Journal of Behavioral Decision Making最新文献

Intelligence agencies communicate uncertainty to decision-makers through verbal probability phrases that correspond to numerical ranges (i.e., probability lexicons) and ordinal levels of confidence. However, decision-makers may misinterpret the relationship between these concepts and form inappropriate interpretations of intelligence analysts' uncertainty. In two experiments, four ways of conveying second-order probability to decision-makers were compared: (a) probability and confidence phrases written in the text of a report, (b) the addition of a probability lexicon, (c) the addition of a probability lexicon that varied numerical ranges according to the level of confidence (i.e., revised lexicon), and (d) a probability phrase written in text followed by a numerical range that varied according to the level of confidence. The revised lexicon was expected to improve interpretations of second-order probability. The 275 participants in Experiment 1 and 796 participants in Experiment 2 provided numerical estimates corresponding to analytic judgments provided in descriptions about three overseas military operations and also indicated their support for approving or delaying the operations. The results demonstrated that providing the numerical range in the text of the report or providing a probability lexicon, improved interpretations of probability phrases above the verbal phrase-only condition, but not interpretations of confidence. Participants were unable to correctly interpret confidence with respect to the precision of their estimate intervals and their decisions about the operations. However, in Experiments 2 and 3 the effects on these variables of providing decision-makers with information about the source of the analyst's uncertainty were examined. In Experiment 3 (n = 510), providing this information improved correspondence between confidence level and approval of the operation. Recommendations are provided regarding additional methods of improving decision-makers' interpretation of second-order probability conveyed in intelligence reporting.

During a global crisis, does the desire for good news also mean an endorsement of an optimistic bias? Five pre-registered studies, conducted at the start of the COVID pandemic, examined people's lay prescriptions for thinking about uncertainty—specifically whether they thought forecasters should be optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic in how they estimated key likelihoods. Participants gave prescriptions for forecasters with different roles (e.g., self, family member, and public official) and for several key outcomes (e.g., contracting COVID and vaccine development). Overall, prescribed optimism was not the norm. In fact, for negative outcomes that were of high concern, participants generally wanted others to have a pessimistic bias in how they estimated likelihoods. For positive outcomes, people favored more accurate estimation. These patterns held regardless of the assumed forecaster's role. A common justification for advocating for a pessimistic bias in forecasts was to increase others' engagement in protective or preventative behaviors.

Correlates of power remain understudied in the context of financial risk taking. This project aimed to investigate the role of focus on rewards versus threats in explaining the relationship between power and risky financial choices across three studies (N₁ = 326, N₂ = 397, N₃ = 223). Study 1 analyzed the mediating role of focus on rewards versus threats and financial risk perception in the relationship between sense of power and risky financial choices. The results indicated that a greater sense of power translates into a greater general focus on rewards, which, in turn, leads to lower investment and gambling risk perception and results in riskier financial choices. Study 2 investigated the role of states of power and lack of power in explaining people's financial decisions as well as their influence on people's situational focus on rewards versus threats. We demonstrated that the state of power plays a significant role in explaining the situational focus on rewards versus threats, situational risk perception, and risky investment and gambling choices. Study 3 tested the single and joint moderating effects of the state of focus on rewards versus threats and the state of power in explaining the positive relationship between the sense of power and risky investing and gambling choices. In line with our main hypothesis, the obtained results showed a significant three-way interaction among sense of power, state of power, and state of focus on rewards versus threats, both in terms of investment and gambling choices.

People may use the amount of time it takes someone else to reach a particular decision as input that informs their thoughts and feelings about that decision. Building on prior work suggesting that people are more inclined to accept offers that are extended more rapidly, the current research shows that this preference for quicker offers depends critically on whether offers are considered simultaneously along with other offers or individually (i.e., joint vs. separate evaluation mode), as well as on the presence and nature of explicit temporal reference points in joint evaluation mode. We theorize that the preference for quicker offers is limited to settings where (1) multiple offers are considered simultaneously and (2) the amount of time it took for these offers to be made exceeds a salient temporal reference point. This implies that the effect should not be observed when multiple offers are considered that were not all generated more slowly than an explicit temporal reference point, or when offers are considered one at a time. Evidence from seven studies provides support for this theorizing. The findings advance our understanding of the nuanced ways in which the amount of time taken to extend offers affects how people interpret, draw inferences from, and respond to these offers.

