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

这项建议的目的是研究的认知过程，使有效的决策，在一类任务，需要离散的选择，面对的变量是众多的，矛盾的，模糊的和不相称的。在日常生活中，当我们选择一份工作、购买一所房子或判处一个人入狱时，都会遇到这种决定。建议的理论框架，被称为“连贯性为基础的决策”，假定在整个决策过程中，心理表征的任务经历了逐渐的变化，最终转向一个状态的连贯性与任何一个决策方案。在这个过程的高潮，决策者的心理模型是倾向于一个连贯的状态，一个替代品占主导地位的竞争对手;决定容易和自信地从这个任务的看法。 在这项提案中，研究人员计划支持和扩展他们以前在这一理论上的工作。本建议中所列的14项研究旨在审查理论问题，并在以下方面提供解决办法：提高人们对收到的信息作出适当反应的能力;更好地理解忽视信息的失误;减少群体两极分化的影响;改进群体审议过程;减少自利偏见;考虑到需要状态对有偏见的判断的影响;和更多.该项目还打算为一些法律的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的任务;更好地处理暴露于不允许的证据;减少陪审团两极分化和改善陪审团审议;提供衡量和减少审前乐观过度自信的手段;并提供关于赌博监管的政策问题的关键见解。

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.