Giving Advice or Making Decisions in Someone Else’s Place: The Influence of Impression,Defense,and Accuracy Motivation on the Search for New Information
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online July, 2005
Giving Advice or Making Decisions in Someone Else’s Place: The Influence of Impression,Defense,and Accuracy Motivation on the Search for New Information
When making decisions, people have been found predominantly to seek information supporting their preferred choice and to neglect conflicting information. In this article, the authors investigate to what extent different types of advisors, who recommend a choice to someone or make a decision on behalf of someone, show the same confirmatory information search. In Experiment 1, the authors presented participants, in the role of advisors, with a client’s decision problem and found that when making a recommendation, advisors conducted a more balanced information search than participants who were making a decision for themselves. However, advisors who had to make a decision on behalf of their clients revealed an increased preference for information supporting their position. Experiment 2 suggested that this confirmatory information search was caused by impression motivation: The advisors bolstered their decision to justify it to the client. The results are discussed within the multiple motive framework of the heuristic systematic model.
Anderson, E., & Oliver, R. L. (1987). Perspectives on behavior-based vs. outcome-based sales force control systems. Journal of Marketing, 51, 76-88.
2.
Beckmann, J., & Irle, M. (1985). Dissonance and action control. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 129-150). Berlin: Springer.
3.
Budescu, D. V., & Rantilla, A. K. (2000). Confidence in aggregation of expert opinions. Acta Psychologica, 104, 371-398.
4.
Chaiken, S., Giner-Sorolla, R., & Chen, S. (1996). Beyond accuracy: Defense and impression motives in heuristic and systematic information processing. In P. M. Gollwitzer&J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 553-578). New York: Guilford.
5.
Chen, S., & Chaiken, S. (1999). The heuristic-systematic model in its broader context. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual process theories in social psychology. New York: Guilford.
6.
Doney, P. M., & Armstrong, G. M. (1996). Effects of accountability on symbolic information search and information analysis by organizational buyers. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 24, 57-65.
7.
Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Agency theory: An assessment and review. Academy of Management Review, 14, 57-74.
8.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
9.
Festinger, L. (1964). Conflict, decision, and dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
10.
Ford, J. K., & Weldon, E. (1981). Forewarning and accountability: Effects on memory-based interpersonal judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7, 264-268.
11.
Frey, D. (1986). Recent research on selective exposure to information. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 19, pp. 41-80). New York: Academic Press.
12.
Harvey, N., & Fischer, I. (1997). Taking advice: Accepting help, improving judgment, and sharing responsibility. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 117-133.
13.
Holton, B., & Pyszczynski, T. (1989). Biased information search in the interpersonal domain. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15, 42-51.
14.
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink (2nd rev. ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
15.
Johnston, L. (1996). Resisting change: Information-seeking and stereotype change. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 799-825.
16.
Jonas, E., & Frey, D. (2003). Information search and presentation in advisor-client interactions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91, 154-168.
17.
Jonas, E., Frey, D., & Greenberg, J. (2004). Decision vs. information focus in information seeking: Factors that affect the preference for supporting and conflicting information after decisions. Manuscript submitted for publication.
18.
Jonas, E., Frey, D., Henninger, M., Pommer, M., Schulz-Hardt, S., Haeften, I. V., et al. (2001). Erklärung des eigenen Handelns als Einflussfaktor auf Informationssuche und Informationsbewertung in einer sequentiellen Lernsituation [Explaining one’s own behavior as a factor influencing information search and information evaluation in a sequential learning situation]. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 33, 242-252.
19.
Jonas, E., Schulz-Hardt, S., Frey, D., & Thelen, N. (2001). Confirmation bias in sequential information search after preliminary decisions: An expansion of dissonance theoretical research on “selective exposure to information. ”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 557-571.
20.
Jungermann, H. (1999). Advice giving and taking. In Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-32). Maui, HI: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). [CD-ROM]
21.
