Literature Review on Counterfactual Thinking

Running head: DECISION MAKING 1

Decision Making: An Individual and Socially Influenced Process

John Doe

Florida International University

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:23 PM Comment [1]: Note the running head up here. The correct APA format is Running head: TITLE. Thus make sure to capitalize the R, have a lower case h, and then your short title all in CAPS (a short title should be no more than 50 characters). This title page also starts on page one, and the page number is flush to the right while the running head is flush to the left

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:23 PM Comment [2]: Do you know how to enter a header? Click on the “Insert” menu at the top of word, click on “Header”, and then type in the header whatever you want. There is even a box that you can check that allows you to have a different header on the first page than subsequent pages.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:24 PM Comment [3]: Note the title here as well. It is descriptive of the paper to come, and falls within the 12 words recommended by the APA. The first letter of all words over 4 letters is capitalized (although “An” is also capitalized since it follows the colon)

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:24 PM Comment [4]: Your name goes here

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:24 PM Comment [5]: Your university affiliation goes here

DECISION MAKING 2

Decision Making: An Individual and Socially Influenced Process

When a situation arises where people must make decisions, there are many factors that

they weigh before making a choice. In some cases, they make up their mind all by themselves,

carefully thinking through the options. In other cases, they might consider a starting point

provided by others and adjust from that position. The focus of the current paper is on this last

factor, with our goal focusing on how the decisions of other people influence the decisions of

participants.

According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), there are two types of social influence:

normative influence and informational influence. Normative influence can be described as

compliance in order to meet group expectations while informational influence involves using

information gathered from others and accepting it as evidence of reality. Although many

decisions are socially affected, the decision-making process may begin and end with the

individual him or herself.

When in doubt about how to make a decision, people may turn to their own internal

mechanisms when trying to make a correct decision. This “self-generated” information provides

them with a foundation on which to draw an appropriate conclusion. According to Epley and

Gilovich (2006), an appropriate judgment-making strategy might involve beginning with

information that is known and then adjusting decisions until a suitable answer is reached. This

process is known as the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic, and was first introduced by Tversky

and Kahneman (1974). Unfortunately, many people fail to sufficiently adjust from their initial

anchors, which may result in erroneous judgments (Epley & Gilovich, 2006).

Consider the research conducted by Epley and Gilovich (2006), which was designed to

investigate when decision adjustments stop. These authors reasoned that adjustments may stop

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:25 PM Comment [6]: Note APA formatting for this page. Above, you have the header (the same header as on the title page in the same location, except now you omit the words Running head) The page number is also present. Normally this literature review would start on page three with the abstract on page two, but for this assignment there is no abstract, so page 2 is fine! Finally, your paper title goes at the top of the page, and it is identical to the title you used on the title page.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:25 PM Comment [7]: This is a good introduction that talks about the focus of this paper while starting off a good story. Watch how it flows from one paragraph to the next as it build the story, focusing on researchers and studies that came before and using those ideas as the author nears his own predictions

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:26 PM Comment [8]: This citation is a good example of APA formatting, When that word “and” falls outside of the parentheses, use the word “and” and not an ampersand (&)

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:27 PM Comment [9]: Here, the paper author did another nice job of using proper APA formatting. Since the cite is all within parentheses, he used the “&” properly.

DECISION MAKING 3

according to two different principles. First, they may stop because trying to use the information

is too difficult for the decision-maker, so they give up and go with their gut instincts. Second, the

decision-maker may stop their adjustment because they believe they have reached the correct

conclusion. According to these authors, the latter case is more likely. That is, people stop

adjusting their answers because they believe that they have arrived at a logical response. But

sometimes people stop adjusting too soon, which can lead to errors. For example, Eply and

Gilovich found that thoughtful people (those who were motivated, had not consumed alcohol, or

were not under cognitive load) were more likely than their counterparts to sufficiently adjust

from anchor values until they reached an appropriate stopping point. This finding supports the

idea that adjustment may be effortful, thus limiting responses for those unwilling to put in the

effort. This anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic is therefore a good starting point when making

judgments, but as the results of their study showed, participants did not adequately adjust from

their anchors to reach a more valid conclusion. Using this anchoring principle, though, it is easy

to see how people might use it when given external information as well.

Although people might look internally when making a decision, they are also likely to

look externally, to see what other people are doing. In situations where groups are formed, for

example, individuals tend to rely on normative and informational social influence. Deutsch and

Gerard (1955) point out that an individual may conform to group expectations and publically

agree with the group opinion even if they know that the group is wrong! Other times, they may

rely on the group to guide them if they do not have enough information themselves. The former

can be considered normative influence while the latter is informational influence, though both

may operate simultaneously when people are making decisions

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:27 PM Comment [10]: You will notice here that he doesn’t have the dates for these authors. This is okay, since he already gave the date in this paragraph, and the author names the second time around continue from that same analysis.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:28 PM Comment [11]: Notice the flow from one paragraph to the next. This author isn’t just listing out studies he read; he is making connections between them and has connections from one paragraph to the next

