Options as Information

关于个人决策的实验证据表明，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不可抗拒的（例如，如果一个人选择健康计划a而不是健康计划B和B而不是C，那么这个人应该更喜欢a而不是C），但在某些情况下，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，他们将假设和推论带入了研究人员不知道的过程。本研究项目探讨了这种可能性。具体而言，该研究重新审视了实验中对三个广为接受的理性选择原则的违背：联合分离的等效性、无关替代的独立性和及物性。一个新颖的“选项即信息”模型被开发出来，详细说明了这三个原则适用于实验数据的规范性分析的条件。这种“选择即信息”模型提出了对心理学文献中一些重要发现的修正解释：传统上用“可评估性”来解释联合分离逆转，以及涉及不对称优势的情境效应。我们将进行一系列的实验来检验期权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“理性违反理性规范”（包括理性不可及性）是合理的。这些选择问题为研究决策中有意识反思的利弊提供了一个有用的新工具。最后一系列计划中的研究验证了这样一种预测：在这些选择情境中，有意识的深思熟虑有时会导致系统性地做出更糟糕的决定。就更广泛的影响而言，这项研究将有助于帮助人们做出更好的决定。如果观察到的违反决策规范原则的行为是“偏见”，那么干预是有秩序的。另一方面，如果他们的出现是因为受试者回答的问题与研究者的意图不同，他们可能不是。了解是什么情况，什么时候是至关重要的，这样才能知道帮助人们做出决策的干预措施何时是合适的，以及这些干预措施应该对决策问题的哪些特征敏感。

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.