Judgmental Heuristics Research Articles

Heuristic versus Systematic Processing of Information in Detecting Deception: Questioning the Truth Bias

Research on nonverbal detection of deception has normally been conducted by asking observers to judge the veracity of a number of videotaped communications. These video clips have typically been very short. Observers have a tendency to judge most of these statements as truthful. An experiment was conducted in which 52 participants (44 women, 8 men; M age = 22.2 yr., SD = 2.2) who were taking a psychology and law course were requested to make judgments of credibility at different points of the senders' statements. A strong truth bias was apparent when judgments were made at the beginning of the statements, suggesting that when exposed to brief communications, the observers make heuristic judgments. Over time, a decrease in the truth bias and an increase in overall accuracy were found, suggesting that later judgments were increasingly based on systematic information processing. These results suggest that the truth bias that has been found in previous deception research may be a result of having used very brief and uninformative behavioral samples as stimuli.

The Evaluator’s Role in Recommending Program Closure

Evaluators face challenges when programs consistently fail to meet expectations for performance or improvement and consequently, evaluators may recommend that closing a program is the most prudent course of action. However, the evaluation literature provides little guidance regarding when an evaluator might recommend program closure. Given evaluators’ ethical responsibilities to the public good coupled with the inadequacy of methods currently used to justify program closure, we posit the development of a heuristic model designed to identify the point at which a program might be recommended for closure. The heuristic model depends on whether implementation factors are under the control of program administrators (i.e., flexible factors) or out of their control (i.e., immutable factors) and are potentially moderated by facilitating or inhibitory characteristics (e.g., political advocacy, community need, length of time in operation, performance quality). By delineating whether a poorly functioning program could be substantially improved, evaluators should not consider recommendation for or support of a program closure a personal or professional defeat, but rather an opportunity to exercise their professional responsibility to the evaluation profession and the public good. Caveats regarding the political context of an evaluation and the information required to make heuristic judgments about program closure are also discussed.

Análise da Influência da Racionalidade Limitada sobre o

This article searched to study the decision making process by developing analysis of the purchase behavior as a resultant of the interaction of a series of behavioral variables. With the intention of discussing the impact of bounded rationality we searched to understand the use effects of mental accounting, prospect theory and judgment heuristics in the same experiment. Our aim is to discuss the effects of this tree approach related to bounded rationality by exploring them in a survey applied to graduation students as if they were buyers. We tried to assess the use of judgment heuristics as adjustment and anchoring and the impacts of prospect theory and mental accounting on their purchase decisions. The result confirmed the influence of bounded rationality on the purchase decision. This can be seen by the change in their values perceptions when the same decision context is presented in relative and absolute terms, when the reference price is modified by including a premium product and when the price estimative are confronted with different reference values.

Cognitive Biases and Nonverbal Cue Availability in Detecting Deception

In potentially deceptive situations, people rely on mental shortcuts to help process information. These heuristic judgments are often biased and result in inaccurate assessments of sender veracity. Four such biases—truth bias, visual bias, demeanor bias, and expectancy violation bias—were examined in a judgment experiment that varied nonverbal cue availability and deception. Observers saw a complete videotaped interview (full access to visual, vocal, and verbal cues), heard the complete interview (vocal and verbal access), or read a transcript (verbal access) of a truthful or deceptive suspect being questioned about a mock theft and then rated the interviewee on information, behavior, and image management and truthfulness. Results supported the presence of all four biases, which were most evident when interviewees were deceptive and observers had access to all visual, vocal, and verbal modalities. Deceivers’ messages were judged as increasingly complete, honest, clear, and relevant; their behavior as more involved and dominant; and their overall demeanor as more credible, with the addition of nonverbal cues. Deceivers were actually judged as more credible than truthtellers in the audiovisual modality, whereas best discrimination and detection accuracy occurred in the audio condition. Results have implications for what factors influence judgments of a sender’s credibility and accuracy in distinguishing truth from deception, especially under conditions where senders are producing messages interactively.

