Judgmental Heuristics Research Articles

Judgment heuristics and recognition memory: prime identification and target-processing fluency.

In three experiments, the effect of identification of a briefly presented word (prime) on a subsequent recognition response to that word (target) was investigated. Theories of current processing fluency (e.g., Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989) suggest that prime identification should reduce P(old) relative to prime misidentification because awareness of the prime provides a source to which to attribute target fluency, rendering attributions to prior presentation less likely. However, counter to these predictions, Experiment 1 demonstrated that prime identification increased P(old) relative to misidentified primes. It is hypothesized that this reversed effect was due to participants' using a heuristic that related prime identification success to prior presentation but was not based on current processing fluency. In Experiment 2, participants were induced to avoid using this heuristic by making an alternate source for prime identification success (display duration) highly available. Under these circumstances, prime identification reduced P(old) relative to prime misidentification, suggesting that participants now relied on current processing fluency rather than on prime identification success. Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiments 1 and 2, but with fixed rather than variable prime displays.

Self‐efficacy and Strategy on Complex Tasks

The mediational role of strategy in the relationship between self‐efficacy and performance on complex tasks is analysed. Within an individual’s multidimensional self‐efficacy belief system, perceived capabilities for conducting searches in different modalities and for the processing of information, including the use of tools to overcome cognitive limits, are predicted to have differential impacts on the use of judgmental heuristics and biases and the choice of strategies. Search efficacy is predicted to differ across search modalities, such as experimentation, interpersonal questioning, electronic search and passive study, as a function of differences in personal and situational determinants. Processing efficacy is predicted to generalise across a much wider range of cognitive tasks, depending upon perceived similarities in the content of tasks (e.g. verbal versus quantitative) and the tools used. Low search efficacy is predicted to lead to greater use of the availability heuristic, while low processing efficacy is predicted to lead to greater use of the anchoring and adjustment and representativeness heuristics. Choices of specific strategies are predicted from different combinations of weak and strong efficacy beliefs for exploratory search and deliberative processing.

Expectation Biases in Gymnastics Judging

Several studies have found that gymnasts’ placement in within-team order affects their scores (e.g., Scheer & Ansorge, 1975). This effect has been explained in terms of judges’ expectations yielding a cognitive confirmation. In the present study, the influence of expectations on gymnastics judging was conceptualized within the schema approach of social cognition research. Three factors are addressed that contribute to the understanding of the placement effect: task difficulty, social situation, and process stages. In an experiment, 48 gymnastics judges scored videotaped routines of a men’s team competition. Target routines appeared either in the first or the fifth position of within-team order. Depending on the difficulty of the judgment task, a significant placement effect was found. This effect resulted from biased encoding of single elements, as well as from heuristic judgment strategies. Results are discussed in reference to the practice of gymnastics judging.

The Viability of Heuristics in Expert Judgement

A conventional assumption in economic models is that expert judgement requires Bayesian behavior. A justification for this assumption is that because Bayesian behavior results in superior decisions, it is dominant in a evolutionary sense. Bayesian experts who are sequentially rational, however, set standards that are too low. Consequently, heuristic behaviors that result in more stringent sequentially rational standards may dominate Bayesian behavior. This suggests that deviations from Bayesian behavior observed in experimental auditing settings may be viable in an evolutionary sense in real economic settings.

Constructing Perceptions of Vulnerability: Personal Relevance and the Use of Experiential Information in Health Judgments

The perceived self-relevance of a health issue determined whether participants relied on recalled content or experienced ease of recall in assessing risk. Participants recalled either three or eight behaviors that increase or decrease risk of heart disease. Although recalling three risk factors was relatively easy, people had difficulty recalling eight risk factors. When heart disease was not considered self-relevant, participants used a heuristic judgment strategy and relied on their ease of recall. They reported greater vulnerability after having recalled three rather than eight risk-increasing behaviors and lower vulnerability after having recalled three rather than eight risk-decreasing behaviors. When heart disease was considered self-relevant, people used a systematic processing strategy and relied on the content of the information recalled. They reported greater (lower) vulnerability after having recalled eight rather than three risk-increasing (decreasing) behaviors. Theoretical implications concerning the interplay of recalled content and ease of recall in judgment and applied implications for risk perception are discussed.

