Despite a large body of research on integrating organizational concepts into cooperative multiagent systems, a formal understanding of how organizations can influence agents’ decisions remains elusive. This paper works toward such an understanding by beginning with a model of agent decision making based on decision-theoretic principles, and then examining the possible routes that organizational...

Whereas past research has focused on the downsides of task switching, the present research uncovers a potential upside: increased creativity. In two experiments, we show that task switching can enhance two principal forms of creativity—divergent thinking (Study 1) and convergent thinking (Study 2)—in part because temporarily setting a task aside reduces cognitive fixation. Participants who cont...

Physical appearance influences behavior in a number of environments, yet surprisingly little is known about the influence of physical attractiveness on the bargaining process. We conducted an ultimatum game experiment to investigate the influence of physical attractiveness and gender on ultimatum game decisions. Results from this study revealed no significant differences in the offers or demand...

The primary purpose of this research was to subject Conlon and Garland’s (1993; Garland & Conlon, 1998) project completion hypothesis to a stronger test than it has faced in the past. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the degree of completion, sunk-cost amount, and anticipated sales price for a hypothetical real estate development project. The sales price information allowed pa...

Research dealing with various aspects of* the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1987) is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral con...

Lopes (1996) clearly has limited patience with the Try to work through with undergraduates the equivalence concept of ‘‘rationality’’ as a basis for, or descriptor of, human decision making. I, in contrast, find some of the principles of rationality reasonably compel(x, E; (y, D; z)) B ((x, E; y), D; (x, E; z)), (1) ling—as do subjects when the situation allows them to see the structure of the ...

This article reexamines the assumptions underlying the disease problem used by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) to illustrate gain– loss formulation effects. It is argued that their reported effect may have been due to asymmetries in the ambiguity of the sure and risky prospects and to the entanglement of two distinct types of formulation manipulations: one having to do with the expected outcomes th...

Recent advances in information technology make it possible for decision makers to track information in real-time and obtain frequent feedback on their decisions. From a normative sense, an increase in the frequency of feedback and the ability to make changes should lead to enhanced performance as decision makers are able to respond more quickly to changes in the environment and see the conseque...

People’s numeric probability estimates for 2 mutually exclusive and exhaustive events commonly sum to 1.0, which seems to indicate the full complementarity of subjective certainty in the 2 events (i.e., increases in certainty for one event are accompanied by decreases in certainty for the other). In this article, however, a distinction is made between the additivity of probability estimates and...

Over the past 15 years, researchers have paid increasing attention to the dispositional source of job satisfaction. This research, though not without its controversies, has provided strong evidence that job satisfaction is, in part, dispositionally based. In this article we review past research on dispositional influences on job satisfaction. The two areas most in need of future research attent...