitment, goal attainability, positive emotions, and goal progress), while the avoidant style was mainly related to various difficulties associated with goal striving (e.g., controlled motivation, negative emotions, and action crisis). The dependent and especially spontaneous styles were found to be very weakly associated with the selected goal dimensions. When the separate studies were analyzed in the regression analyses and more process-oriented goal dimensions were accounted for, decision-making styles were only minor predictors of self-reported effort expenditure, goal progress and action crisis. The study highlights the need and usefulness of a more nuanced processual approach in the research of individual decision-making differences in goal-directed behavior.

As early as 5 years of age, children begin to manage their reputations strategically. We investigated whether the reputation concern elicited by filming affected children's mental cheating, which is a form of cheating that cannot be detected even if someone else is watching. During the test, the experimenter was in the room with children, and we operationalized reputational cues as whether the video camera was actively recording or not. We compared the self-reported accuracy of a filmed group versus a non-filmed group in a mental cheating game, under two motivational contexts: self-interest and other-interest. A total of 320 children aged 3 to 6 years played a mind game in which they were asked to predict the outcome of a dice roll and to report whether their prediction was correct. We found that 5- to 6-year-olds were less likely to cheat for their self-interests when being filmed than when not being filmed. However, filming did not reduce 5- to 6-year-olds' other-interested cheating. Furthermore, we found that filming did not influence the self-interested or other-interested cheating of 3- to 4-year-old children. This study highlights how reputation concern elicited by filming motivates children to appear honest to others, even in purely mental cheating scenarios. Additionally, our results suggest that young children are sophisticated in their early reputation management and that prosocial justifications can alleviate concerns about dishonesty.

This research takes the first step in exploring how the emotions of choice recipients influence the riskiness of decisions made for them by others. In particular, we focus on the role of sadness—an emotion that has been shown to prompt risk-seeking in choices for self. Across five studies, in monetary and social decisions, participants prefer safer options for sad, relative to neutral-affect others, even when the expected value of the safer option is significantly lower than that of the riskier option. The effect is driven by a desire to protect sad others from further loss or disappointment.

Social decisions often require individuals to balance conflicts between their own selfish interests and the need for equality. The way information about available options is presented can have an impact on how people process information and make social decisions. In this study, we examined the effect of information presentation on social decisions in a mini-dictator game, where participants must make binary choices about how to allocate money between themselves and another participant. We conducted two tasks with different presentation styles: the attribute-based task, where attributes such as own payoffs or others' payoffs were displayed sequentially, and the alternative-based task, where alternatives were displayed sequentially. We found that participants in the attribute-based task made more selfish choices and were less sensitive to equality than those in the alternative-based task. The direction of information search and the complexity level of information processing played a mediating role in the effect of task on social decisions. Our findings highlight the relationship between information search and social decisions, shedding light on the mechanisms and processes that underlie social decision-making.

In cross-modal decisions, the options differ on many attributes, and in uni-modal decisions, they differ on few. We supply new theory and data to understand how discounting for both delay and risk differs between cross-modal and uni-modal decisions. We propose the attentional dilution effect in decision making in which (a) allocation of limited attention to an attribute determines that attribute's decision weight and (b) the attention an attribute receives is increasing in the difference between options on that attribute and decreasing in the number of other attributes that differ between options. We introduce the random order delayed compensation method and conduct two experiments focusing on delayed and risky receipt of consumer goods. Consistent with the attentional dilution effect, we find that in this domain, patience and risk tolerance are generally higher in cross-modal than uni-modal decisions. We suggest that, since many real-world choices are cross-modal, people may be more patient and risk-tolerant in their everyday life than is suggested by standard lab experiments.

We present a novel theoretical framework called the Action Priming Perspective to predict effects of discrete emotions on judgment and decision-making and report results from two studies examining five discrete emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness) and neutral on a behavioral task of risky decision-making. We tested two hypotheses concerning single and combinatorial effects of the emotions based on previous theoretical and empirical work delineating the action priming functions of discrete emotions. As predicted, a fear–sadness combination, elicited separately but combined for analyses, produced the highest risk-taking behavior, higher than an anger–disgust combination (also elicited separately but combined for analyses). Sadness also produced more risky behavior than did disgust, as predicted. These effects, however, did not occur when the task was less uncertain. These findings were discussed vis-à-vis understanding implications of specific, discrete emotions on risky, ambiguous judgment and decision-making.