Jason Dana

Testing transitivity of preferences on two-alternative forced choice data.

As Duncan Luce and other prominent scholars have pointed out on several occasions, testing algebraic models against empirical data raises difficult conceptual, mathematical, and statistical challenges. Empirical data often result from statistical sampling processes, whereas algebraic theories are nonprobabilistic. Many probabilistic specifications lead to statistical boundary problems and are subject to nontrivial order constrained statistical inference. The present paper discusses Luces challenge for a particularly prominent axiom: Transitivity. The axiom of transitivity is a central component in many algebraic theories of preference and choice. We offer the currently most complete solution to the challenge in the case of transitivity of binary preference on the theory side and two-alternative forced choice on the empirical side, explicitly for up to five, and implicitly for up to seven, choice alternatives. We also discuss the relationship between our proposed solution and weak stochastic transitivity. We recommend to abandon the latter as a model of transitive individual preferences.

Giving Versus Giving In

AbstractAltruism is central to organizational and social life, but its motivations are not well understood. We propose a new theoretical distinction that sorts these motivations into two basic type...

Comparing the accuracy of experimental estimates to guessing: a new perspective on replication and the “Crisis of Confidence” in psychology

We develop a general measure of estimation accuracy for fundamental research designs, called v. The v measure compares the estimation accuracy of the ubiquitous ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator, which includes sample means as a special case, with a benchmark estimator that randomizes the direction of treatment effects. For sample and effect sizes common to experimental psychology, v suggests that OLS produces estimates that are insufficiently accurate for the type of hypotheses being tested. We demonstrate how v can be used to determine sample sizes to obtain minimum acceptable estimation accuracy. Software for calculating v is included as online supplemental material (R Core Team, 2012).

Contextual Biases in the Interpretation of Auditory Evidence

Noisy recordings of dialogue often serve as evidence in criminal proceedings. The present article explores the ability of two types of contextual information, currently present in the legal system, to bias subjective interpretations of such evidence. The present experiments demonstrate that the general context of the legal system and the presence of transcripts of the recorded speech are both able to bias interpretations of degraded & benign recordings into interpretable & incriminating. Furthermore we demonstrate a curse of knowledge whereby people become miscalibrated to the true quality of degraded recordings when provided transcripts. Current methods of dealing with auditory evidence are insufficient to mollify the effects of biasing information within the criminal justice system.

The Composition of Optimally Wise Crowds

We investigate optimal group member configurations for producing a maximally accurate group forecast. Our approach accounts for group members that may be biased in their forecasts and/or have errors that correlate with the criterion values being forecast. We show that for large forecasting groups, the diversity of individual forecasts linearly trades off with forecaster accuracy when determining optimal group composition.

Comparing physicians personal prevention practices and their recommendations to patients.

Background:Hypothetical choice studies suggest that physicians often take more risk for themselves than on their patients behalf. Objective:To examine if physicians recommend more screening tests than they personally undergo in the real-world context of breast cancer screening. Design:Within-subjects survey. Participants:A national sample of female obstetricians and gynecologists (N = 135, response rate 54%) from the United States. In total, they provided breast care to approximately 2,800 patients per week. Measures:Personal usage history and patient recommendations regarding mammography screening and breast self-examination, a measure of defensive medicine practices. Results:Across age groups, female physicians were more likely to recommend mammography screening than to have performed the procedure in the past 5 years (86% vs. 81%, p = .10). In respondents aged 40–49 this difference was significant (91% vs. 82%, p < .05), whereas no differences were detected for younger or older physicians. Among respondents in their 40s, 18% had undergone annual screenings in the past 5 years, compared to 48% of their colleagues above 50. Respondents were as likely to practice breast self-examination (98%) as to recommend it (93%), a pattern that was consistent across age groups. A logistic regression model of personal use of mammography significantly predicted recommending the procedure to patients (OR = 15.29, p = .001). Similarly, number of breast self-examinations performed over the past 2 years positively predicted patient recommendations of the procedure (OR = 1.31, p < .001). Conclusions:Obstetricians and gynecologists tended to recommend early mammography screening to their patients, though their personal practices indicated later start than their own recommendations and lower frequency of screening than peers in recent studies have recommended.

