Collaborative Research--Coherence-based Decision Making: A Theoretical Framework and Practical Implications.

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The objective of this proposal is to study the cognitive processes that enable effective decision making in a category of tasks that require discrete choices in the face of variables that are numerous, contradictory, ambiguous and incommensurate. Decisions of this kind are encountered in everyday life when we choose a job, purchase a house, or condemn a person to prison. The proposed theoretical framework, termed "coherence-based decision making," posits that throughout the decision making process, the mental representation of the task undergoes gradual change, ultimately shifting towards a state of coherence with either one of the decision alternatives. At the culmination of the process, the decision maker's mental model is skewed towards a state of coherence, with one alternative dominating its rival; the decision follows easily and confidently from this perception of the task. In this proposal the Investigators plan to buttress and extend their previous work on this theory. The fourteen studies included in this proposal are intended to examine theoretical questions and to provide prescriptions with respect to improving people's ability to respond appropriately to incoming information; better understanding failures to ignore information; reducing the effects of group polarization; improving the process of group deliberation; reducing self-serving biases; taking into consideration the influence of need states on biased judgments; and more. The project is intended also to provide specific prescriptions for decision making in a number of legal contexts, including suggesting ways to better structure legal tasks; better handle exposure to impermissible evidence; reduce jury polarization and improve jury deliberation; provide means for gauging and reducing pre-trial optimistic overconfidence; and provide critical insight into policy questions regarding the regulation of gambling.