The effects of cue inconsistency on quantity judgment.

People often make quantitative predictions (e.g., college GPA) on the basis of contradictory cues (e.g., a high SAT score and a highly rated personal statement but a low high school GPA). Normative theory and most prominent judgment models imply that such contradiction should not influence the judgment process. However, two alternative theories imply that it should. The focus of this research was on three major questions concerning the influence of cue inconsistency on quantity (and associated confidence) judgment. The first of these involved the judgment behavior of individuals who face such tasks: How do people make quantity judgments with inconsistent cues and what drives those behaviors? The second main question concerned performance implications: To what extent does the choice of judgment process affect the accuracy of those judgments in cases for which inconsistent cues are present? The third main question involved prescriptions for improving the performance of such judgments: What approaches might lead to improved accuracy when cues are inconsistent? Experimental evidence supported the conclusion that inconsistency does alter quantity judgment processes in a predictable way. Specifically, individuals increased the emphasis placed on cues subjectively perceived as more valid and decreased the emphasis placed on cues subjectively perceived as less valid when contradictory cues were present. A subsequent experiment showed that individuals employed more narrative-based reasoning to make inferences in the presence of inconsistent information. A third study used simulation to address the accuracy implications of the various candidate models. Results showed that the performance of certain single-cue models is similar to that of a normative model in a set of moderately predictable environments. Prescriptions were proposed to improve quantity judgment accuracy in specific circumstances based on the performance of the various models in those simulations.Ph.D.Cognitive psychologyPsychologySocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125910/2/3224771.pd