Project Erdfelder-Pohl

fast-and-frugal decision making

The project serves several goals that are closely related to the overarching themes of the research unit ‘contextualized decision making’. In particular, we are concerned with underlying processes in simple non-compensatory judgment mechanisms investigated herein, for example the recognition heuristic, fluency heuristic, take-the-best, and others. For several of these strategies, the processes leading to observed outcomes are not sufficiently understood and thus true use of these heuristics is often methodologically challenging to unravel. We bridge such gaps by means of formal multinomial processing tree models of comparative judgments. Next, in a more substantive vein, we strive to uncover the contextual factors determining the judgment processes, investigated by means of the measurement models developed. This quest for contextual determinants and moderators is guided by (but not bound to) the notion of adaptive decision making, that is, an effort-accuracy trade-off in strategy selection. Finally, we address individual differences in the use of fast-and-frugal judgment heuristics and the cognitive and motivational personality characteristics associated with these differences.

Staff:

Principal Investigators:

Prof. Dr. Edgar Erdfelder
Psychology III, University of Mannheim
Tel: +49 (0) 621 181 2146
Personal Homepage

Prof. Dr. Rüdiger F. Pohl
Psychology III, University of Mannheim
Tel: +49 (0) 621 181 2133
Personal Homepage

In advisory capacity:

Prof. Benjamin E. Hilbig, Ph.D.
Judgment & Decision Making, University of Mannheim
Tel: +49 (0) 621 181 3396
Personal Homepage

Project Staff:

Marta Castela, M.Sc.
Psychology III, University of Mannheim
Tel: +49 (0) 621 181 2144
Personal Homepage

Dipl.-Math. Martha Michalkiewicz
Psychology III, University of Mannheim
Tel: +49 (0) 621 181 2144
Personal Homepage

Student Research Assistents:
Helen Dillmann
Katharina Fischer
Felix Henninger
Pascal Kieslich