RUI: Collaborative Research: Assessments and Stances Regarding the Uncertainty of (Un)Desired Outcomes

对未来结果的预期和预测的不准确可能会破坏决策和最佳规划。一种有害的不准确类型是乐观偏见，即人们认为首选结果比保证的可能性更大，和/或不喜欢的结果被认为比保证的可能性小。乐观主义偏见会导致不明智的冒险和过度购买等有问题的个人行为，会导致工程失败导致死亡的人类悲剧，以及股市泡沫等具有重要社会意义的现象。激励目标通常被认为是乐观主义偏见的基础，但对于不同的目标何时会影响乐观主义，包括有可能降低乐观主义和提高准确性的目标，人们理解得不够充分。事实上，主要理论假设对结果的偏好和对结果的预期是独立的，这与一些实证研究结果不一致。这项拟议的研究解决了这一差异。这项研究是由一个新颖的目标偏向期望框架构建的，该框架假设了背景特征，这些特征塑造了一个人在形成期望的两种取向之间的平衡。取向的平衡最终决定了目标是否以及如何塑造预期。该框架还有助于制定步骤，以消除或减少过度乐观情绪，并提高专业预测者和公众的准确性。消除过度乐观的偏见可以改善预测，并最终在许多情况下(例如，金融、健康、安全)更好地规划、准备和取得结果。将进行三条线的实验。其中一行将审查预期测量如何受到结果可取性或偏好影响的关键差异的范围和过程。过去的研究结果给出了非常不同的指标，表明结果可取性在多大程度上具有偏见的影响，但这些差异可能与在研究和日常环境中通常征求预期的两种方式的区别一致。第二行将讨论可获得的信息类型如何影响可取性偏差。一种令人惊讶的可能性是，随着信息变得更加清晰，人们的取向和目标会以一种产生更多偏见而不是更少的方式发生变化。第三行将测试一种新颖的去偏性干预措施，以防止过度乐观。这些研究的参与者将包括体育迷、洪泛平原上的房主和病人--这三组人都被认为表现出了过度乐观。所有拟议的工作将为目标偏向期望框架的有效性提供信息。这项资助的研究将涉及与研究生和本科生的合作，因此将在他们的研究培训/教育中发挥重要作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Inaccuracies in expectations and predictions about future outcomes can ruin decision making and optimal planning. One pernicious type of inaccuracy is an optimism bias, in which preferred outcomes are viewed as more likely than warranted and/or unpreferred outcomes are viewed as less likely than warranted. Optimism biases lead to problematic individual behaviors like unwise risk taking and over-purchasing, human tragedies like deaths from engineering failures and societally important phenomena like stock market bubbles. Motivational goals are often assumed to underlie optimism biases but there is an inadequate understanding of when different goals impact optimism, including goals that have the potential to reduce optimism and promote accuracy. In fact, major theories assume that preferences for outcomes and expectations about the outcomes are independent, which is inconsistent with some empirical findings. The proposed research addresses this discrepancy. The research is structured by a novel Goal-Biased Expectations Framework, which posits contextual features that shape the balance between two orientations that a person can take toward forming expectations. The balance of orientations ultimately determines whether and how goals shape expectations. The framework is also useful for developing steps to debias or reduce overoptimism and promote accuracy among professional forecasters and the public. Debiasing overoptimism can yield improved predictions and ultimately better planning, preparation, and outcomes across many contexts (e.g., financial, health, security). Three lines of experiments will be conducted. One line will examine the scope of, and processes responsible for, a crucial difference in how measures of expectations are affected by outcome desirability or preference. Past research findings have returned quite different indicators of the extent to which outcome desirability has a biasing influence, but these differences might align with a distinction between two ways in which expectations are commonly solicited in studies and in everyday contexts. A second line will address how types of available information influence the desirability bias. One surprising possibility is that as information becomes more clear, people's orientation and goals shift in a manner that produces more bias rather than less. A third line will test a novel debiasing intervention for overoptimism. Participants in the studies will include sports fans, owners of homes in floodplains, and patients?three groups known to exhibit overoptimism. All of the proposed work will inform the validity of the Goal-Biased Expectations framework. The studies on this grant will involve collaboration with graduate and undergraduate students, and therefore will play important roles in their research training/education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.