消费者行为学第2版英文教师手册imCh18TeachingNotes-Final.pdf

2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.1 Chapter 18 Biases in Decision Making Outline Chapter Objectives Chapter Summary Teaching Suggestions Biases Resulting from Attention-and Memory-Related Constraints Salience and Vividness Effects Context Effects Biased Assimilation Pseudodiagnosticity Group Decision Making Biases Resulting from Underprocessing The Representativeness Heuristic The Availability Heuristic The Simulation Heuristic The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic Biases Resulting from Overprocessing Correspondence Bias Using Irrelevant Analogies The Perseverance Effect The Dilution Effect Premature Cognitive Commitment Overcorrection Review and Discussion Questions Chapter Objectives After studying this chapter,you will be able to.Objective 1Understand biases resulting from attention-and memory-related constraints.Objective 2Understand biases relating to underprocessing.Objective 3Understand biases resulting from overprocessing.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.2 Chapter Summary Executives,managers,and decision makers are susceptible to a relatively lengthy list of judgmental biases.Some of these biases stem from attention and memory constraints.People are unable to attend to or remember all judgment-relevant information.Unfortunately,the risk of inaccurate judgment and suboptimal decision making exists whenever relevant information is overlooked or neglected.Underprocessing bias results when managers are unmotivated or unable to integrate judgment-relevant information in a systematic fashion.Under these circumstances,managers rely too heavily on cognitive heuristics,or shortcuts,that simplify judgment and decision making.By contrast,overprocessing bias results when managers overinterpret irrelevant information.Thus,judgmental accuracy is influenced jointly by the amount of processing effort a decision maker is likely to allocate to a judgment task and by the nature of the evidence available for judgment(e.g.,the amount of relevant and irrelevant information present).Fortunately,decision researchers have extensively researched the psychological processes involved in judgment and decision making.One result of this deeper understanding is the development of debiasing procedures and decision aids that dramatically improve judgment and decision making.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.3 TEACHING NOTES Teaching Suggestions 1.Ask students if any of them have ever“clicked”on an interactive advertisement on the Web.There are so many interactive ads on Web pages these days.Why did they even notice the advertisement?Was it salient?Was it vivid?These opening questions may be used to discuss the differences between salience and vividness.2.Bring a guest into the class(another professor,perhaps)who the students do not know.Have the guest dress in a way that is not characteristic of him or her and yet,is realistic.Or bring in a picture of someone you know that is uncharacteristic of the person.Then have students provide their estimates of the persons personal characteristics.Comment on the accuracy or(more likely)the inaccuracy of their estimates.This can be used to illustrate the use of irrelevant analogies.Opening Vignette The opening vignette shows that effective managerial decision making begins with a clear understanding of consumer judgment and decision processes.Although the typical manager is usually intelligent and well educated,his or her decisions are nevertheless susceptible to many common judgment and decision errors.Biases affect decisions,as in the case of the recent global financial crisis.Biases Resulting from Attention-and Memory-Related Constraints Managers are influenced by the information to which they are able to attend and to remember.Unfortunately,managers are not always in control of the information to which they attend,which affects the information they are able to remember.Moreover,cognitive processes often influence the way information is perceived.Salience and Vividness Effects Managers rarely use all the information available to them.Instead,they focus on information that is salient or vivid.Salient Information sticks out from a particular context or background.Vivid Information is emotionally interesting,concrete,and image provoking and has a sense of immediacy.Unlike salient information,vivid information always sticks out.Context Effects The context in which managers make decisions is important because background factors influence judgment even when those factors are irrelevant.Assimilation effects involve shifts toward a reference point.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.4 1.Contrast effects are shifts in judgment away from a contextual reference point,and occur when two objects are different.Adding a new product to a product line seems like an important decision compared to offering a coupon promotion.It seems less important however,when it is compared to the decision to merge with another company.2.Assimilation effects are shifts in judgment towards a contextual reference point and occur when two objects are similar.Assimilation effects cause things to seem more similar than they really are.3.Framing efforts are shifts in judgment that occur as individuals focus on different possible reference points.Framing effects are shifts in judgment that occur when individuals focus on different reference points.The framing effect is observed in attitudes toward risk.When outcomes are framed in terms of gains(e.g.,a 25%chance of winning a game),individuals are risk averse.However,when the same outcomes are framed in terms of loss(e.g.,a 75%chance of losing a game),individuals become risk seeking.Biased Assimilation Ambiguous events,by definition,have many possible interpretations.Biased assimilation occurs when managers expectations influence their interpretations.This may explain why some managers move forward with new products even when research suggests that the product will not achieve the firms objectives.If managers expect a product to be successful,then they are likely(through biased assimilation)to interpret the research in a way that allows them to maintain their prior beliefs.Pseudodiagnosticity Pseudodiagnosticity is observed when individuals treat irrelevant information as if it were relevant.This is especially likely to occur when individuals focus on one hypothesis for an outcome.For instance,if a manufacturer claims that a retailer can boost category sales by 10%if it will put its brand on display,a manager could easily be impressed.However,it could easily be true that the manager could boost category sales by an equal percentage by displaying any product from the category.In that case,the manufacturers claim would be irrelevant.Group Decision Making Managers often make decisions in groups or committees because they believe that many heads are better than one.Presumably,multiple decision makers bring different information and perspectives to the table.In reality however,most meetings are spent discussing information and issues already familiar to all present.