Shoham Choshen-Hillel

Spurious Consensus and Opinion Revision: Why Might People Be More Confident in Their Less Accurate Judgments?.

In the interest of improving their decision making, individuals revise their opinions on the basis of samples of opinions obtained from others. However, such a revision process may lead decision makers to experience greater confidence in their less accurate judgments. The authors theorize that people tend to underestimate the informative value of independently drawn opinions, if these appear to conflict with one another, yet place some confidence even in the spurious consensus, which may arise when opinions are sampled interdependently. The experimental task involved peoples revision of their opinions (caloric estimates of foods) on the basis of advice. The method of sampling the advisory opinions (independent or interdependent) was the main factor. The results reveal a dissociation between confidence and accuracy. A theoretical underlying mechanism is suggested whereby people attend to consensus (consistency) cues at the expense of information on interdependence. Implications for belief updating and for individual and group decisions are discussed.

Waste management: How reducing partiality can promote efficient resource allocation.

Two central principles that guide resource-allocation decisions are equity (providing equal pay for equal work) and efficiency (not wasting resources). When these two principles conflict with one another, people will often waste resources to avoid inequity. We suggest that people wish to avoid inequity not because they find it inherently unfair, but because they want to avoid the appearance of partiality associated with it. We explore one way to reduce waste by reducing the perceived partiality of inequitable allocations. Specifically, we hypothesize that people will be more likely to favor an efficient (albeit inequitable) allocation if it puts them in a disadvantaged position than if it puts others in a disadvantaged position. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants to choose between giving some extra resource to one person (thereby creating inequity between this person and equally deserving others) and not giving the resource to anyone (thereby wasting the resource). Six studies, using realistic scenarios and behavioral paradigms, provide robust evidence for a self-disadvantaging effect: Allocators were consistently more likely to create inequity to avoid wasting resources when the resulting inequity would put them at a relative disadvantage than when it would put others at a relative disadvantage. We further find that this self-disadvantaging effect is a direct result of peoples concern about appearing partial. Our findings suggest the importance of impartiality even in distributive justice, thereby bridging a gap between the distributive and procedural justice literatures.

The Development of Inequity Aversion: Understanding When (and Why) People Give Others the Bigger Piece of the Pie

Children and adults respond negatively to inequity. Traditional accounts of inequity aversion suggest that as children mature into adults, they become less likely to endorse all forms of inequity. We challenge the idea that children have a unified concern with inequity that simply becomes stronger with age. Instead, we argue that the developmental trajectory of inequity aversion depends on whether the inequity is seen as fair or unfair. In three studies (N = 501), 7- to 8-year-olds were more likely than 4- to 6-year-olds to create inequity that disadvantaged themselves—a fair type of inequity. In findings consistent with our theory, 7- to 8-year-olds were not more likely than 4- to 6-year-olds to endorse advantageous inequity (Study 1) or inequity created by third parties (Studies 2 and 3)—unfair types of inequity. We discuss how these results expand on recent accounts of children’s developing concerns with generosity and partiality.

The Wisdom of Crowds in Matters of Taste

Decision makers can often improve the accuracy of their judgments on factual matters by consulting “crowds” of others for their respective opinions. In this article, we investigate whether decision makers could similarly draw on crowds to improve the accuracy of their judgments about their own tastes and hedonic experiences. We present a theoretical model that states that accuracy gains from consulting a crowd’s judgments of taste depend on the interplay among taste discrimination, crowd diversity, and the similarity between the crowd’s preferences and those of the decision maker. The model also delineates the boundary conditions for such “crowd wisdom.” Evidence supporting our hypotheses was found in two laboratory studies in which decision makers made judgments about their own enjoyment of musical pieces and short films. Our findings suggest that although different people may have different preferences and inclinations, their judgments of taste can benefit from the wisdom of crowds. Data are available a...

Resource Allocation Decisions: When Do We Sacrifice Efficiency in the Name of Equity?

Equity, or the idea that one should be compensated according to one’s respective contribution, is a fundamental principle for resource allocation. People tend to endorse equity in a wide range of contexts, from interpersonal relationships to public policy. However, at times, equity might come at the expense of efficiency. What do people do when they must waste resources to maintain equity? In this chapter, we adopt a behavioral perspective on such equity–efficiency trade-offs, reviewing the relevant findings from the social psychology, judgment and decision-making and behavioral economics literature. We show that whereas allocators will often choose to waste in the name of equity, this is not necessarily the case. We review various psychological aspects that affect the allocators’ decision.

Disadvantaged but not dissatisfied: How agency ameliorates negative reactions to unequal pay.

Workers tend to be dissatisfied when their peers receive more than them for doing the same work. The fear of creating such dissatisfaction may cause leaders in organizations to waste resources that cannot be allocated equally between their workers. Here we explore the effectiveness of a procedure designed to reduce such waste by empowering workers with the agency to decide whether or not to pay other workers more. We predict that workers’ sense of agency reduces their dissatisfaction with others’ better outcomes. Seven studies supported this prediction by demonstrating that agentic participants, who were involved in creating allocations, tended to be more satisfied with others’ better outcomes than nonagentic participants, who were not involved in creating allocations. Longitudinal lab studies, measuring real behavior, showed that agentic participants remained more satisfied than nonagentic ones even five weeks after their initial decision. The findings provided evidence for two mechanisms underlying the effect: increased feelings of generosity, and reduced perception of unfairness. We found that the agency procedure was comparable with other fair procedures in its ability to improve worker satisfaction. We discuss our findings in relation to the literatures on social preference, fairness, and voice, and highlight the implications for organizational efficiency.