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3449. Do people willfully ignore decision support? Evidence from an online experiment
Invited abstract in session TD-7: Behaviour and decision support, stream Behavioural OR.
Tuesday, 14:30-16:00Room: 1019 (building: 202)
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Stefan Haeussler
|
| Information Systems, Production and Logistics Management, University of Innsbruck | |
| 2. | Sebastian Bachler
|
| University of Innsbruck | |
| 3. | Katharina Momsen
|
| University of Heidelberg | |
| 4. | Matthias Stefan
|
| Department of Banking and Finance, University of Innsbruck |
Abstract
The increasing usage of decision support systems typically hinges on the assumption that objective information provision can improve decision-making. This premise, however, disregards the potential for humans to deliberately ignore information in a manner that serves their own interests. We study willful information avoidance in the usage of decision support with the help of an online experiment where participants solve a task of high cognitive complexity, i.e. a knapsack problem. We indeed find first evidence for motivated reasoning in our experiment in one of two dimensions: First, we do not find evidence that participants willfully ignore decision support when it might suggest revising their initial choices. Yet, we find evidence that they willfully ignore information that might tempt them to act selfishly. Thus, participants use decision support to self-commit to more pro-social choices. Contrary to that, participants do not avoid decision support information to behave egoistically while maintaining a positive self-image. Although our results seem like good news, they show that even objective information provision in decision-support is no guarantee that humans acquire it in an unbiased way.
Keywords
- Behavioural OR
- Decision Support Systems
Status: accepted
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