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Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments

Publication ,  Journal Article
Anderson, RM; Clemen, R
Published in: Decision Analysis
June 2013

Psychologists and behavioral economists have documented a variety of judgmental flaws that people make when they face novel decision situations. Similar flaws arise when decision analysts work with decision makers to assess their preferences and trade-offs, because the methods the analyst uses are often unfamiliar to the decision makers. In this paper we describe a process designed to mitigate the occurrence of such biases; it brings together three steps. In training, the decision maker is first given values to apply in judgment tasks unrelated to the decision at hand, providing an introduction to thinking deliberately and quantitatively about preferences. In practice, the learned tasks are then applied to a familiar decision, with the goal of developing the next incremental level of expertise in using the methods. Finally, in application, the more deliberative style of thinking is used to address the problem of interest. In an environmental resource setting with two oyster habitat managers, we test the procedure by attempting to mitigate the prominence effect that has been reported in the behavioral research literature. The resulting preference weights appear to be free of the prominence effect, providing initial steps toward operationalizing the “building code” for preferences introduced by Payne et al. [Payne JW, Bettman JR, Schkade DA (1999) Measuring constructed preferences: Towards a building code. J. Risk Uncertainty 19(1–3):243–270].

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Published In

Decision Analysis

DOI

EISSN

1545-8504

ISSN

1545-8490

Publication Date

June 2013

Volume

10

Issue

2

Start / End Page

121 / 134

Publisher

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

Related Subject Headings

  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5003 Philosophy
  • 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
  • 1505 Marketing
  • 1503 Business and Management
  • 0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy
 

Citation

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Anderson, R. M., & Clemen, R. (2013). Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments. Decision Analysis, 10(2), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2013.0268
Anderson, Richard M., and Robert Clemen. “Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments.” Decision Analysis 10, no. 2 (June 2013): 121–34. https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2013.0268.
Anderson RM, Clemen R. Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments. Decision Analysis. 2013 Jun;10(2):121–34.
Anderson, Richard M., and Robert Clemen. “Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments.” Decision Analysis, vol. 10, no. 2, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), June 2013, pp. 121–34. Crossref, doi:10.1287/deca.2013.0268.
Anderson RM, Clemen R. Toward an Improved Methodology to Construct and Reconcile Decision Analytic Preference Judgments. Decision Analysis. Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS); 2013 Jun;10(2):121–134.

Published In

Decision Analysis

DOI

EISSN

1545-8504

ISSN

1545-8490

Publication Date

June 2013

Volume

10

Issue

2

Start / End Page

121 / 134

Publisher

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

Related Subject Headings

  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5003 Philosophy
  • 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
  • 1505 Marketing
  • 1503 Business and Management
  • 0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy