The Influence of Cognitive Biases and Decision Making Styles on Older Adults’ E-Commerce Decisions

Older adults are particularly susceptible to cognitive biases that could potentially impact the quality of their decisions in e-commerce environments. This may negatively affect their online experience, depriving them from reaping the full benefits of e-commerce. It is thus important to explore this domain with the objective of assisting older adults in making higher quality decisions in e-commerce contexts. This research-in-progress paper takes on this challenging inquiry through a two-stage study to (i) understand how the decision making styles of older adults interact with cognitive biases affecting their decisions’ quality in e-commerce and how these interactions vary by product type; and (ii) understand the influence of decision aids in de-biasing older adults with different decision making styles under the stimuli of cognitive biases and how this varies by product type. We outline a detailed exploratory experimental methodology for this proposed research as well as potential contributions to theory and practice

Development and Validation of a Rule-based Time Series Complexity Scoring Technique to Support Design of Adaptive Forecasting DSS

Evidence from forecasting research gives reason to believe that understanding time series complexity can enable design of adaptive forecasting decision support systems (FDSSs) to positively support forecasting behaviors and accuracy of outcomes. Yet, such FDSS design capabilities have not been formally explored because there exists no systematic approach to identifying series complexity. This study describes the development and validation of a rule-based complexity scoring technique (CST) that generates a complexity score for time series using 12 rules that rely on 14 features of series. The rule-based schema was developed on 74 series and validated on 52 holdback series using well-accepted forecasting methods as benchmarks. A supporting experimental validation was conducted with 14 participants who generated 336 structured judgmental forecasts for sets of series classified as simple or complex by the CST. Benchmark comparisons validated the CST by confirming, as hypothesized, that forecasting accuracy was lower for series scored by the technique as complex when compared to the accuracy of those scored as simple. The study concludes with a comprehensive framework for design of FDSS that can integrate the CST to adaptively support forecasters under varied conditions of series complexity. The framework is founded on the concepts of restrictiveness and guidance and offers specific recommendations on how these elements can be built in FDSS to support complexity

Kognitiva förenklingar vid förmågebedömning - Identifiering av faktorer och metoder för att motverka dessa

The aim of this thesis is to detect the influence from biases on capability assessments and methods to prevent them. Evaluation of the influence from biases are based on literature studies and interviews. The result suggests that some of the biases are more likely to occur depending on the context. Three biases occurred most frequently both in the literature studies and during the interviews and these were: anchoring, availability and overconfidence. There are many different methods to prevent each bias and the author suggests an overall method to prevent many biases at once. Further problems were identified during the interviews regarding the implementation and use of data. Two different methods are suggested to improve the approach to data, depending on the context.Människor använder sig av kognitiva förenklingar vid beslutsfattande under osäkerheten. I en riskkontext skulle detta kunna leda till en bristande fördelning av resurser och härigenom en oförmåga att hantera uppkomna händelser. För att kunna handskas med dessa faktorer är det därför viktigt att vetskapen om kognitiva förenklingar tydliggörs och att människor erbjuds olika metoder och strategier för att motverka problemet. Världen vi lever i är under ständig utveckling och ett oändligt antal variabler påverkar utkomsten. Utveckling kan göra att situationer och förutsättningar ser annorlunda ut i framtiden, vilket försvårar valen och ställer höga krav på beslutsfattare. En åtgärd för att kunna hantera framtida scenarion och händelser är genom att utföra förmågebedömningar. Detta menar till att uppskatta hur väl krav ställda i framtiden kan mötas och vad som krävs för detta. Många utav de förmågebedömningar som utförs i Sverige genererar just beslut under osäkerhet. Det här i kombination med människans kognitiva begränsningar gör att beslut fattas där fel kan uppkomma, så kallade bias. Vilka bias som uppkommer beror delvis på personen men även typen och kontexten av problemet. Det är därför intressant att undersöka vilka bias som uppkommer vid förmågebedömningar för att därigenom ha en möjlighet att motarbeta dem. Med hjälp av olika metoder för att motarbeta bias är förhoppningen att förmågebedömningarna kan bli bättre och mer rättvisa. Det här skulle förutom en större möjlighet att hantera uppkomna situationer även kringgå onödig resursallokering. Utifrån två olika implikationsområden av förmågebedömning i två olika lagstiftningar sker även en jämförelse huruvida tidsdistansen till en händelse kan påverka beslutsfattandet och uppkomsten av bias. Via litteraturstudier identifierades tio bias som anses ha störst påverkan på förmågebedömningar, samt olika metoder för att motverka bias, så kallade debias. Under intervjustudien, som genomfördes inom ramen för examensarbetet, var det 3 bias som framträdde: förankring, tillgänglighet och övertro. Dessa var även vanligast förekommande under litteraturstudien, vilket indikerar att de har störst inverkan vid förmågebedömningar. Då det finns en mängd olika metoder för att motarbeta bias föreslås en övergripande metod. Med hjälp av en tillbakariktad, inåtriktad och framåtriktad granskning tillsammans med olika hjälpsystem kan en stor del av problematiken kringgås. Värdefulla tillägg är tillfogandet av djävulens advokat, kontrafaktiskt tänkande, visuella presentationer, scenarioplanering, samt utbildning och träning. Ytterligare nyttiga komponenter att inkludera är återkoppling av tidigare bedömningar, samt involvering av fler personer i beslutsprocessen som kan granska det utförda arbetet. Under intervjuerna blev dessutom en större problembild synlig och det var arbetet med statistik. I den ena lagstiftningen utgår arbetet till stor del ifrån tidigare händelser och statistik. Det här kan göra att angreppsmetoden blir alltför smal, vilket skulle kunna resultera i en alltför statisk förmåga. I den andra lagstiftningen är problembilden annorlunda, här finns det istället väldigt lite underlag i form av statistik. För att motverka problemet föreslås ett tydligare och bättre nyttjande av kommunernas incidentrapporteringssystem, vilket skulle kunna ge ett statiskt underlag och visa var strömningar och problematik i samhället sker

