Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments
Information search is key to making decision from experience: exploration permits people to learn about the statistical properties of choice options and thus to become aware of rare but potentially momentous decision consequences. This registered report investigates whether and how people differ whe...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2020-03-01
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| Series: | Judgment and Decision Making |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500007415/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1797697895700365312 |
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| author | Renato Frey |
| author_facet | Renato Frey |
| author_sort | Renato Frey |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Information search is key to making decision from experience: exploration permits people to learn about the statistical properties of choice options and thus to become aware of rare but potentially momentous decision consequences. This registered report investigates whether and how people differ when making decisions from experience in isolation versus under competitive pressure, which may have important implications for choice performance in different types of choice environments: in “kind” environments without any rare and extreme events, frugal search is sufficient to identify advantageous options. Conversely, in “wicked” environments with skewed outcome distributions, rare but important events will tend to be missed in frugal search. One theoretical view is that competitive pressure encourages efficiency and may thereby boost adaptive search in different environments. An alternative and more pessimistic view is that competitive pressure triggers agency-related concerns, leading to minimal search irrespective of the choice environment, and hence to inferior choice performance. Using a sampling game, the present study (N = 277) found that solitary search was not adaptive to different choice environments (M = 14 samples), leading to a high choice performance in a kind and in a moderately wicked environment, but somewhat lower performance in an extremely wicked environment. Competitive pressure substantially reduced search irrespective of the choice environment (M = 4 samples), thus negatively affecting overall choice performance. Yet, from the perspective of a cost-benefit framework, frugal search may be efficient under competitive pressure. In sum, this report extends research on decisions from experience by adopting an ecological perspective (i.e., systematically varying different choice environments) and by introducing a cost-benefit framework to evaluate solitary and competitive search — with the latter constituting a challenging problem for people in an increasingly connected world. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:46:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6a8818a160804ce2aaade14bafc8040e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1930-2975 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:46:30Z |
| publishDate | 2020-03-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Judgment and Decision Making |
| spelling | doaj.art-6a8818a160804ce2aaade14bafc8040e2023-09-03T12:43:29ZengCambridge University PressJudgment and Decision Making1930-29752020-03-011528230310.1017/S1930297500007415Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environmentsRenato Frey0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3190-3523Behavioral Science for Policy Lab, Princeton University, USA, and Department of Psychology, University of Basel, SwitzerlandInformation search is key to making decision from experience: exploration permits people to learn about the statistical properties of choice options and thus to become aware of rare but potentially momentous decision consequences. This registered report investigates whether and how people differ when making decisions from experience in isolation versus under competitive pressure, which may have important implications for choice performance in different types of choice environments: in “kind” environments without any rare and extreme events, frugal search is sufficient to identify advantageous options. Conversely, in “wicked” environments with skewed outcome distributions, rare but important events will tend to be missed in frugal search. One theoretical view is that competitive pressure encourages efficiency and may thereby boost adaptive search in different environments. An alternative and more pessimistic view is that competitive pressure triggers agency-related concerns, leading to minimal search irrespective of the choice environment, and hence to inferior choice performance. Using a sampling game, the present study (N = 277) found that solitary search was not adaptive to different choice environments (M = 14 samples), leading to a high choice performance in a kind and in a moderately wicked environment, but somewhat lower performance in an extremely wicked environment. Competitive pressure substantially reduced search irrespective of the choice environment (M = 4 samples), thus negatively affecting overall choice performance. Yet, from the perspective of a cost-benefit framework, frugal search may be efficient under competitive pressure. In sum, this report extends research on decisions from experience by adopting an ecological perspective (i.e., systematically varying different choice environments) and by introducing a cost-benefit framework to evaluate solitary and competitive search — with the latter constituting a challenging problem for people in an increasingly connected world.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500007415/type/journal_articledecisions from experiencechoice environmentsexplorationcompetitioncompetitive search |
| spellingShingle | Renato Frey Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments Judgment and Decision Making decisions from experience choice environments exploration competition competitive search |
| title | Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| title_full | Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| title_fullStr | Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| title_short | Decisions from experience: Competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| title_sort | decisions from experience competitive search and choice in kind and wicked environments |
| topic | decisions from experience choice environments exploration competition competitive search |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500007415/type/journal_article |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT renatofrey decisionsfromexperiencecompetitivesearchandchoiceinkindandwickedenvironments |