Causes and Remediation of the Predecisional Distortion of Information

当人们在一场体育比赛中倾向于某一方时，比如在奥运会上，一个美国选手对一个俄罗斯花样滑冰选手，我们经常会看到对比赛的偏见解释。对手的一个小失误会被认为对她的表现是致命的，而本国运动员的同样错误则被认为是微不足道的。这种对物证的扭曲是否不仅发生在对某一方的偏好长期存在且根深蒂固的情况下，而且还发生在这种偏好是试探性的、私人的、完全可逆的情况下？本基金进行的研究表明，在强烈信念的情况下导致有偏见的判断的同样的扭曲，似乎在新形成的偏好的情况下导致大量和未被认识到的证据扭曲。康奈尔大学的研究人员正在研究这一现象在普通情况下的购买决策。他们将其称为“决策前扭曲”，意思是对新信息进行有偏见的评估，以支持当前（或暂时）首选的产品，而决策仍在进行中。在消费者的选择中，一旦一个品牌稍微受到青睐，新产品的信息往往会被扭曲，使其看起来更有利于那个暂时领先的品牌。这反过来又使当前的领先选项更有可能成为决策者的最终选择。这种现象超出了消费者的选择，在管理决策（公共审计员和销售人员）和模拟陪审员的裁决中也观察到了这种现象。新信息的预先决策扭曲也是系统性的，随着对暂时领先的替代方案的承诺增加，扭曲也在增加。有趣的是，心情好的人更容易受到这种偏见的影响。是什么原因导致人们在真正想要准确思考的情况下容易产生这种偏见呢？研究人员提出，决定前的扭曲是由一种简单的期望驱动的，即新的信息应该与现有的信念一致，再加上缺乏对扭曲正在发生的意识。也就是说，人们期望新旧信息之间的一致性，以至于他们实际上扭曲了新信息，使其与现有信念更加“一致”。康奈尔大学的研究人员研究了许多改善信息扭曲的方法，包括对他人负责，确保决策的正确性，增加选择的重要性，以及为准确性提供经济激励。虽然这些干预措施有时会有所帮助，但没有一项能将扭曲程度降低50%以上。到目前为止，它已被证明是不可能根除的，尽管正在探索消除它的其他方法。然而，纠正这种偏见的一个主要障碍是，人们似乎直到事后才意识到他们正在进行预先决定的扭曲。如果人们不能意识到错误的发生，他们就很难改正错误。

When people are committed to one side in an athletic contest, say an American versus a Russian figure skater in the Olympics, we frequently observe a biased interpretation of the events. The opponent's small misstep is judged as fatal to her performance, while the same error by the athlete from one's own country is dismissed as insignificant. Could this distortion of physical evidence occur not only when a preference for one side is long standing and deeply held, but also when it is tentative, private, and fully reversible? The research undertaken in the present grant demonstrates that the same distortion that drives biased judgments in the case of strong beliefs seems to lead to substantial and unrecognized distortion of evidence in the case of newly developing preferences. Researchers at Cornell University are examining this phenomenon in the ordinary situation of purchase decisions. They have labeled it "predecisional distortion," meaning the biased evaluation of new information to favor whichever product is currently (and tentatively) preferred while the decision is still in progress. In a consumer choice, as soon as one brand is slightly favored, new product information tends to be distorted to seem more favorable to that tentatively leading brand than it should. This, in turn, makes the currently leading option more likely to become the decision-maker's final choice. The phenomenon extends beyond consumer choice, having been observed also in managerial decisions (both by public auditors and by salespersons), and in the verdicts of mock jurors. Predecisional distortion of new information is also systematic, with distortion increasing as the commitment to the tentatively leading alternative increases. Interestingly, individuals who are in a good mood are more subject to this bias. What causes and, therefore, makes individuals prone to this bias in situations where they are genuinely trying to think accurately? The researchers propose that predecisional distortion is driven by the simple expectation that new information should be consistent with existing beliefs, combined with the lack of awareness that distortion is occurring. That is, people expect coherence between new and old information, so much so that they actually distort new information to make it more "coherent" with existing beliefs. The Cornell researchers have investigated a number of methods for ameliorating the distortion of information, including accountability to others for the correctness of the decision, increasing the importance of the choice, and providing financial incentives for accuracy. While these interventions sometimes help, none has reduced distortion by more than 50%. So far, it has proved impossible to eradicate, although additional methods to eliminate it are being explored. However, one major barrier to correcting the bias is that individuals seem unaware that they are engaging in predecisional distortion until after the fact. It is difficult for people to fix a mistake if they can't recognize that it is happening.