The empirical content of theories in judgment and decision making: Shortcomings and remedies
Journal Title: Judgment and Decision Making - Year 2011, Vol 6, Issue 8
Abstract
According to Karl Popper, we can tell good theories from poor ones by assessing their empirical content (empirischer Gehalt), which basically reflects how much information they convey concerning the world. “The empirical content of a statement increases with its degree of falsifiability: the more a statement forbids, the more it says about the world of experience.” Two criteria to evaluate the empirical content of a theory are their level of universality (Allgemeinheit) and their degree of precision (Bestimmtheit). The former specifies how many situations it can be applied to. The latter refers to the specificity in prediction, that is, how many subclasses of realizations it allows. We conduct an analysis of the empirical content of theories in Judgment and Decision Making (JDM) and identify the challenges in theory formulation for different classes of models. Elaborating on classic Popperian ideas, we suggest some guidelines for publication of theoretical work.
Authors and Affiliations
Andreas Glöckner and Tilmann Betsch
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP677855
- DOI -
- Views 151
- Downloads 0
Different heuristics and same bias: A spectral analysis of biased judgments and individual decision rules
We used correlation and spectral analyses to investigate the cognitive structures and processes producing biased judgments. We used 5 different sets of driving problems to exemplify problems that trigger biases, specific...
Decisional enhancement and autonomy: public attitudes towards overt and covert nudges
Ubiquitous cognitive biases hinder optimal decision making. Recent calls to assist decision makers in mitigating these biases—via interventions commonly called “nudges”—have been criticized as infringing upon individual...
Who helps more? How self-other discrepancies influence decisions in helping situations
Research has shown that people perceive themselves as less biased than others, and as better than average in many favorable characteristics. We suggest that these types of biased perceptions regarding intentions and beha...
When imagining future wealth influences risky decision making
The body of literature on the relationship between risk aversion and wealth is extensive. However, little attention has been given to examining how future realizations of wealth might affect (current) risk decisions. Usi...
Separating response variability from structural inconsistency to test models of risky decision making
Individual true and error theory assumes that responses by the same person to the same choice problem within a block of trials are based on the same true preferences but may show preference reversals due to random error....