Significance of Task Significance in Online Marketplaces for Work

Online marketplaces for work like Amazon Mechanical Turk facilitate the sourcing of low expertise tasks in a fast and cost effective way. In this study, we explore the impact of task significance on work quality by informing workers of the purpose of the task and who benefits from it. Results from a laboratory experiment and a field experiment showed that perceived task significance improved work quality, but only for participants who recalled the purpose statement. In contrast, increasing monetary payment by 50% had no impact on work quality. A majority of participants who received the purpose statement were not able to recall it. Further analysis showed worker attributes such as English ability and personality traits influenced the likelihood of recall whereas rich media format had no effects. Overall, our work highlights the promise of task significance as a way to motivate online workers and the challenge of promoting task significance online

Do We Need Different Levels of Badges for Users with Different Participation Levels? A Field Experiment from a Bicycle Commuting Program

Using a novel IT infrastructure which measures bicycle ridership within a University, we manipulate the goal condition for the awarding of badges, with participation badges for one ride per week, to challenge badges for three rides per week. Each condition is targeted at an archetype of rider: those who ride only rarely for the participation badge and thus can benefit from a goal intended to break decision inertia, and those who ride occasionally for the challenge badge who would be challenged by the challenge goal. We find marginal effects of the participation goal among rare riders, with true non-riders being especially difficult to break the state of decision inertia. With infrequent riders, we do not find significant results for the challenge goal but do find a significant increase among infrequent riders presented with the participation goal

The Death of Distance?: The Influence of Computer Mediated Communication on Perceptions of Distance

The expectation that information and communication technologies lead users to transcend the constraints of physical separation has been expressed as the death of distance. Perceptions of distance – the psychological distance – significantly influence how individuals evaluate events and objects. As computer mediated communication technologies allow individuals to interact as easily with those who are remote as with those who are proximate, how do they influence the psychological distance from remote others? And as these technologies are increasingly employed even in interactions with physically proximate others, how does this influence perceived distances? The results suggest that computer mediated communication technologies significantly reduce the psychological distance of remote others

Design and Effects of Information Feedback in Continuous Combinatorial Auctions

Advancements in information technologies offer opportunities for designing and deploying innovative market mechanisms. For example, combinatorial auctions, in which bidders can bid on combinations of goods, can increase the economic efficiency of a trade when goods have complementarities. However, lack of real-time bidder support tools has been a major obstacle preventing this mechanism from reaching its full potential. This study uses novel feedback mechanisms to aid bidders in formulating bids in real-time to facilitate participation in continuous combinatorial auctions. Laboratory experiments examine the effectiveness of our feedback mechanisms; the study is the first to examine how bidders behave in such information-rich environments. Our results indicate that feedback results in higher efficiency and higher seller’s revenue compared to the baseline case where bidders are not provided feedback. Furthermore, contrary to conventional wisdom, even in complex economic environments, individuals effectively integrate rich information in their decision making

The Effects of Digitally Delivered Nudges in a Corporate Wellness Program

We investigate how two digitally delivered nudges, namely light social support (nonverbal cues such as kudos or likes) and motivational messaging, affect employees’ self-reported physical activity in an online, corporate wellness program. Within this unique field setting, using data from several years, we found evidence that both types of nudges provide benefits beyond the effect of cash incentives. However, the effects vary by individual, depending on whether the employee is actively engaging in physical activity, and by time, depending on how long the employee has been in the wellness program. We found light social support to be less effective over time, while motivational messages were found to be more effective with the duration in the program and generally more effective for physically inactive users. Our findings have implications for the design of wellness systems, suggesting different approaches depending on an employee’s current activity level and tenure in the progra

An empirical evaluation of descriptive models of ambiguity reactions in choice situations