Knowledge acquisition and representation model for developing an expert system for pavement maintenance and REhabilitation strategy in the State of Ohio (ESPRESSO)

In pavement management, the decision making for maintenance and rehabilitation strategy is a paramount factor. When making a decision, experts usually select the best strategy by a reasoning process based on heuristic and experiential subjective judgment. In this paper, the expert system for pavement maintenance and rehabilitation strategy in the state of Ohio (ESPRESSO) is developed. The development of ESPRESSO consists of three phases: knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, and knowledge base. The first phase for developing ESPRESSO is to acquire knowledge from a literature review and experts. For this purpose a knowledge acquisition model is specially designed and systematically used to facilitate this task. In the second phase, decision tree structures are selected to represent the expert knowledge. The decision trees consist of three levels: the evaluation of pavement condition, the M&R strategy for pavement condition, and the M&R strategy for pavement structure. Evaluation of pavement condition encompasses the types, distresses, pavement condition rating, and structural deduct factors. The maintenance and rehabilitation strategy consist of major and minor rehabilitation and maintenance. The decision tree models were selected to represent the expert knowledge, because these models could simulate the path and pattern of the experts' thought process. In this paper, the knowledge acquisition and representation phases for developing ESPRESSO are presented in detailed.

Contribution of conversation skills to the production of judgmental errors

An impressive body of evidence has accumulated demonstrating that many of the judgmental ‘errors’ or ‘biases’ formerly thought due to purely cognitive shortcomings actually reflect the operation of communication goals and strategies that people rely upon to comprehend and generate meaningful conversation. This study examines the effects of individual differences in conversational skills on the production of biased responses using six judgmental heuristics tasks: base-rate error, conjunction error, dilution effect, underuse of consensus information, primacy effect, and confirmation bias. Clarke's (1975) ‘method of reconstruction’ was used to obtain two measures of conversational sophistication: relevance-seeking and (un)responsiveness. A path analysis predicting biased judgments from the skill variables demonstrates that a combination of these variables, which we term ‘Pragmatic Competence’, is predictive of two independent subsets of the heuristics tasks. Our model provides convergent evidence with other, parametric studies for the proposition that biased social judgments are, at least in part, artifacts of participants' reasonable (and unreasonable!) expectations concerning experimenter cooperativeness. ‘The process of forming an integrated mental model of premises is nothing more than the proper comprehension of discourse: it is required in order to grasp the full impact of what the speaker has to say’ Johnson-Laird (1983, p. 119). © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

False memories and confabulation

Memory distortions range from the benign (thinking you mailed a check that you only thought about mailing), to the serious (confusing what you heard after a crime with what you actually saw), to the fantastic (claiming you piloted a spaceship). We review theoretical ideas and empirical evidence about the source monitoring processes underlying both true and false memories. Neuropsychological studies show that certain forms of brain damage (such as combined frontal and medial-temporal lesions) might result in profound source confusions, called confabulations. Neuroimaging techniques provide new evidence regarding more specific links between underlying brain mechanisms and the normal cognitive processes involved in evaluating memories. One hypothesis is that the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves heuristic judgments based on easily assessed qualities (such as familiarity or perceptual detail) and the left PFC (or the right and left PFC together) subserves more systematic judgments requiring more careful analysis of memorial qualities or retrieval and evaluation of additional supporting or disconfirming information. Such heuristic and systematic processes can be disrupted not only by brain damage but also, for example, by hypnosis, social demands and motivational factors, suggesting caution in the methods used by `memory exploring' professions (therapists, police officers, lawyers, etc.) in order to avoid inducing false memories.

Students' Understanding of Climate Change: Insights for Scientists and Educators

Teachers and meteorologists are among the most respected purveyors of scientific information to the public. As such, they can play an influential role in educating the public about basic atmosphere-related phenomena. To better fulfill this educational role, it is necessary to (i) identify and (ii) correct people's major misconceptions about climatic and atmospheric issues, including global climate change. This paper reports the results of a survey of high school students' knowledge and attitudes about climate change. The authors use open-ended survey questions to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the range of “mistakes” that are made. The results show misconceptions including inflated estimates of temperature change, confusion between ozone depletion and global warming, the perception of warmer weather and a belief that all environmentally harmful acts cause climate change. Also discussed is the origin of these mistakes from the perspective of current social scientific literature. It is suggested that these misconceptions arise from low levels of information, reliance on the televised news media, use of judgmental heuristics, confusion between weather and climate, and “fuzzy environmentalism,” wherein students perceive disparate environmental harms as significantly interrelated. The study also reveals that students have a very high level of trust in scientists and teachers. This suggests a role for scientists and educators through which they help correct misconceptions about climate change and ensure that people adopt effective environmentally protective measures.

Evidence that Prices Do Not Fully Reflect the Implications of Current Earnings for Future Earnings: An Experimental Markets Approach*

Abstract. Analysts have been found to underweight the innovation in the most recent quarterly earnings when forecasting next‐quarter earnings, and these expectations have been posited as an explanation for post‐earnings‐announcement drift. This study uses an experimental asset market to examine whether similar errors in forecasting quarterly earnings are made by student‐subjects. We examine two aspects of their behavior: (1) do subjects underestimate the autocorrelation in quarterly earnings when forming earnings expectations? and (2) are asset prices consistent with a subject's underestimation of the autocorrelation in quarterly earnings?We observe subject errors in forecasts that underweight extreme innovations in the most recent quarterly earnings by approximately 40 percent. The prices in the experimental markets also fail to reflect fully the most recent innovation in quarterly earnings. We are able to predict the sign of the incorrect pricing, from the mean initial earnings predictions of the subjects, in 74 percent of the 135 markets. These forecast errors observed in this study are consistent with forecast errors observed for analysts, and this consistency suggests that errors in analysts' forecasts may be at least partially attributable to the use of judgmental heuristics.

