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

本提案的目的是研究认知过程，使有效决策的一类任务，需要离散的选择，面对众多的，矛盾的，模糊的和不相称的变量。当我们在日常生活中选择工作、购买房子或判某人入狱时，我们都会遇到这样的决定。提出的理论框架，被称为“基于一致性的决策”，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，最终转向与决策选择之一的一致性状态。在这一过程的高潮阶段，决策者的心智模式倾向于一种连贯的状态，一种选择支配着它的竞争对手；从对任务的感知中，很容易就能自信地做出决定。在这项建议中，研究人员计划支持和扩展他们以前在这一理论上的工作。本提案中包含的14项研究旨在研究理论问题，并提供有关提高人们对传入信息作出适当反应的能力的处方；更好地理解忽略信息的失败；减少群体极化的影响；改进小组审议程序；减少自我服务偏见；考虑需求状态对偏见判断的影响；和更多。该项目还旨在为若干法律情况下的决策提供具体办法，包括提出更好地安排法律任务的方法；更好地处理不被采纳的证据；减少陪审团两极分化，提高陪审团审议水平；提供衡量和减少审前乐观过度自信的手段；并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.