Comparing value coding models of context-dependence in social choice
Comparing value coding models of context-dependence in social choice
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103847
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发表时间：
2019-11-01
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Cikara, Mina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chang, Linda W.;Gershman, Samuel J.;Cikara, Mina
当决策者在一组产品中的几个选择中做出选择时，他们总是违反理性选择理论（例如，当一组产品与高质量的选择一起出现时，他们却没有购买最好的产品）。许多社会上最重要的社会决策同样涉及对多个候选人的联合评估。社会决策是否也会受到同样的侵害？如果是的话，什么样的解释最能描述这种侵害的性质？在五项研究中，我们测试了决策者在招聘场景和过去的美国国会竞选结果中是否表现出情境依赖的偏好，并比较了不同的价值编码模型作为假设情境依赖的来源。研究1a、1b和1d揭示了一个分裂的归一化值编码方案最能表征参与者在一系列招聘决策中的选择，并且参与者表现出情境依赖的偏好。然而，当我们考虑到参与者的随机效应时，干扰物产生了与分裂归一化预测相反的效果：随着干扰物的价值增加，参与者更有可能雇用价值最高的候选人。在研究2中，我们结合了档案选举数据和调查数据来检验标准化模型是否可以解释国会选举的结果。选举结果是通过政治候选人的推断能力来预测的，但这一次与分裂的正常化说法一致。我们的研究结果为一种正式的、神经生物学衍生的解释提供了混合的支持，即特定的选择何时以及如何对社会评估和选择产生影响，并强调了高价值干扰物增加和降低相对选择准确性的条件。
Decision-makers consistently exhibit violations of rational choice theory when they choose among several alternatives in a set (e.g., failing to buy the best product in a set when it is presented alongside high-quality alternatives). Many of society's most significant social decisions similarly involve the joint evaluation of multiple candidates. Are social decisions subject to the same violations, and if so, what account best characterizes the nature of the violations? Across five studies, we tested whether decision-makers exhibit context-dependent preferences in hiring scenarios and past U.S. congressional race outcomes and compared different models of value coding as sources of the hypothesized context-dependence. Studies 1a, 1b, and 1d revealed that a divisive normalization value coding scheme best characterized participants' choices across a series of hiring decisions, and that participants exhibited context-dependent preferences. However, the distractor had the opposite effect of that predicted by divisive normalization once we accounted for the random effect of participant: as the value of the distractor increased, participants were more likely to hire the highest-valued candidate. In Study 2, we used a combination of archival electoral data and survey data to examine whether normalization models could explain the outcomes of congressional elections. Electoral outcomes were predicted by political candidates' inferred competence, but this time in line with the divisive normalization account. Our findings offer mixed support for a formal, neurobiologically-derived account of when and how specific alternatives exert their effects on social evaluation and choice, and highlight conditions under which high-value distractors increase versus decrease relative choice accuracy.