Rational Communities

I critically examine Miriam Solomon’s critique of individualist normative accounts of scientific rationality and her own “social” account of scientific rationality that takes communities to be the locus of rationality. I argue that (a) scientists are not influenced in their decision making by nonepistemic factors to the extent that Solomon suggests and (b) an individualist account can show how judgmental heuristics are conducive to scientific success. I also argue that Solomon’s account of rationality cannot guide us when we do not yet know what is most conducive to scientific success. Consequently, I offer a defense of internalist individualist accounts of rationality and suggest that what is social about rationality are the standards of epistemic responsibility.

The effects of physical attractiveness on gaining access to alcohol: when social policy meets social decision making

Despite numerous legal interventions, minors continue to purchase and consume alcohol. Prior research had suggested that the decision to request identification to prove legal age was susceptible to various judgement and decision heuristics. This research examined whether the physical attractiveness of the potential consumer and the presence or absence of others were significant predictors of alcohol accessibility. Bartenders (n = 130) rated a target individual who was either high or low in attractiveness. Results indicated that attractiveness was a significant predictor of "proofing likelihood". High levels of attractiveness were associated with a decrease in the likelihood of being asked to provide proof of legal age for the purchase of alcohol. Individuals presented alone were seen as significantly older than when grouped with others. Implications of these findings for the restriction of alcohol availability among minors are considered.

Personality and Judgment Heuristics: Contextual and Individual Difference Interactions in Social Judgment

Research on judgment heuristics has shown the importance of context in influencing the information used (and that ignored) in making judgments. The authors tested the hypothesis that personality differences also affect susceptibility to heuristic reasoning processes. Participants scoring high and low on the Sociable scale of the Personality Adjective Checklist were given problems like those used by Kahneman and Tversky to study the representativeness heuristic under experimental conditions that differed in the extent to which contextual cues intended to activate theoretically relevant motives and concerns about approval and rejection were present. Significant differences between sociability groups were found only in a sociability-relevant condition in which the judgment problem dealt with a theme of rejection and abandonment. Results are discussed in terms of the priming of relevant schemas by contextual cues and resulting effects on attentional deployment and judgmental processes.

Judgmental heuristics in overseas vendor search and evaluation: A proposed model of importer buying behavior

AbstractThis article identifies the implicit importer buying behavior model that is suggested by import decision studies and reviews contextual factors that distinguish international sourcing from its domestic counterpart. We then discuss the major shortcomings of the implicit model, namely, the failure to take into account the cognitive processes that influence vendor search and evaluation patterns. Drawing on the cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence literatures, this paper proposes an alternative model of importer buying behavior that explicitly accounts for the use of cognitive heuristics and presents a series of testable research propositions. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.

The effects of mood state on judgemental accuracy: Processing strategy as a mechanism

Abstract Under commonly observed conditions, happy subjects appear to process information in a relatively passive or nonsystematic, less detailed manner and rely on peripheral cues and heuristics in judgement, whereas sad subjects appear to process in a more active or systematic, more detailed manner. Happy subjects should therefore display less accuracy on judgements that have a relatively objective accuracy criterion. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, subjects who had training in statistics were exposed to a happy, neutral, or sad mood induction procedure. Subjects then judged the magnitude and direction of correlation coefficients associated with each of nine scatterplots. Happy subjects were least accurate and used fewest digits in their correlation estimates; sad subjects were most accurate and used most digits. In Study 2, subjects exposed to orthogonal affect and arousal mood inductions completed the correlation estimation task. To address process further, subjects provided ratings of their concentration on the task, their strategies for estimating the correlations, and explained the concept of a correlation. Happy subjects were least accurate, used fewest digits in their estimates, reported least concentration, provided least detail in their explanations of correlations, wrote least comprehensible explanations; however, they wrote most creative descriptions. Sad subjects displayed the opposite pattern. Arousal had minimal effects on all measures. In Study 3, processing strategy was directly manipulated by asking half of the subjects to think in detail while completing their correlation estimates and offering them a bonus point for good performance. The accuracy and digit effects shown in Studies 1 and 2 were replicated. Implications are discussed.

Heuristic judgment of mass ratio in two-body collisions.

