The impact of conflicting information on decision makers

[[abstract]]Information overload is a problem for decision makers; conflicting over-loaded information is even a bigger problem. A decision maker would simply get confused when conflicting information exists in the decision making process. Three types of information are used in this study to explore the impact of conflicting information on decision makers: consensus type of information, alternative vs. argument type of information, and alternative vs. counter-alternative type of information. A lab study is conducted to investigate the issue. Participants were given one of the three types of information and were asked to use the information to work on a prediction task. Cognitive control, knowledge gained, and time spent were measured to see what impact the three different types of information had on the participants. Results showed that conflicting information might be detrimental to decision makers' cognitive control of the information in the decision making process