Options as Information

个人决策实验的证据表明，人们的选择违反了各种令人信服的原则。 例如，虽然人们的选择应该是可传递的（例如，如果一个人选择健康计划A而不是健康计划B，选择B而不是C，那么这个人应该更喜欢A而不是C），在有些情况下情况并非如此。一个可能的解释是，人们的决策机制是有缺陷的。 另一种可能性是，当人们在实验环境中做出决定时，他们将假设和推论带入了研究人员没有意识到的过程。 本研究项目探讨了这种可能性。 具体来说，研究重新审视实验违反三个广泛接受的理性选择原则：联合分离等效，无关选项的独立性和传递性。 一种新的“选项作为信息”的模型，阐明了这三个原则的条件下，是，不适用于实验数据的规范性分析。 这个选项作为信息模型提出了一个修订的解释，一些重要的研究结果，从心理学文献：联合独立逆转传统上解释的“可评价性”，和上下文的影响，涉及不对称的优势。 我们将通过一系列实验来检验选项作为信息对这些效应的解释。 该模型还产生了新的选择问题，其中透明的“理性规范的理性违反”（包括理性的不传递性）是有道理的。 这些选择问题提供了一个有用的新工具，调查的好处和有意识的反思在决策中的缺点。 最后一系列计划中的研究验证了这一预测，即在这些选择背景下，有意识的思考有时会导致系统性的错误决策。就更广泛的影响而言，这项研究将有助于为帮助人们做出更好的决策提供信息。 如果观察到的违反决策规范性原则的行为是“偏见”，那么干预措施是有序的。另一方面，如果它们的出现是因为受试者回答的问题与研究者的意图不同，那么它们可能不是。 了解情况和时间对于了解何时采取干预措施帮助人们做出决策以及这些干预措施应该对决策问题的哪些特征敏感至关重要。

Evidence from experiments on individual decision making reveals that people's choices violate a variety of compelling principles. For example, while it seems compelling that people's choices should be transitive (e.g., that if a person chooses health plan A over health plan B and B over C, it should be the case that the person prefers A to C) there are instances where this is not the case. One possible explanation is that people's decision making machinery is flawed. An alternative possibility is that when people make decisions in experimental settings, they are bringing assumptions and inferences into the process that the researcher is not aware of. This research project explores this possibility. Specifically, the research re-examines experimental violations of three widely accepted principles of rational choice: joint-separate equivalence, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and transitivity.  A novel "options-as-information" model is developed, spelling out the conditions under which these three principles are, and are not, applicable to the normative analysis of experimental data.  This options-as-information model suggests a revised interpretation of some important findings from the psychological literature: joint-separate reversals traditionally explained in terms of "evaluability", and context effects involving asymmetric dominance.  A series of experiments to test the options-as-information explanation of these effects will be conducted.  The model also generates new choice problems in which transparently "rational violations of rational norms" (including rational intransitivities) are warranted.  These choice problems supply a useful new tool for investigating the benefits and drawbacks of conscious reflection in decision making.  A final series of planned studies tests the prediction that, in these choice contexts, conscious deliberation will sometimes lead to systematically poorer decisions.In terms of broader impacts, the research will help inform efforts to assist people in making better decisions. If observed violations of normative principles of decision making are "biases," then interventions are in order. On the other hand, if they arise because subjects are answering questions different from what the researcher intends, they may not be. Understanding which it the case and when is critical to knowing when interventions to assist people in making decisions are in order and what features of the decision problem those interventions should be sensitive to.