Early Positive Information Impacts Final Evaluations: No Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect and a Test of a Dynamic Judgment Model (original) (raw)

How Judgments Change Following Comparison of Current and Prior Information

Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 2012

Although much observed judgment change is superficial and occurs without considering prior information, other forms of change also occur. Comparison between prior and new information about an issue may trigger change by influencing either or both the perceived strength and direction of the new information. In four experiments, participants formed and reported initial judgments of a policy based on favorable written information about it. Later, these participants read a second passage containing strong favorable or unfavorable information on the policy. Compared to control conditions, subtle and direct prompts to compare the initial and new information led to more judgment change in the direction of a second passage perceived to be strong. Mediation analyses indicated that comparison yielded greater perceived strength of the second passage, which in turn correlated positively with judgment change. Moreover, self-reports of comparison mediated the judgment change resulting from comparison prompts.

Order effects in belief updating with consistent and inconsistent evidence

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1993

The current study tests for the presence of differential order effects in evaluation tasks with consistent and inconsistent evidence as predicted by the Hogarth and Einhorn (1992) belief-adjustment model. The results, based on both betweensubjects and within-subjects experiments, demonstrate that there were significant recency effects with inconsistent evidence as predicted, larger recency effects when the inconsistent evidence was farther apart in subjective value as predicted, and significant recency effects even when subjects were given training designed to both help them understand the task as completely as possible and to be better able to assess the pieces of evidence. By including a within-subjects design, we were able to demonstrate that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of evidence is the primary factor influencing the magnitude of the recency effect, regardless of whether the evidence is consistent or inconsistent. This latter finding is unique and contrary to previous research and theory.

The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect Evidence for an Artifactual Interpretation

2009

Proponents of unconscious-thought theory assert that letting the unconscious ''mull it over'' can enhance decisions. In a series of recent studies, researchers demonstrated that participants whose attention was focused on solving a complex problem (i.e., those using conscious thought) made poorer choices, decisions, and judgments than participants whose attention was distracted from the problem (i.e., those purportedly using unconscious thought). We argue that this finding, rather than establishing the existence of a deliberation-withoutattention effect, is explained more compellingly in terms of the well-established distinction between on-line and memory-based judgments. In Experiment 1, we reversed the recent finding by simply changing participants' on-line processing goal from impression formation to memorization. Experiment 2 provided a replication and further established that some cognitive effort appears necessary to produce both the original pattern of results and its reversal, suggesting that such judgments are ultimately a product of conscious, rather than unconscious, thinking.

Human belief revision and the order effect

2000

Abstract The order effect, a phenomenon in which the final belief is significantly affected by the temporal order of information presentation, is a robust empirical finding in human belief revision. This paper investigates how order effects occur, on the basis that human belief has a coherence foundation and a probability/confidence distinction. Both the experimental results and the UEcho modeling suggest that confidence plays an important role in human belief revision.

Order effects in human belief revision

1998

Abstract The order effect, a phenomenon in which the final belief is significantly affected by the temporal order of information presentation, is a robust empirical finding in human belief revision. This paper investigates how order effects occur on the basis that human belief has a coherence foundation and a probability/confidence distinction. Both the experimental results and the UEcho modeling suggest that confidence play an important role in human belief revision.

Momentary and integrative response strategies in causal judgment

Memory & Cognition, 2002

Associative models of causal learning predict recency effects: Judgments at the end of a trial series should be strongly biased by recently presented information. Prior research, however, presents a contrasting picture of human performance. López, Shanks, Almaraz, and Fernández (1998) observed recency, whereas Dennis and Ahn (2001) found the opposite, primacy. Here we replicate both of these effects and provide an explanation for this paradox. Four experiments show that the effect of trial order on judgments is a function of judgment frequency, where incremental judgments lead to recency while single final judgments abolish recency and lead instead to integration of information across trials (i.e., primacy). These results challenge almost all existing accounts of causal judgment. We propose a modified associative account in which participants can base their causal judgments either on current associative strength (momentary strategy) or on the cumulative change in associative strength since the previous judgment (integrative strategy).

Information presentation format moderates the unconscious-thought effect: The role of recollection

Memory, 2015

The unconscious-thought effect occurs when distraction improves complex decision making. In two experiments using the unconscious-thought paradigm, we investigated the effect of presentation format of decision information (i) on memory for decision-relevant information and (ii) on the quality of decisions made after distraction, conscious deliberation or immediately. We used the process-dissociation procedure to measure recollection and familiarity. The two studies showed that presenting information blocked per criterion led participants to recollect more decision-relevant details compared to a presentation by option.

Order effects in belief updating: The belief-adjustment model

Cognitive Psychology, 1992

Much literature attests to the existence of order effects in the updating of beliefs. However, under what conditions do primacy, recency, or no order effects occur? This paper presents a theory of belief updating that explicitly accounts for order-effect phenomena as arising from the interaction of information-processing strategies and task characteristics. Key task variables identified are complexity of the stimuli, length of the series of evidence items, and response mode (Step-by-

Learning from examples does not prevent order effects in belief revision

Thinking & Reasoning, 2010

A common finding is that information order influences belief revision (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992). We tested personal experience as a possible mitigator. In three experiments participants experienced the probabilistic relationship between pieces of information and object category through a series of trials where they assigned objects (planes) into one of two possible categories (hostile or commercial) given two sequentially presented pieces of probabilistic information (route and ID), and then they had to indicate their belief about the object category before feedback. The results generally confirm the predictions from the Hogarth and Einhorn model. Participants showed a recency effect in their belief revision. Extending previous model evaluations the results indicate that the model predictions also hold for classification decisions, and for pieces of information that vary in their diagnostic values. Personal experience does not appear to prevent order effects in classification decisions based on sequentially presented pieces of information and in belief revision.