Arndt Bröder: "Information search in decision making: the surprising success of a simple theory"

Professor Dr. Arndt Bröder, University of Mannheim, Germany:
"Information search in decision making: the surprising success of a simple theory"

Abstract
In most non-routine decisions, we have to acquire information about the choice options in order to create a basis for the decision. We may consult consumer reports before purchasing an expensive gadget, or we look for user recommendations before choosing a restaurant. Although search is an important part of decision making, psychological research has been surprisingly mute about information search in its early days. Cognitive models in the last 30 years included search as a central component. However, the strategies proposed may miss an important feature: They assume search directions that are independent of the values of attributes found during search. In this talk, I will describe a theory of decision making based on the Gestalt psychologists' principle of coherence maximization and implemented as a formal spreading-activation network. The model predicts a so-called "attraction search effect" which we found to be robust in several experiments (including archival ones) with various semantic content. The theory makes new predictions that can be (and partly have been) tested empirically. All empirical effects we found challenge the decision strategies that have been proposed as members of the so-called "cognitive toolbox".