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.5 Biases Resulting from Underprocessing Biases that result from underprocessing occur after information is collected.These biases originate from individuals overreliance on cognitive heuristics.The Representativeness Heuristic The representativeness heuristic involves determining the likelihood that A belongs to B(or that X causes Y)on the basis of how similar A is to B(or X is to Y).Managers that fall victim to this heuristic ignore prior probabilities,sample size effects,the quality of the information(i.e.,reliability and validity),and the regressive nature of performance.For example,a large advertising budget seems likely to be responsible for a large sales volume.However,a small advertising budget does not seem likely to be responsible for a large sales volume.Individuals who use the representativeness heuristic fail to consider the base rate of an outcome.For instance a new product might appear that it should(i.e.,it is similar to other successful new products)be successful upon introduction.The representativeness heuristic would cause the manager to fail to consider the probability of success for any new product in the category under consideration.Managers also fail to consider the quality of the information when using this heuristic.It is important for the manager to consider both the reliability(i.e.,stability)and the validity(i.e.,accuracy)of the data being used for decision making.Finally,managers who use the representativeness heuristic fail to consider the regressive nature of performance.That is,they fail to realize that extreme performance(very good or very bad)tends to average out over time.The Availability Heuristic Managers use the availability heuristic when they make decisions on the basis of the ease by which examples come to mind.If an example is readily available from memory,the event that a manager is trying to predict seems quite likely.On the other hand,if an example cannot be recalled easily,the event seems unlikely.The Simulation Heuristic In the availability heuristic,recalling examples easily leads an individual to believe an event is likely.In the simulation heuristic,merely imagining an event makes it seem likely.People who purchase lottery tickets often imagine themselves winning the lottery.This makes the probability of winning seem much higher than it actually is(in many lotteries you have a better chance of dying by falling out of bed than you have of winning the lottery).This can be a dangerous heuristic for managers who imagine their products or advertising campaigns being successful.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.6 The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic In the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic,managers initially focus on a reference point(i.e.,an anchor)in ambiguous situations and then later,adjust their estimates.The problem with the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic is that managers fail to adjust sufficiently.Managers who start with a high anchor tend to overestimate the likelihood of an outcome,and managers who begin with a low anchor tend to underestimate the likelihood of a potential outcome.Preference reversal is another common problem associated with the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic.Biases Resulting from Overprocessing Overprocessing may lead managers to read too much into irrelevant information.When this occurs,irrelevant information may seem relevant.This implies that too much processing can lead to overuse of irrelevant evidence.Correspondence Bias When managers ignore the power of the situation and interpret the behavior of others to be revealing of their personalities,they are committing the correspondence bias.This is a dangerous bias because the situation is a powerful determinant of behavior.For example,job hunters may behave very differently in an interview than they do at home(or on the job!).Normative pressure in the interview situation requires the candidate to dress neatly,exude confidence,and speak eloquently.Outside of the interview,the person may rarely wear suits,may be quite depressed about job opportunities,and may speak very plainly.Thus,managers need to avoid the correspondence bias and be certain to consider the power of the situation when evaluating an individuals behavior.Using Irrelevant Analogies When managers make inferences about a person or a product because it looks similar to another person or product,they may be using irrelevant analogies.In most cases,a person will not exhibit the same behavior as someone we know just because they happen to look alike.Similarly,two products that look alike may perform quite differently.Using irrelevant analogies can lead to poor decisions.The Perseverance Effect The perseverance effect is observed when decision makers perceive a belief as true even when the basis for the belief is disproved.This is because people sometimes overinterpret uninformative feedback and generate explanations for the feedback.Even if the basis for the belief is removed,the explanations remains,causing people to maintain their beliefs.2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.7 The Dilution Effect Overprocessing often leads to the dilution effect.This effect occurs when diagnostic information is diluted by irrelevant information.The effect is even more pronounced when people anticipate having to justify their judgments.Managers need to carefully sort through data to determine which pieces of information are relevant to the decision at hand before processing.Premature Cognitive Commitment People are continually exposed to information that is irrelevant to them at the time of exposure.Because the information is unimportant to them,they accept it at face value.This is even true for information based on weak arguments.Later,when the information becomes relevant(e.g.,a job change),the individual recalls the prior belief but not the weak argument on which it was based.Overcorrection Understanding the biases presented in this chapter is only half the battle.The manager who understands the biases will usually attempt to adjust judgments accordingly.Unfortunately,this adjustment leads to overcorrection.Overcorrection occurs when managers overanalyze and overinterpret their decision-making processes.Debiasing managers judgments is a complex process,as you might imagine(but dont imagine too much,as this leads to the simulation heuristic!).2015 Cengage Learning.All Rights Reserved.May not be scanned,copied or duplicated,or posted to a publicly accessible website,in whole or in part.8 Answers to Review and Discussion Questions 1.In what ways do salience and vividness affect managers decisions?Are these good criteria for managerial decisions?Why or why not?Because managers are unable to attend to all available information,they tend to focus on salient and vivid information.These are poor criteria for information usage because the extent to which information captures attention is often unrelated to its relevance and usefulness.2.After a couple decides to get married,deciding where to eat dinner that night seems minor.What type of effect does this situation illustrate?Give three other examples illustrating this effect.This is an example of a context effect.Furth