Of great art and untalented artists: Effort information and the flexible construction of judgmental heuristics

Past research (Kruger, Wirtz, Van Boven, & Altermatt, 2004) proposed that people use the effort of the producer as a heuristic for the quality of the product. In contrast, two experiments show that consumers' inferences from effort information are highly malleable. Participants were either explicitly exposed to one of two applicable naive theories (“good-art-takes-effort” vs. “good-art-takes-talent”) or the order of judgment was reversed (quality judgment first vs. talent judgment first) to activate different naive theories more subtly. In both cases, participants only inferred high quality from high effort when an “effort” theory was rendered accessible, but not when a “talent” theory was rendered accessible. We conclude that judgment tasks prime naive theories that can serve as inference rules, illustrating that heuristics can be constructed on the spot.

On Heuristic and Linear Models of Judgment: Mapping the Demand for Knowledge

Research on judgment and decision making presents a confusing picture of human abilities. For example, much research has emphasized the dysfunctional aspects of judgmental heuristics, and yet, other findings suggest that these can be highly effective. A further line of research has modeled judgment resulting from as if linear models. This paper illuminates the distinctions in these approaches by providing a common analytical framework based on the central theoretical premise that understanding human performance requires specifying how characteristics of the decision rules people use interact with the demands of the tasks they face. Our work synthesizes the analytical tools of research with novel methodology developed to specify the effectiveness of heuristics in different environments and allows direct comparisons between the different approaches. We illustrate with both theoretical analyses and simulations. We further link our results to the empirical literature by a meta-analysis of lens model studies and estimate both human and heuristic performance in the same tasks. Our results highlight the trade-off between linear models and heuristics. Whereas the former are cognitively demanding, the latter are simple to use. However, they require knowledge - and thus maps - of when and which heuristic to employ.

Heuristic and linear models of judgment: Matching rules and environments.

Much research has highlighted incoherent implications of judgmental heuristics, yet other findings have demonstrated high correspondence between predictions and outcomes. At the same time, judgment has been well modeled in the form of as if linear models. Accepting the probabilistic nature of the environment, the authors use statistical tools to model how the performance of heuristic rules varies as a function of environmental characteristics. They further characterize the human use of linear models by exploring effects of different levels of cognitive ability. They illustrate with both theoretical analyses and simulations. Results are linked to the empirical literature by a meta-analysis of lens model studies. Using the same tasks, the authors estimate the performance of both heuristics and humans where the latter are assumed to use linear models. Their results emphasize that judgmental accuracy depends on matching characteristics of rules and environments and highlight the trade-off between using linear models and heuristics. Whereas the former can be cognitively demanding, the latter are simple to implement. However, heuristics require knowledge to indicate when they should be used.

Origins of the stuttering stereotype: Stereotype formation through anchoring–adjustment

The stereotype of people who stutter is predominantly negative, holding that stutterers are excessively nervous, anxious, and reserved. The anchoring–adjustment hypothesis suggests that the stereotype of stuttering arises from a process of first anchoring the stereotype in personal feelings during times of normal speech disfluency, and then adjusting based on a rapid heuristic judgment. The current research sought to test this hypothesis, elaborating on previous research by [White, P. A., & Collins, S. R. (1984). Stereotype formation by inference: A possible explanation for the “stutterer” stereotype. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 27, 567–570]. Participants provided ratings of a hypothetical typical person who stutters, a person suffering from normal speech disfluency and a typical male on a 25-item semantic differential scale. Results showed a stereotype of people who stutter similar to that found in previous research. The pattern of results is consistent with the anchoring–adjustment hypothesis. Ratings of a male stutterer are very similar to a male experiencing temporary disfluency, both of which differ from ratings of a typical male. As expected, ratings of a stutterer show a small but statistically significant adjustment on several traits that makes the stereotype of stutterers less negative and less emotionally extreme than the temporarily disfluent male. Based on the results of this research, it appears that stereotype formation is a result of generalization and adjustment from personal experience during normal speech disfluency. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) explain how the negative stereotype of people who stutter arises; (2) discuss the negative implications of stereotypes in the lives of people who stutter; and (3) summarize why the stereotype of people who stutter is so consistent and resistant to change.