Kirschenbaum, S. S. (1992). Influence of experience on information-gathering strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 343-352.
22.
Kray, L. J. (2000). Contingent weighting in self-other decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 83, 82-106.
23.
Kray, L. J., & Galinsky, A. D. (2003). The debiasing effect of counter-factual mind-sets: Increasing the search for disconfirmatory information in group decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91, 69-81.
24.
Kray, L. J., & Gonzalez, R. (1999). Differential weighting in choice versus advice: I’ll do this, you do that. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 207-217.
25.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). Lay epistemics and human knowledge. New York: Plenum.
26.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480-498.
27.
Lerner, J. S., & Tetlock, P. E. (1999). Accounting for the effects of accountability. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 255-275.
28.
Lippitt, R. (1959). Dimensions of the consultant’s job. Journal of Social Issues, 15, 5-12.
29.
Lundgren, S. R., & Prislin, R. (1998). Motivated cognitive processing and attitude change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 715-726.
30.
McAllister, D. W., Mitchell, T. R., & Beach, L. R. (1979). The contingency model for the selection of decision strategies: An empirical test of the effects of significance, accountability, and reversibility. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 24, 228-244.
31.
Nemeth, C. J., & Rogers, J. (1996). Dissent and the search for information. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 67-76.
32.
Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., & Johnson, E. J. (1993). The adaptive decision maker. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
33.
Pinkley, R. L., Griffith, T. L., & Northcraft, G. B. (1995). “Fixed pie” a la mode: Information availability, information processing, and the negotiation of suboptimal agreements. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 101-112.
34.
Russo, J. E., Medvec, V. H., & Meloy, M. G. (1996). The distortion of information during decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 66, 102-110.
35.
Schulz-Hardt, S., Frey, D., Lüthgens, C., & Moscovici, S. (2000). Biased information search in group decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 655-669.
36.
Siegel-Jacobs, K., & Yates, J. F. (1996). Effects of procedural and outcome accountability on judgment quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65, 1-17.
37.
Sniezek, J. A., & Buckley, T. (1995). Cueing and cognitive conflict in judge-advisor decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 159-174.
38.
Sniezek, J. A., & van Swol, L. M. (2001). Trust, confidence, and expertise in a judge-advisor system. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84, 288-307.
39.
Stigler, G. J. (1961). The economics of information. Journal of Political Economy, 69, 213-225.
40.
Strathman, A., Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S., & Edwards, C. S. (1994). The consideration of future consequences: Weighing immediate and distant outcomes of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 742-752.
41.
Svenson, O. (1992). Differentiation and consolidation theory of human decision making: A frame of reference for the study of pre-and post decision processes. Acta Psychologica, 80, 143-168.
42.
Tetlock, P. E. (1985). Accountability: The neglected social context of judgment and choice. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7, 297-332.
43.
Tetlock, P. E. (1992). The impact of accountability on judgment and choice: Toward a social contingency model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 331-376.
44.
Trope, Y., & Liberman, A. (1996). Social hypothesis testing: Cognitive and motivational mechanisms. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 239-270). New York: Guilford.
45.
Ubel, P. A., & Loewenstein, G. (1997). The role of decision analysis in informed consent: Choosing between intuition and systematicity. Social Science and Medicine, 44, 647-656.
46.
Valley, K. L., White, S. B., Neale, M. A., & Bazerman, M. H. (1992). Agents as information brokers: The effects of information disclosure on negotiated outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 51, 220-236.
47.
White, S. E., Dittrich, J. E., & Lang, J. R. (1980). The effects of group decision-making procedures and problem-situation complexity on implementational attempts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 428-440.
48.
Wicklund, R. A., & Frey, D. (1981). Cognitive consistency: Motivational vs. nonmotivational perspectives. In J. Forgas (Ed.), Social cognition: Perspectives on everyday understanding (pp. 141-163). London: Academic Press.