Overconfidence in Phishing Email Detection

This study examines overconfidence in phishing email detection. Researchers believe that overconfidence (i.e., where one’s judgmental confidence exceeds one’s actual performance in decision making) can lead to one’s adopting risky behavior in uncertain situations. This study focuses on what leads to overconfidence in phishing detection. We performed a survey experiment with 600 subjects to collect empirical data for the study. In the experiment, each subject judged a set of randomly selected phishing emails and authentic business emails. Specifically, we examined two metrics of overconfidence (i.e., overprecision and overestimation). Results show that cognitive effort decreased overconfidence, while variability in attention allocation, dispositional optimism, and familiarity with the business entities in the emails all increased overconfidence in phishing email detection. The effect of perceived self-efficacy of detecting phishing emails on overconfidence was marginal. In addition, all confidence beliefs poorly predicted detection accuracy and poorly explained its variance, which highlights the issue of relying on them to guide one’s behavior in detecting phishing. We discuss mechanisms to reduce overconfidence

Learning and the Law: Improving Behavioral Regulation from an International and Comparative Perspective

Various disciplines are increasingly discovering the power of learning. However, the potential and the complexities of learning theory in decision-making contexts have so far been neglected by scholarship in law and economics as well as behavioral law and economics: either learning is uncritically assumed to occur and to mitigate biases, or it is generally claimed that learning is insufficient to overcome cognitive biases. Even where learning is considered, the scope is merely limited to individual or social learning. Learning by and across institutions, a crucial factor for effective regulation, is largely ignored. That type of learning should be paramount, however, as an increasing number of institutions at the international and domestic level are adopting behavioral regulation, which prides itself on facilitating “smart decisions.” This Article argues that legal analysis should tap the precious resource of learning to facilitate lasting and beneficial real-world effects. It draws on social and cognitive psychology, behavioral game theory, and organizational science to show that there are vast effectiveness and efficiency gains to be made from an integration of learning theory into regulatory and private law contexts. Interdisciplinary learning theory suggests that such gains can be made through learning by doing, observational learning, as well as recursive and generative learning. These learning methods can be used at the individual, social, team, and institutional level, which is demonstrated using case studies from international law, as well as American and European Union law. As an overarching category subsuming these forms of learning, the Article develops the concept of systemic learning. It suggests that the law should introduce systemic learning patterns in public and private law contexts through feedback loops and institutionalized systemic learning facilities. Finally, it proposes the institutionalization of an Agency for Systemic Learning Management. Having ignored learning theory in the past, future behavioral regulation should put learning efforts center stage as it unfolds on a global scale

Socio-Hydrology: The New Paradigm in Resilient Water Management

During the third decade of the 21st century, human societies across the world are facing significant water-related problems, such as ecosystem degradation, groundwater depletion, natural and anthropogenic droughts and floods, water-borne health issues, and deforestation. These problems are exacerbated by climate change, a phenomenon that has been accelerated due to human intervention in natural systems since the industrial revolution. There is an urgent need to better understand the interaction of hydrological systems in terms of climate variability and the anthropogenic factors that contribute to the dynamics and resilience of coupled human–water systems and effective risk management in the area of water resource management. Socio-hydrology is an interdisciplinary field that integrates natural and social sciences and aims to study the long-term dynamics of bidirectional feedback in coupled human–water systems. This book on socio-hydrology aims to compile cross-disciplinary scientific endeavors and innovations in research on the development, education, and application of coupled human–water systems. The articles published in this book represent diverse and broad aspects of water management in the context of socio-hydrology systems around the globe. The articles and ideas presented in this book represent a significant source of references for interdisciplinary water science programs and provide an excellent guide for experts involved in the future planning and management of water resources. This book is dedicated to friends of the Green Water-Infrastructure Academy and those who pursue cross-disciplinary water research, education, and management