Project Fiedler

Decision quality as a function of the amount of information: myths and facts about intuitive decision making

Convergent evidence from several paradigms suggests that the quality of decisions may decrease with increasing amount of information. However, closer inspection of the literature shows that for every paradigm that shows such an advantage of intuitive decisions based on small samples, a counter-paradigm can be found that points to an opposite advantage of large samples resulting from extended thinking. The goal of this research project is to specify the limits and boundary conditions of intuition, defined in terms of thin slices or paucity of information. A number of testable and theoretically distinct predictions are derived from a statistical-decision model developed by Fiedler and Kareev (2006). According to this theoretical framework, intuition advantages can be expected for threshold-based choices, but not for quantitative estimations, across a wide space of task parameters, such as sample size, ease of discrimination, threshold level, and noise in the information processing system.

Staff:

Prof. Dr. Klaus Fiedler
Department of social psychology, University of Heidelberg
Tel: +49 (0) 6221-54-7270
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Dipl.-Psych. Susanne Beier
Department of social psychology, University of Heidelberg
Tel: +49 (0) 6221-54-7318
Personal Homepage