The psychology of task management: The smaller tasks trap (original) (raw)

Noname manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) Rational Task Analysis A Methodology to Benchmark Bounded Rationality

2016

How can we study bounded rationality? We answer this question by pro-posing rational task analysis (RTA)—a systematic approach that prevents experi-mental researchers from drawing premature conclusions regarding the (ir-)rationality of agents. RTA is a methodology and perspective that is anchored in the notion of bounded rationality and aids in the unbiased interpretation of results and the design of more conclusive experimental paradigms. RTA focuses on concrete tasks as the primary interface between agents and environments and requires explicating essen-tial task elements, specifying rational norms, and bracketing the range of possible performance, before contrasting various benchmarks with actual performance. After describing RTA’s core components we illustrate its use in three case studies that ex-amine human memory updating, multitasking behavior, and melioration. We discuss RTA’s characteristic elements and limitations by comparing it to related approaches. We conclude that RT...

Thinking about decisions: An integrative approach of person and task factors

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making

Decisions vary. They vary in both content and complexity. People also vary. An important way that people vary is how much they think about a decision. Some prior research investigating thinking and decision making largely conflicts with most traditional decision theories. For example, if considering an array of products to choose from, thinking more about the different alternative's attributes should lead to a better decision. However, some research indicates that it may also lead to more focus on irrelevant aspects of the decision situation. We propose that this conflict exists because of a failure to consider the interaction between the individual and the decision task. To test this, we used separate methodologies that enhance or attenuate a person's thinking. In Study 1 we selected people who were especially high or low in need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) and had them complete a robust decision-making inventory, which included both complex and simple tasks. In Study 2 we manipulated participant's level of glucose, which acts as the brain's fuel to enhance or attenuate thinking ability. Both studies support the view that more thought leads to better decisions in complex tasks but does not influence simple decisions, including those that are valence based. These findings show how the individual's thinking interacts with the constructive elements of the task to shape decision choice.

Fast, frugal, and rational: How rational norms explain behavior

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2003

Much research on judgment and decision making has focussed on the adequacy of classical rationality as a description of human reasoning. But more recently it has been argued that classical rationality should also be rejected even as normative standards for human reasoning. For example, and argue that reasoning involves ''fast and frugal'' algorithms which are not justified by rational norms, but which succeed in the environment. They provide three lines of argument for this view, based on: (A) the importance of the environment; (B) the existence of cognitive limitations; and (C) the fact that an algorithm with no apparent rational basis, Take-the-Best, succeeds in an judgment task (judging which of two cities is the larger, based on lists of features of each city). We reconsider (A)-(C), arguing that standard patterns of explanation in psychology and the social and biological sciences, use rational norms to explain why simple cognitive algorithms can succeed. We also present new computer simulations that compare Take-the-Best with other cognitive models (which use connectionist, exemplarbased, and decision-tree algorithms). Although Take-the-Best still performs well, it does not perform noticeably better than the other models. We conclude that these results provide no strong reason to prefer Take-the-Best over alternative cognitive models.

Decision making and the avoidance of cognitive demand

Journal of experimental psychology. General, 2010

Behavioral and economic theories have long maintained that actions are chosen so as to minimize demands for exertion or work, a principle sometimes referred to as the law of less work. The data supporting this idea pertain almost entirely to demands for physical effort. However, the same minimization principle has often been assumed also to apply to cognitive demand. The authors set out to evaluate the validity of this assumption. In 6 behavioral experiments, participants chose freely between courses of action associated with different levels of demand for controlled information processing. Together, the results of these experiments revealed a bias in favor of the less demanding course of action. The bias was obtained across a range of choice settings and demand manipulations and was not wholly attributable to strategic avoidance of errors, minimization of time on task, or maximization of the rate of goal achievement. It is remarkable that the effect also did not depend on awareness...

When Rationality and Fairness Conflict: The Role of Cognitive-Control in the Ultimatum Game

Social Science Research Network, 2011

The ultimatum game models social exchange in situations in which the rational motive to maximize gains conflicts with fairness considerations. Using two independent behavioral measurements, the authors tested two contradicting predictions: that the preference for fairness is a deliberative cognitive-controlled act or that it is an automatic act. In Experiment 1, participants whose cognitive-control resources were depleted rejected more unfair offers compared to control participants. In Experiment 2, it took longer to accept than to reject unfair offers. These results suggest that fairness considerations operate more automatically than rational considerations, and that the latter depend on the availability of limited cognitive control resources.

The role of cognitive frames in combined decisions about risk and effort

Management Accounting Research, 2017

Cognitive framing influences the subjective valuation of monetary payoffs and an individual's willingness to exert effort and take risk. In this paper, we explore how cognitive frames created by incentive design and the outcome's fairness influence decisions on risk and effort. While such decisions are often combined in practice, the theories that study risk-taking and motivation to exert effort remain discrete. We set up a multiperiod, 2 × 2 experiment in which we analyze the effects of a bonus versus a penalty contract and a fair versus an unfair outcome distribution. We use a modified Sternberg task to measure risk-effort decisions. We hypothesize that in the case of conflicting cues from the two frames, the cue that creates a perception of loss dominates the decision. We also hypothesize that over time, prior performance influences current decisions by creating a new cognitive frame. We find that if the pay is unfair, neither a bonus nor a penalty seems to matter. If it is fair, high risk-effort tasks are stimulated more by a penalty than a bonus contract. The effect of prior performance eventually outweighs the effect of both incentive manipulations. Our results help to advance the management accounting literature by integrating separate theories on risk-taking and effort exertion to better understand interactive cognitive frames in comprehensive decision-making.

Economic Rationality under Cognitive Load

The Economic Journal, 2020

Economic analysis assumes that consumer behaviour can be rationalised by a utility function. Previous research has shown that some consistency of choices with economic rationality can be captured by permanent cognitive ability. No other known study however has examined how a temporary load in subjects’ working memory can affect economic rationality. Using two controlled laboratory experiments, we exogenously vary cognitive load by asking subjects to memorise a number while they undertake an induced budget allocation task (Choi et al., 2007a, b). Using a number of manipulation checks, we verify that cognitive load has adverse effects on subjects’ performance in reasoning tasks. However, we find no effect in any of the goodness-of-fit measures that measure consistency of subjects’ choices with the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARP), despite having a sample size large enough to detect even small differences between treatments with 80% power. We also find no effect on first...

Leveraging Psychometrics of Rational Inattention to Estimate Individual Differences in the Capacity for Cognitive Control

Recent years have witnessed significant advances in our understanding of bounds on rationality in both cognitive psychology and economics. These two fields have been making separate progress, but time is ripe for unifying these efforts. In this article, we introduce recently developed economic tools, themselves rooted in the psychometric tradition, to quantify individual differences in the capacity for cognitive control. These tools suggest that a reliable assessment of the capacity for cognitive control may be accomplished by examining task performance as a function of reward. We demonstrate through simulation studies that an incentive-informed measure of task performance does a better job of recovering individual differences in one’s capacity for cognitive control, compared to the commonly used congruency effect. Furthermore, we show that the economic approach can be used to predict control-dependent behavior across different task settings. We conclude by discussing future directi...