Options as Information

来自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，这似乎是令人信服的(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，情况应该是此人更喜欢A而不是C)，但有时情况并非如此。一种可能的解释是，人们的决策机制存在缺陷。另一种可能性是，当人们在实验环境中做出决定时，他们将假设和推理带入了研究人员没有意识到的过程中。这项研究项目探索了这种可能性。具体地说，这项研究重新审视了三个被广泛接受的理性选择原则的实验违规行为：联合-分离等价、无关选择的独立性和传递性。该研究开发了一个新的“选择作为信息”模型，阐明了这三个原则适用于和不适用于实验数据的规范分析的条件。这个选择作为信息的模型对心理学文献中的一些重要发现提出了修正的解释：联合-分离逆转传统上用“可评估性”来解释。以及涉及不对称支配的语境效应。我们将进行一系列实验，以检验选项作为信息对这些效应的解释。该模型还会产生新的选择问题，在这些问题中，显然有必要对理性规范(包括理性的不及物)进行理性违反。这些选择问题为调查决策中有意识的反思的好处和缺点提供了有用的新工具。计划中的最后一系列研究测试了这样的预测：在这些选择环境中，有意识的深思熟虑有时会导致系统地做出更糟糕的决定。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。如果观察到的对决策制定规范性原则的违反是“偏见”，那么干预是正确的。另一方面，如果这些问题是因为受试者回答的问题与研究人员的意图不同而出现的，他们可能不是这样的。了解情况和时间对于了解何时采取干预措施以协助人们作出决策以及这些干预措施应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.