More heads choose better than one: Group decision making can eliminate probability matching

Probability matching is a robust and common failure to adhere to normative predictions in sequential decision making. We show that this choice anomaly is nearly eradicated by gathering individual decision makers into small groups and asking the groups to decide. The group choice advantage emerged bo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychonomic bulletin & review Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 907 - 914
Main Authors Schulze, Christin, Newell, Ben R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.06.2016
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Bias
Brief Report
Choice Behavior
Cognitive Psychology
Cooperative Behavior
Decision Making
Expected values
Experiments
Feedback
Female
Group Processes
Humans
Male
Probability
Psychological Theory
Psychology
Young Adult
Group decision making
Probability matching
Rational choice theory
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Summary:Probability matching is a robust and common failure to adhere to normative predictions in sequential decision making. We show that this choice anomaly is nearly eradicated by gathering individual decision makers into small groups and asking the groups to decide. The group choice advantage emerged both when participants generated responses for an entire sequence of choices without outcome feedback (Exp.  1a ) and when participants made trial-by-trial predictions with outcome feedback after each decision (Exp.  1b ). We show that the dramatic improvement observed in group settings stands in stark contrast to a complete lack of effective solitary deliberation. These findings suggest a crucial role of group discussion in alleviating the impact of hasty intuitive responses in tasks better suited to careful deliberation.
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ISSN:1069-9384
1531-5320
DOI:10.3758/s13423-015-0949-6