Meta-Analytic Examination of the Base-Rate Fallacy

ABSTRACT This paper is a meta-analytic review of the base-rate fallacy in persuasion research. The base-rate fallacy argues that individuals provided a set of statistical conclusions are unable to successfully utilize the statistical information when encountering contrary examples in a message. The meta-analysis provides empirical support for that claim. Results are discussed in the context of base-rate information versus an individuating narrative example. The potential consequences of these judgmental heuristics are applied to the assumptions and claims of the message sidedness/resistance to counterpersuasion literature.

Reasoning under uncertainty: heuristic judgments in patients with persecutory delusions or depression

The substantial literature examining social reasoning in people with delusions has, to date, neglected the commonest form of decision making in daily life. We address this imbalance by reporting here the findings of the first study to explore heuristic reasoning in people with persecutory delusions. People with active or remitted paranoid delusions, depressed and healthy adults performed two novel heuristic reasoning tasks that varied in emotional valence. The findings indicated that people with persecutory delusions displayed biases during heuristic reasoning that were most obvious when reasoning about threatening and positive material. Clear similarities existed between the currently paranoid group and the depressed group in terms of their reasoning about the likelihood of events happening to them, with both groups tending to believe that pleasant things would not happen to them. However, only the currently paranoid group showed an increased tendency to view other people as threatening. This study has initiated the exploration of heuristic reasoning in paranoia and depression. The findings have therapeutic utility and future work could focus on the differentiation of paranoia and depression at a cognitive level.

Utilization of covariation knowledge in source monitoring: no evidence for implicit processes

In three experiments, a "hidden covariation" (Lewicki, in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 135-146, 1986) of nonsalient stimulus attributes and the source of stimulus information was established to test whether implicit knowledge about this correlation influences source memory judgments. The source monitoring framework (Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay, in Psychological Bulletin, 114, 3-28, 1993) postulates heuristic and strategic judgment processes in source attributions. A multinomial model analysis disentangled memory and guessing processes. While there were large strategic guessing biases involving explicit knowledge in all experiments, there was no evidence for the use of implicit covariation knowledge. Only participants who were later able to verbalize the covariation had shown corresponding biases during the source memory test, suggesting that implicit covariation knowledge plays no prominent role in the reconstruction processes in source monitoring.

Television’s Cultivation of Material Values

Prior research has shown that television viewing cultivates perceptions of the prevalence of societal affluence through a memory-based process that relies on the application of judgmental heuristics. This article extends this research by examining (1) whether cultivation effects generalize to consumer values such as materialism and (2) whether these values judgments are also processed in a heuristic manner. Data from both a survey and an experiment suggest that television cultivates materialism through an online process in which television's influence is enhanced by active (rather than heuristic) processing during viewing. This finding stands in contrast to the cultivation of prevalence judgments, which are attenuated by active processing during judgment elicitation.

“Are You There Alone?” The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates

“Are You There Alone?” The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates

Pitfalls in Teaching Judgment Heuristics

Demonstrations of judgment heuristics typically focus on how heuristics can lead to poor judgments. However, exclusive focus on the negative consequences of heuristics can prove problematic. We illustrate the problem with the representativeness heuristic and present a study (N = 45) that examined how examples influence understanding of the representativeness heuristic. Students received a definition of the heuristic, a definition plus examples of the heuristic leading to poor judgment, or a definition plus examples of the heuristic leading to both good and poor judgments. The results suggest that providing examples of heuristics leading only to poor judgments undermined comprehension.

Judgment Heuristics and Prospect Theory: Some Practical Implications for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait

People are subject to a variety of psychological factors that distort their reasoning. Emotions such as anger, fear, greed, and envy are examples of “hot” impulses that can cause such distortions. As well, motivations such as conformity and competition are another common source of judgmental errors. This paper, however, addresses a number of “cold” impulses that can also contribute to biased judgment. The focus is therefore on the cognitive rather than affective dimensions of judgment under uncertainty, and on situational rather than personality explanations, seeking to account for departures from rational decisionmaking.

