Abstract

Abstract : The report is concerned with the development of a research methodology and a theoretical framework for investigating the effects of social influence in a simple judgmental situation. The laboratory task entails a simple binary judgment as to whether a displayed angle departs from 90 degrees; before making his own response the subject is provided with the answer of a hypothetical partner, programmed at a certain fixed accuracy level. The responses are made in terms of a special betting scheme which penalizes the subject for overstating or understating his confidence. The two main experimental variables in this study are the difficulty of the discrimination and the announced reliability of the hypothetical partner. Theoretical predictions as to the effects of these variables on the relative value of confidence measures are confirmed. However, further methodological development is required to increase the realism of subjects' confidence scores. (Author)

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