Based on the curiosity-as-drive theory and the theory of information gaps, we argue that curiosity—that is, the desire to seek out novel information for its own sake—is highly transient, and while people may be tempted by immediate answers, they may be less motivated when they need to wait for information. Contrary to standard economic models, we predict an immediacy effect (or present bias) for information even in those cases when waiting does not affect the objective value of information. Furthermore, we argue that this immediacy effect is independent from motivated emotion-management; that is, introducing delays makes people less willing to obtain information for its own sake even when information does not elicit strong anticipatory feelings. We test these hypotheses in two pre-registered experiments (N = 2406) featuring real effort and monetary incentives and find that introducing a delay in information provision significantly reduces participants' willingness to obtain information. In Study 1, we also show that people display a stronger immediacy effect for information than for monetary rewards. In Study 2, we demonstrate that people are impatient for information regardless of how they expect to feel after receiving the information, and even when the perceived instrumental value of information remains unaffected by the delay. The strong impatience for information in both studies is consistent with the notion that curiosity acts as a drive, and as such, is highly transient.

How much joy versus pain people choose to experience for the present often inversely affects how much joy versus pain they will experience in the future. Do people make choices that maximize their overall happiness? Prior research suggests that people are generally myopic (i.e., over-choosing joy for the present). We suggest that the prior research may have biasedly focused only on situations in which the future is more important than the present. Rather, people are generally insufficiently sensitive to the relative importance of the present versus the future. When the future is more important than the present, people over-choose joy for the present, thus appearing myopic, but when the future is less important than the present, people under-choose joy for the present, thus appearing hyperopic. Six experiments (along with a reason-exploration study) demonstrate our propositions and show that forcing or nudging people to choose less (more) joy for the present when the future is more (less) important increases their overall happiness. This research challenges the popular view that people are generally myopic, and supports emerging research showing that people are generally situation-insensitive and can exhibit seemingly opposite biases (e.g., myopia and hyperopia) in different situations.

Affective decision-making is a decision process with significant and strong emotional consequences marked by meaningful rewards and losses. Previous studies found inconsistent results regarding whether trait anxiety hinders affective decision-making. Also, previous studies also proved that people with lower cognitive reflection were less likely to exhibit better performance in decision-making when compared with higher cognition reflection individuals. Using the risk-as-feeling hypothesis, which explicitly postulates an interaction between cognitive and affective processes in people's decision-making, we explore whether cognitive reflection moderates the relationship between trait anxiety and affective decision-making. Participants (N = 261) completed the standardized version of the Iowa Gambling Task, which is widely used to assess affective decision-making, Trait Anxiety Inventory, numerical cognitive reflection test (numerical CRT), and verbal cognitive reflection test (CRT-V). The results showed that cognitive reflection measured by the numerical CRT rather than the CRT-V moderated the relationship between trait anxiety and affective decision-making. Specifically, individuals with lower cognitive reflection exhibited a negative association between trait anxiety and affective decision-making, whereas individuals with higher cognitive reflection did not exhibit a relationship between trait anxiety and cognitive reflection. The present study helps to explain how cognitive reflection and trait anxiety interact in affective decision-making and provides guidance targeting individuals with higher trait anxiety to improve their numerical cognitive reflection ability and better address their affective decision-making.

Previous research suggests that people are more prone to commit moral transgressions when they face moral dilemmas in a second language (LX) as opposed to their first language(s) (L1). This study investigated the influence of language, emotional intelligence, and the degree of severity of real moral transgressions on bilinguals' judgments of offense seriousness, the intensity of the emotions they experienced, and the punishments they proposed for the perpetrators. To this end, 256 British L1 users, 209 Greek–English bilinguals, and 187 Hungarian–English bilinguals watched four videos presenting moral transgressions of mild and extreme severity. Data were analyzed by means of robust linear mixed-effects models and moderated mediation analyses. For the extreme severity videos, the results revealed strong correlations between offensiveness, emotionality ratings, and proposed punishments for the perpetrators. However, the Greek and the Hungarian participants who watched the videos in their LX English reported lower offensiveness and emotionality ratings and less harsh punishments for the perpetrators than they did in their L1 (Greek and Hungarian, respectively). Furthermore, the role of language in the proposed punishments for the perpetrators was mediated by emotional intensity, but only for the extreme severity stimuli. The results also suggest that higher levels of emotional intelligence are linked with tougher judgments of offense seriousness and stronger emotions when watching real moral transgressions. These findings highlight that the moral foreign language effect does not only exist in the hypothetical moral realm but affects perceptions of offensiveness and emotionality and decisions for the future of perpetrators in real-life situations.

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.