摘要:

AbstractWhen a judgment task evokes unbiased estimates (i.e. the errors in individual judgments are distributed randomly around the true value), mathematical aggregation of individual estimates, even by a simple arithmetic mean, often will outperform all group members. However, when a task evokes biased estimates, mathematical aggregation does not perform so well. In this study, simulated data were accumulated to specify the expected' accuracy of mathematical aggregation relative to the accuracy of observed judgment of individual group members under varying conditions of task bias. Three types of judgment tasks were employed: (1) single‐estimate, holistic tasks, (2) multiple‐estimate, ranking tasks, and (3) multi‐cue, decomposed tasks. Findings indicated across all task types that a large percentage of judgment‐making group estimates formed strictly by computing the arithmetic mean of individual estimates performed better than their most capable members when a judgment task evoked little or no bias, a result particularly pronounced for ranking tasks. When the task was more greatly bias‐evoking, a large percentage of parallel groups performed more poorly than average (or median) members, again a pattern more starkly evident for ranking tasks. These results suggest that the extent to which a judgment task evokes bias in a population of prospective group members is an important explanatory variable deserving much greater attention in the study of group performance. For example, an assertion about the efficacy of a particular group intervention based on a reliable demonstration of group performance as accurate as the most capable members may be unfounded when a task evokes no bias, since the baseline standard under such conditions should be much higher. By selecting tasks and populations that jointly produced highly biased estimates, researchers can lower the performance floor enough to detect (with reasonably small samples of groups) experimental effects should t

ISSN:0894-3257    

DOI:10.1002/bdm.3960050402

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractSeveral experimental studies have discovered high‐performing heuristic strategies in the search for the most economic price of a good in situations where a searcher has both full prior knowledge and no prior knowledge of the underlying price distribution. This paper describes a new experiment set in a more realistic ‘partial‐knowledge’ framework. Several new search heuristics are suggested which match well with observed behaviour, and which, over a large number of simulated trials, perform well in comparison with the optimal model and better than previously reported ‘no‐knowl

ISSN:0894-3257    

DOI:10.1002/bdm.3960050403

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractChance and luck are regarded as two distinct causal agents that effect different results. Whereas chance is deemed utterly uncontrollable, luck elicits, at the very least, an illusion of control. Hence, need for control might be a decisive factor in determining whether an event is attributed to chance or to luck. More specifically, the greater is a person's need for control, the stronger would be that person's tendency to attribute events to luck. This proposition, along with its implications concerning effects of luck attributions on decision making, were tested in three experiments. The results showed that situational circumstances and personality dispositions that heighten individuals' need for control strengthen their tendency to attribute events and outcomes to luck. The results showed, further, that such attributions can affect the process of decision making.

ISSN:0894-3257    

DOI:10.1002/bdm.3960050404

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis paper reports the results of two experiments to investigate the effects of payoff alterations in two‐person symmetric games. The initial experiment involved 60 subjects, each of whom could earn from £0 to £15, depending on the interaction of their decisions and the unknown decisions of one other person. All decisions were made without feedback to isolate the impact on subjects' behaviour of the game's parameters. A primary aim was to see if the games had strategically distinct structures, or whether uncertainty over the choice rule of others would influence choice behaviour and lessen this independence. An alternative model of rational choice, making allowance for uncertainty in the decision environment, was proposed to capture subjects' behaviour. The results indicated that the frontiers of most of the games had no impact on choice behaviour other than through the magnitude of the change in payoffs. The model received strong support across an identifiable set of ‘frontierless’ games. However, the variety of games was not sufficient to provide a comprehensive test. A second experiment was recently held to close these gaps. Fifty subjects took part, each of whom earned from A$0 to A$24, averaging A$17. The findings provided broad additional support for the

ISSN:0894-3257    

DOI:10.1002/bdm.3960050405

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0894-3257    

DOI:10.1002/bdm.3960050401

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1992

数据来源: WILEY