Anti-profit beliefs:: How people neglect the societal benefits of profit.

Profit-seeking firms are stereotypically depicted as immoral and harmful to society. At the same time, profit-driven enterprise has contributed immensely to human prosperity. Though scholars agree that profit can incentivize societally beneficial behaviors, people may neglect this possibility. In 7 studies, we show that people see business profit as necessarily in conflict with social good, a view we call anti-profit beliefs. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that U.S. participants hold anti-profit views of real U.S. firms and industries. Study 3 shows that hypothetical organizations are seen as doing more harm when they are labeled “for-profit” rather than “non-profit,” while Study 4 shows that increasing harm to society is viewed as a strategy for increasing a hypothetical firm’s long-run profitability. Studies 5–7 demonstrate that carefully prompting subjects to consider the long run incentives of profit can attenuate anti-profit beliefs, while prompting short run thinking does nothing relative to a control. Together, these results suggest that the default view of profits is zero-sum. While people readily grasp how profit can incentivize firms to engage in practices that harm others, they neglect how it can incentivize firms to engage in practices that benefit others. Accordingly, people’s stereotypes of profit-seeking firms are excessively negative. Even in one of the most market-oriented societies in history, people doubt the contributions of profit-seeking industry to societal progress.

Data from a pre-publication independent replication initiative examining ten moral judgement effects

We present the data from a crowdsourced project seeking to replicate findings in independent laboratories before (rather than after) they are published. In this Pre-Publication Independent Replication (PPIR) initiative, 25 research groups attempted to replicate 10 moral judgment effects from a single laboratory’s research pipeline of unpublished findings. The 10 effects were investigated using online/lab surveys containing psychological manipulations (vignettes) followed by questionnaires. Results revealed a mix of reliable, unreliable, and culturally moderated findings. Unlike any previous replication project, this dataset includes the data from not only the replications but also from the original studies, creating a unique corpus that researchers can use to better understand reproducibility and irreproducibility in science.

Individuals with ventromedial frontal damage have more unstable but still fundamentally transitive preferences

Abstract Transitivity of preferences (i.e., if one prefers A over B, and B over C, one should prefer A over C) is a hallmark of making rational, value-based decisions. Damage to the ventromedial frontal lobes (VMF) has been shown in previous studies to increase intransitive choice cycles (i.e., choosing A over B and B over C, but C over A). However, past studies have examined transitivity by treating preferences as deterministic rather than probabilistic, which could mask an important distinction in the critical role of the VMF in value-based choices: are individuals with VMF damage prone to choosing irrationally, or are they transitive, but simply more variable in what they prefer? We present individuals with focal VMF damage, controls with other frontal damage, and healthy controls with incentive compatible stimuli (artwork, brands of chocolate, and gambles) and have them make repeated choices between all possible pairs. Using cutting edge tests of a model of stochastic transitivity, and replicating previous analyses of transitivity that treat preferences as deterministic, we find that individuals with VMF damage made decisions consistent with stochastic transitivity. We also replicate previous findings that these individuals more frequently violate deterministic notions of transitivity. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that individuals with VMF damage are not, in fact, more irrational, but do have noisier preferences. The implication is that the VMF is critical to maintaining the stability of preferences across time and context during decision-making, rather than for the ability for choices to reflect preferences at all. Significance statement To best satisfy one’s goals (i.e., to maximize value), it is necessary to be transitive in one’s preferences. Nearly all normative and descriptive theories of decision making are transitive. Damage to the VMF has been shown to result in more inconsistent preferences, and functional neuroimaging studies have identified signals in VMF correlated with subjective value. However, the observed inconsistent choices after VMF damage have not been thoroughly characterized, and the contribution of VMF to value-based choice is not well understood. Our study shows that the VMF affects the noisiness with which value is assessed, but not the consistency with which value is sought. This finding has implications for both clinical outcomes and for decision neuroscience theory.

Taste-Based Gender Discrimination by Contestants on the Price is Right

We report evidence of gender discrimination by contestants in the One Bid game on The Price Is Right television show. One Bid contestants bid sequentially in an attempt to get closest to the price of a prize on display without exceeding it. The last bidder in the game has a dominant cutoff strategy of bidding