Collaborative Research: Coherence Based Decision Making: A Theoretical Framework and Practical Applications

这项提议的目的是研究在面对众多、相互矛盾、模棱两可和不相称的变数的情况下，能够在需要离散选择的一类任务中作出有效决策的认知过程。在日常生活中，当我们选择工作、买房子或判处某人入狱时，都会遇到这样的决定。该理论框架被称为“基于连贯的决策制定”，该框架假设在整个决策过程中，任务的心理表征经历了逐渐的变化，最终转变为与任一决策选项保持一致的状态。在这一过程达到顶峰时，决策者的心理模型偏向于一种连贯的状态，其中一种选择主导着竞争对手；从这种对任务的感知中很容易、很自信地做出决定。在这项提案中，研究人员计划支持和扩展他们之前在这一理论上的工作。这项提案包括的14项研究旨在审查理论问题，并在以下方面提供处方：提高人们对收到的信息做出适当反应的能力；更好地理解忽视信息的失败；减少群体两极分化的影响；改善群体审议的过程；减少自私自利的偏见；考虑到需求状态对偏见判断的影响；等等。该项目还旨在为在多个法律背景下的决策提供具体的处方，包括建议如何更好地组织法律任务；更好地处理接触不允许的证据；减少陪审团两极分化和改善陪审团商议；提供衡量和减少审前乐观过度自信的手段；以及对有关赌博监管的政策问题提供关键的见解。

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.