Egocentric framing - one way people may fail in a switch dilemma: evidence from excessive lane switching.
نویسندگان
چکیده
To study switching behavior, an experiment mimicking the state of a driver on the road was conducted. In each trial participants were given a chance to switch lanes. Despite the fact that lane switching had no sound rational basis, participants often switched lanes when the speed of driving in their lane on the previous trial was relatively slow. That tendency was discerned even when switching behavior had been sparsely reinforced, and was especially marked in almost a third of the participants, who manifested it consistently. The findings illustrate a type of behavior occurring in various contexts (e.g., stocks held in a portfolio, conduct pertinent for residual life expectancy, supermarket queues). We argue that this behavior may be due to a fallacy reminiscent of that arising in the well-known "envelopes problem", in which each of two players holds a sum of money of which she knows nothing about except that it is either half or twice the amount held by the other player. Players may be paradoxically tempted to exchange assets, since an exchange fallaciously appears to always yield an expected value greater than whatever is regarded as the player's present assets. We argue that the fallacy is due to egocentrically framing the problem as if the "amount I have" is definite, albeit unspecified, and shows that framing the paradox acentrically instead eliminates the incentive to exchange assets. A possible psychological source for the human disposition to frame problems in a way that inflates expected gain is discussed. Finally, a heuristic meant to avert the source of the fallacy is proposed.
منابع مشابه
Framing Bias in the Interpretation of Quality Improvement Data: Evidence From an Experiment
Background A growing body of public management literature sheds light on potential shortcomings to quality improvement (QI) and performance management efforts. These challenges stem from heuristics individuals use when interpreting data. Evidence from studies of citizens suggests that individuals’ evaluation of data is influenced by the linguistic framing or context of that information an...
متن کاملThe Welfare Effects of Switching from Consumption Taxation to Inflation Taxation in Iran’s Economy
The net effects of switching from consumption taxation to inflation taxation on resource allocation and welfare crucially depend on production externalities. With elastic labor supply, raising inflation taxation decreases leisure, but increases the levels of real consumption, capital, and output. Moreover, this tax switch has two opposing effects on the level of real money balances: A positive ...
متن کاملCare Integration – From “One Size Fits All” to Person Centred Care; Comment on “Achieving Integrated Care for Older People: Shuffling the Deckchairs or Making the System Watertight for the Future?”
Integrating services is a hot topic amongst health system policy-makers and healthcare managers. There is some evidence that integrated services deliver efficiencies and reduce service utilisation rates for some patient populations. In their article on Achieving Integrated Care for Older People, Gillian Harvey and her colleagues formulate some critical insights from practice and research around...
متن کاملCausality and Reasoning: The Monty Hall Dilemma
In the Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) contestants try to choose which of three doors conceals a prize. After selecting a door, one of the other doors is opened by a host who knows where the prize is, but always reveals a dud. Contestants are then asked if they want to stay with their first choice, or switch to the other unopened door? Switching yields a two-thirds chance of winning, but most people h...
متن کاملThe dilemma of the hedonic - Appreciated, but hard to justify
With the experiential turn in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), academics and practitioners broaden their focus from mere task-fulfillment (i.e., the pragmatic) to a holistic view, encompassing universal human needs such as relatedness or popularity (i.e., the hedonic). Accordingly, many theoretical models of User Experience (UX) acknowledge the hedonic as an important aspect of a product’s app...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
- Acta psychologica
دوره 144 3 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2013