Option fixation: A cognitive contributor to overconfidence

The ASC model of choice and confidence in general knowledge proposes that respondents first Assess the familiarity of presented options, and then use the high-familiarity option as a retrieval cue to Search memory for the purposes of Constructing an explanation about why that high-familiarity option...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organizational behavior and human decision processes 2007-05, Vol.103 (1), p.68-83
Main Authors: Sieck, Winston R., Merkle, Edgar C., Van Zandt, Trisha
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Calibration
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Confidence
Confidence Testing
Confirmation bias
Cues
Decision making models
Decision making. Choice
Dual process
Evaluative Thinking
Explanation
Familiarity
Finance
Financial knowledge
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Judgement
Judgment
Knowledge
Likelihood judgment
Probability
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Selection
Studies
Subjective probability
Subjectivity
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Summary:The ASC model of choice and confidence in general knowledge proposes that respondents first Assess the familiarity of presented options, and then use the high-familiarity option as a retrieval cue to Search memory for the purposes of Constructing an explanation about why that high-familiarity option is true. The ASC process implies that overconfidence results in part from a tendency to fixate on the high-familiarity option, to the neglect of the other option. If this implication is true, then judgment tasks requiring respondents to evaluate each option independently should result in reduced overconfidence as compared with standard judgment tasks. Two experiments tested this implication, and found that confidence and overconfidence were reduced when respondents evaluated options independently. The findings support the proposal that option fixation contributes to overconfidence, and also clarify the limitations of random error explanations of overconfidence.
ISSN:0749-5978
1095-9920
DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.11.001