Advertising in the mutual fund business: The role of judgmental heuristics in private investors' evaluation of risk and return

Effective advertising strategies are of growing importance in the mutual fund industry due to keen competition and changes in market structure. But the dominant variables in financial decision making, investor's perceived investment risk and expected return, have not yet been analysed in an advertising context, although these productrelated evaluations can be influenced by advertising and therefore serve as additional indicators of advertising effectiveness. In this study, the authors use a large-scale experimental study (n=499) to detect how risk-return assessments of private investors are influenced by specific elements of print ads. In this context, judgmental heuristics used systematically by private investors play a crucial role.

Post-decision inference editing of supportive and counterindicative signals among external auditors in a going concern judgment

There is evidence that the extent of common judgment biases – e.g., hindsight, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, and confirmatory strategies – often is reduced when experts perform job-related tasks as compared to students performing generic tasks or professional tasks for which they lack experience; that specialized judgment heuristics may be used for tasks within an expert's domain, whereas general cognitive heuristics may be used in situations where the individual lacks information and/or expertise. Our focus here is on post-decision inference restructuring/editing; the unconscious revision of what one saw and thought in the pre-decision stage as a result of outcome feedback/lack of feedback. We found that professional auditors, in retrospect, were likely to edit crucial decision making signals, but that the extent of the post-decision editing is a function of the task and the presence/absence of feedback. Professional auditors were provided with relevant financial and non-financial information (based on an actual company), and asked to isolate the most prominent signals (positive and negative) concerning the company's viability. The participants were then asked to give the company either an unmodified (supporting the company's viability) or a going concern (raising questions about the company's survival) audit report, and to rate the importance of key aspects with respect to the chosen alternative. After an intermission, the participants in the experiment group were given information about the actual outcome, whereas the participants in the control group received no feedback. The participants were then asked to replicate their aspect ratings, and to assess the probability that the company actually received a going concern modification/an unmodified audit report. The results indicate that outcome feedback/lack of feedback had an effect on post-decision restructuring of signals. Lack of feedback among professional participants seems to invite greater post-decision adjustments than access to feedback, in particular among participants who chose a going concern report. This relatively less common, more consequential choice, invited drastic post-decision editing of the second and third most supportive aspects, as well as of the three counterindicative aspects. We believe that this kind of post-decision inference editing has less to do with traditional hindsight than with a strengthening predisposition with roots in the pre-decision phase.

Rule extraction from expert heuristics: A comparative study of rough sets with neural networks and ID3

The rule extraction capability of neural networks is an issue of interest to many researchers. Even though neural networks offer high accuracy in classification and prediction, there are criticisms on the complicated and non-linear transformation performed in the hidden layers. It is difficult to explain the relationships between inputs and outputs and derive simple rules governing the relationships between them. As alternatives, some researchers recommend the use of rough sets or ID3 for rule extraction. This paper reviews and compares the rule extraction capabilities of rough sets with neural networks and ID3. We apply the methods to analyze expert heuristic judgments. Strengths and weaknesses of the methods are compared, and implications for the use of the methods are suggested.

Overconfidence as Dissonance Reduction

People are often more confident than accurate. Past accounts of this overconfidence effect have focused on social-cognitive mechanisms, such as the biasing effects of judgmental heuristics and the faulty integration of relevant information. The current studies tested the idea that overconfidence is also a product of dissonance reduction. Specifically, we argue that overconfidence can result from a desire to see the self as knowledgeable and competent. In two studies, the motive to view the self as an accurate perceiver elevated confidence, independent of its effect on accuracy. This effect was diminished by manipulations derived from cognitive dissonance theory. In Study 1, confidence ratings were debiased by an affirmation manipulation designed to boost feelings of self-worth. In Study 2, confidence ratings were debiased by a manipulation designed to lower the aversive implications of feeling uncertain. These findings argue for a motivational perspective on overconfidence.

Erratum to: Judgment heuristics and recognition memory: Prime identification and target-processing fluency

Erratum to: Judgment heuristics and recognition memory: Prime identification and target-processing fluency