DECISION MAKING 4

After conducting a study similar to the line judgment studies developed by Solomon

Asch (1951) to a wrong group decision even when the decision was obviously wrong, Deutsch

and Gerard (1955) were able to verify many of their hypotheses. They found that the effects of

normative social influence were strongest when people assembled in groups to make judgments

rather than performing individually. However, participants in the anonymous group were less

susceptible to normative influence, relying on themselves instead. Conformity was also reduced

in conditions where participants were instructed to make some type of commitment to the correct

response before hearing the wrong opinions committed to by other group members. Finally,

participants were more likely to be normatively influenced when they were uncertain, and less

likely to conform in the absence of uncertainty. The authors concluded that although normative

influence is largely observed in group situations, informational influence must still be in play,

leading to judgmental errors even if normative pressure is removed. In other words, people

consider the responses of others as trustworthy where uncertainty is present.

Cohen and Golden (1972) conducted a study which further examined the effects of this

informational social influence outside of group situations. Participants in their study individually

evaluated a coffee product in which a moderate level of uncertainty was present. As the authors

noted, this moderate level of participant uncertainty concerning accurate evaluations was

necessary in order to attribute findings to informational influences. They confirmed that

informational social influence does indeed function in group situations, with participants in the

study being more likely to conform to the responses of others if there was high uniformity among

the responses of those others. Overall, it seems that when people are faced with uncertainties,

they often rely on information provided by others, particularly when those others are seemingly

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:28 PM Comment [12]: Asch might be a familiar name to those of you who took social psychology. You will notice that the author of this current paper does not dwell on him, but rather focuses on Deutsch and Gerard. This is fine. Just because you cite a source doesn’t mean you need to spend lots of time on it. Use only as much time as you need

DECISION MAKING 5

competent. The data gathered by Cohen and Golden suggests that judgments may be modified

even under mundane circumstances such as evaluating the taste of a common product.

In order to further investigate the impact of informational social influence in uncertain

tasks, the present study tested for conformity using a mundane, ordinary method. Instead of

collecting product evaluations like coffee, we gathered estimations from students on the amount

of money they spent on books in fall 2011. Few students recall exactly what they spent on books

two semesters ago, so we reasoned that they would rely on external information about how much

other people remember spending on books. We manipulated this amount to be high, low, or we

did not indicate an amount, and then we had participants provide their own response regarding

how much they spent on books. We hypothesized that participants exposed to the responses of

others who remembered spending high amounts on books would also report a higher amount

spent on textbooks compared to the neutral condition. Participants in the low condition would

report spending less on their own books than those in the neutral condition. Thus the results in

the high and low condition should be significantly different from the neutral condition, showing

strong conformity to others’ responses.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:29 PM Comment [13]: Now we get into the heart of this student author’s paper. He told a story about both anchoring heuristics and informational / normative influence, and now he is combining the two into his study, which he compares a bit to Cohen and Golden.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:29 PM Comment [14]: He notes the design a bit without going into too much detail, but gives the reader a taste as he leads them to the cliffhanger!

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:29 PM Comment [15]: Now we get to the hypotheses. Aren’t you just dying to see what the study tells you now that you have some idea about his predictions!

DECISION MAKING 6

References

Asch, S. E. (1951). In Guetzkow H. (Ed.). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and

distortion of judgments. Oxford, England: Carnegie Press.

Cohen, J. B., & Golden, E. (1972). Informational social influence and product evaluation.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 56, 54-59. doi:10.1037/h0032139

Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences

upon individual judgment. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 629-

636. doi:10.1037/h0046408

Epley, N., & Gilovich, T. (2006). The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic: Why the adjustments

are insufficient. Psychological Science, 17(4), 311-318. doi:10.1111/j.1467-

9280.2006.01704.x

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.

Science, 185, 1124–1130.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:30 PM Comment [16]: References start on its own page. My advice is to enter a page break in Word so that this will always start at the top of the page. Pay close attention to proper APA formatting here

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:30 PM Comment [17]: Notice how this list is in alphabetical order, starting with Asch and ending with Tversky. This is good APA format

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:30 PM Comment [18]: This is an edited book. I do not allow this as one of your three required references for this first paper, but since three of his other references are primary sources (two of which I had posted on blackboard and one of which he found on his own) this is okay to include.

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:31 PM Comment [19]: Note the form for this peer- reviewed, primary resource. It is good. Author names and their first initial followed by the date. Then the title, with only the first word capitalized. The journal name is italicized, as is the volume number, and the page numbers are good. It also include the DOI

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:32 PM Comment [20]: You will notice that this word is capitalized. This is ok, since it follows a colon

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:32 PM Comment [21]: Use the & before listing the name of the last author

Ryan Winter� 7/21/2014 2:32 PM Comment [22]: My advice is to turn on the ruler when using a Word document. Using the ruler, you can make sure that you properly indent all but the first line of each reference (instead of using the space bar or tab)