Deliberation versus automaticity in decision making: Which presentation format features facilitate automatic decision making?
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2013, Vol 8, Issue 3
Abstract
The idea of automatic decision making approximating normatively optimal decisions without necessitating much cognitive effort is intriguing. Whereas recent findings support the notion that such fast, automatic processes explain empirical data well, little is known about the conditions under which such processes are selected rather than more deliberate stepwise strategies. We investigate the role of the format of information presentation, focusing explicitly on the ease of information acquisition and its influence on information integration processes. In a probabilistic inference task, the standard matrix employed in prior research was contrasted with a newly created map presentation format and additional variations of both presentation formats. Across three experiments, a robust presentation format effect emerged: Automatic decision making was more prevalent in the matrix (with high information accessibility), whereas sequential decision strategies prevailed when the presentation format demanded more information acquisition effort. Further scrutiny of the effect showed that it is not driven by the presentation format as such, but rather by the extent of information search induced by a format. Thus, if information is accessible with minimal need for information search, information integration is likely to proceed in a perception-like, holistic manner. In turn, a moderate demand for information search decreases the likelihood of behavior consistent with the assumptions of automatic decision making.
Authors and Affiliations
Anke Söllner, Arndt Bröder and Benjamin E. Hilbig
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP678059
- DOI -
- Views 129
- Downloads 0
Making good cider out of bad apples — Signaling expectations boosts cooperation among would-be free riders
The present study investigates how group-cooperation heuristics boost voluntary contributions in a repeated public goods game. We manipulate two separate factors in a two-person public goods game: i) group composition (S...
The role of representation in experience-based choice
Recently it has been observed that different choices can be made about structurally identical risky decisions depending on whether information about outcomes and their probabilities is learned by description or from expe...
Individuals’ insight into intrapersonal externalities
An intrapersonal externality exists when an individual’s decisions affect the outcomes of her future decisions. It can result in decreasing or increasing average returns to the rate of consumption, as occurs in addiction...
Ability, chance, and ambiguity aversion: Revisiting the competence hypothesis
Individuals are often ambiguity-averse when choosing among purely chance-based prospects (Ellsberg, 1961). However, they often prefer apparently ambiguous ability-based prospects to unambiguous chance-based prospects. Ac...
Are good reasoners more incest-friendly? Trait cognitive reflection predicts selective moralization in a sample of American adults
Two studies examined the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection (CRT) and the tendency to accord genuinely moral (non-conventional) status to a range of counter-normative acts — that is, to t...