The logic of judging relative mass from a two-body collision is developed from data presented by Runeson and Vedeler (1993). Data from two experiments are analyzed on a point-by-point basis, and strong support for the theory that mass-ratio judgments are mediated by separate speed and angle heuristics is shown. This analysis is accomplished by reducing the collision event to two elementary features: the presence of ricochet and the ratio of exit speeds. The heuristics that both ricochet and greater exit speed specify relative lightness are shown to explain the basic patterns of data presented by Runeson and Vedeler.

The displacement-type finite element approach—From art to science

The finite element method originated in the aerospace industry in the mid- 1950s to solve practical stress analysis problems associated with the struc- tural design of aerospace vehicles. It is today the most overwhelmingly popular analysis and design tool in structural and solid mechanics and is being extensively applied to a very wide spectrum of engineering science, e.g. fluid mechanics, heat transfer and electromagnetics. In its formative years, the development of the method was guided mostly by engineering intuition, heuristic judgment and trial and error experimentation and vali- dation. Its achievements have been remarkable and there are now very power- ful general-purpose software codes that make a variety of analyses and design tasks routinely simple, that were once considered to be intractable. This is not to say that the progress of the method has been free of hurdles, especi- ally in finding a complete scientific basis for it. Based on the recent stud -ies of this author and his colleagues, this review attempts to provide a more complete paradigmatic understanding of the issues involved. Concepts such as consistency and ( variational) correctness are introduced. These together with the more familiar completeness and continuity requirements are then employed to guide the construction of error-free robust finite elements and also provide procedures to perform a priori error estimates for the quality of approximation. These C-concepts, as we shall call them, are elucidated and their relevance to the design of several key elements commonly found in general-purpose packages used by the aerospace, automobile and mechanical engineering industries is briefly covered. The article reviews what has been achieved in areas where the C-concepts can be applied fruitfully in the study of the displacement type finite element method.

Obstacles to Effective Developmental Surveillance

Recent research and legislation support the importance of early identification and intervention for children with developmental and behavioral or emotional problems. Detecting these children often depends on medical professionals, especially pediatricians. However, few pediatricians use developmental screening tests to help them identify children. Rather, physicians usually rely on their clinical impressions to discriminate children with and without difficulties. Research on the accuracy of clinical impressions, although sparse, suggests that only half the children in need are identified. The most obvious reasons, such as severity of the problem or the type of clinical information physicians select (e.g., parents' concerns, observations of the child, history, etc.), do not fully explain why some children are identified and others are not. More complete explanations are found in research on clinical impression formation that suggests physician's selection from the array of clinical data is mediated by their unique experiences, beliefs, and attitudes. These qualities provide a set of judgment heuristics for sorting seemingly relevant from irrelevant information. Judgment heuristics, depending on their content, may lead to accurate or inaccurate impressions. This article suggests a model of ideal impression formation that may help physicians learn to more accurately identify children with developmental and behavioral or emotional problems.

Competence in experts: The role of task characteristics

The previous literature on experts presents two contrasting views. Judgment and decision research has shown that experts make flawed decisions due, in part, to the biasing effects of judgmental heuristics. Cognitive science research, in contrast, views experts as competent and different from novices in nearly every aspect of cognitive functioning. An alternative view developed here, the Theory of Expert Competence, suggests that both analyses are correct, but incomplete. In particular, the theory assumes competence depends on five components: (1) a sufficient knowledge of the domain, (2) the psychological traits associated with experts, (3) the cognitive skills necessary to make tough decisions, (4) the ability to use appropriate decision strategies, and (5) a task with suitable characteristics. The latter is the focus of this paper. Insufficient attention has been paid to task and domain characteristics in prior research. Decision researchers have looked primarily at experts in behavioral domains (e.g., clinical psychology), whereas cognitive investigators have concentrated on experts in static domains (e.g., physics). Thus, the discrepancy in the conclusions drawn from the two literatures appears to be a function of the different domains studied. Although similar to approaches such as Cognitive Continuum Theory, the proposed theory contains several new components. In addition, the theory has implications both for the analysis of experts and for the design and use of expert systems.

Judgment processes in motivation: Anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior

The behavioral correlates of human judgment have received little attention from judgment and decision making researchers. One behavioral domain that provides for the study of judgment-behavior relations is task motivation (i.e., the allocation of time and effort to a task). Judgments of contingent relations are primary components of several theories of motivation, including expectancy theories and the theory of behavior in organizations proposed by Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980). The characteristics of heuristic judgment processes are hypothesized to affect contingency judgments and thus behavioral allocations of time and effort. This paper examines the effects of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic upon (a) judgments of future effort and performance and (b) upon actual allocations of time and effort using several types of anchoring information. Results indicate that both irrelevant and relevant information have strong anchoring effects on effort and performance judgments, but do not have concomitant effects on behavior. Implications for the role of judgment in motivation and for the link between judgment and behavior are discussed.