Ambiguity is uncertainty about an option's outcome-generating process, and is characterized as uncertainty about an option's outcome probabilities. Subjects, in choice tasks, typically have avoided ambiguous options. Descriptive models are identified and tested in two studies which had subjects rank monetary lotteries according to preference. In Study 1, lotteries involved receiving a positive amount or nothing, where P denotes the probability of receiving the nonzero amount. Subjects were willing to forego expected winnings to avoid ambiguity near P = .50 and P = .75. Near P = .25, a significant percentage of subjects exhibited ambiguity seeking, with subjects, on average, willing to forego expected winnings to have the more ambiguous option. The observed behavior contradicts the viability of a proposed lexicographic model. Study 2 tested four polynomial models using diagnostic properties in the context of conjoint measurement theory. The results supported a sign dependence of ambiguity with respect to the probability level P, such that subjects' preference orderings over ambiguity reversed with changes in P. This behavior was inconsistent with all the three-factor polynomial models investigated. Further analyses failed to support a variant of portfolio theory, as well. The implications of these results for the descriptive modeling of choice under ambiguity are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27663/1/0000045.pd

Contingency judgment: Primacy effects and attention decrement

Subjects made judgments concerning the strength and direction of the contingency between two dichotomous variables in a situation in which no contingency actually existed. The judgments exhibited a significant primacy effect. The effects of warning and not warning the subjects that they would be required to recall the frequencies of observed event co-occurrences implied that this primacy effect was due to `attention decrement' ([Anderson, 1981]). According to this hypothesis, attention to contingency-relevant information diminishes after the subject is exposed to only a small portion of the available information.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26089/1/0000165.pd

The center and range of the probability interval as factors affecting ambiguity preferences

Ambiguous decision situations are characterized as having probabilities that are uncertain. The uncertainty is due to the common, real-world deficiency of information about the process by which the outcomes are determined. Thirty lotteries having uncertain probabilities were constructed by varying the centers and the ranges of the intervals within which the imprecise probabilities of winning could lie. Pairs of the lotteries were presented as choice alternatives to subjects, with each pair having lotteries with the same interval center but differing interval ranges. Ambiguity avoidance, the selection of the less ambiguous option, was found to increase with the interval center C, with ambiguity indifference occurring for values of C [les] 0.40. No evidence of ambiguity seeking as the prevalent behavior was obtained. Ambiguity avoidance did not significantly increase with the interval range R, but an interaction effect between C and the ranges R1 and R2 of the choice pair was obtained. This effect of the ranges could not be described simply by knowledge of the difference R1 - R2; knowledge of both individual values was necessary. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25552/1/0000094.pd

Psychological sources of ambiguity avoidance

Ambiguity is characterized as uncertainty about the probabilities with which outcomes can occur. Previous research has established that subjects, when given a choice between two options differing in their degree of ambiguity, tend to prefer the less ambiguous option, exhibiting ambiguity avoidance. The present paper addresses the psychological sources of this behavior. Five plausible hypotheses for the basis of ambiguity avoidance were extracted from the literature, along with a sixth proposal which questioned the deliber-ateness of the behavior. None of the hypotheses had previously been sufficiently examined empirically. In a series of five experiments, each of the proposed explanations of ambiguity avoidance was tested. Of the six, only one, termed "other-evaluation," had an effect on subjects' choice behavior in an ambiguous situation involving monetary lotteries. The other-evaluation hypothesis states that a decision maker, in making a choice, anticipates that others will evaluate his or her decision; and, so, makes the choice that is perceived to be most justifiable to others. This choice is for the option having the smallest degree of ambiguity. It is concluded that the other-evaluation hypothesis offers the most promising direction for future research regarding the psychology of choice under ambiguity.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26026/1/0000098.pd

Seeking and applying diagnostic information in a health care setting

Many studies have shown that people have difficulty judging the diagnostic value of conditional probability information with respect to one or more hypotheses. The present research addressed two aspects of performing the diagnostic task in a health care decision: (a) recognition of the information's importance, and (b) correct usage of that information. In experiment 1, health care providers, who are trained in, and regularly exposed, to conditional probabilities imparting diagnostic information, exhibited at least a rudimentary recognition of the need for this information in assessing diagnosticity. Experiment 2 indicated that health care and layperson subjects had difficulty in actually applying the information, however. This difficulty prompts a need for judgment aids and caution in using diagnostic information.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28644/1/0000459.pd