Abstract
Seeking advice is a basic practice in making real life decisions. Until recently, however, little attention has been given to it in either empirical studies or theories of decision making. The studies reported here investigate the influence of advice on judgment and the consequences of advice use for judgment accuracy. Respondents were asked to provide final judgments on the basis of their initial opinions and advice presented to them. The respondents' weighting policies were inferred. Analysis of the these policies show that (a) the respondents tended to place a higher weight on their own opinion than on the advisor's opinion (the self/other effect); (b) more knowledgeable individuals discounted the advice more; (c) the weight of advice decreased as its distance from the initial opinion increased; and (d) the use of advice improved accuracy significantly, though not optimally. A theoretical framework is introduced which draws in part on insights from the study of attitude change to explain the influence of advice. Finally the usefulness of advice for improving judgment accuracy is considered.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported by Grant No. 822/00 from the Israel Science Foundation. The author is a member of the Department of Psychology and of the Center for the Study of Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
It was presented in 2005 as a Discussion paper at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Center for Rationality and Interactive Decision Theory; vol. no. 405 in 2005.