Back to decision research
Now that our life was again well organized and not as hectic as before, I could also return to the original research on argumentation of decision makers. There was an interesting question waiting for me. It was clear that political decision makers specify the choice options and their consequences and the evaluations and/or probabilities of these consequences and then they indicate their choice, but not the reasons why they make this choice. We had specified 6 different rules that almost perfectly predicted the choices made based on this information, but we did not know if these rules were indeed as obvious as the decision makers thought. We also did not know if only politicians know these rules or that these rules are more generally known. This was an interesting issue for further research.
An experiment
Given that the SRF had a small panel of 50 households with a computer, we planned to present to some people the arguments of the decision makers we had studied and to ask the respondents how they would choose in each situation and why they made this choice. They had to write their answers on the computer. These answers then had to be analyzed to see if they specified one of the rules we had detected or not. To do this experiment we had to formulate the arguments and develop a procedure to detect if any of our rules was mentioned.
While planning this experiment a student, Maarten Schellekens, came to me with the question whether he could participate in this research. I could use some help for the experiment and we developed together with Willem the experiment and the coding procedure.
We decided to present the decision topics in an abstract form, because the political topics could influence the choice of the respondents without looking at the arguments but making immediately a choice based on their own opinion about that historic issue (for example the war in Indonesia). Two examples of such abstract decision problems are presented below.
Given that the SRF had a small panel of 50 households with a computer, we planned to present to some people the arguments of the decision makers we had studied and to ask the respondents how they would choose in each situation and why they made this choice. They had to write their answers on the computer. These answers then had to be analyzed to see if they specified one of the rules we had detected or not. To do this experiment we had to formulate the arguments and develop a procedure to detect if any of our rules was mentioned.
While planning this experiment a student, Maarten Schellekens, came to me with the question whether he could participate in this research. I could use some help for the experiment and we developed together with Willem the experiment and the coding procedure.
We decided to present the decision topics in an abstract form, because the political topics could influence the choice of the respondents without looking at the arguments but making immediately a choice based on their own opinion about that historic issue (for example the war in Indonesia). Two examples of such abstract decision problems are presented below.
Given such specifications of decision problems we asked the respondents what they would choose and why.
The results
The results of the experiment were impressive. On the first question, what they would choose, all respondents made the same choice as the decision maker had made in all decision problems we presented to them. This suggests that this information is indeed sufficient for all people to know how they have to choose.
The next question was whether they also specified for their choice the rule we expected to lead to the choice. In this case the result was less clear. We had presented them with decision problems which had different characteristics with respect to the details of the information about the evaluations and probabilities of the consequences. Based on this information different rules were expected but sometimes a simpler rule than the expected rule could also lead to the right choice. That happened occasionally, for example in experiment 2 mentioned above. The result of this part of the experiment is presented below.
It is very clear that even people with less education and experience with such arguments indeed knew all the rules we had suggested.
This was a striking result because it suggests that we had detected decision rules that all people, whether young or old, educated or less educated, knew. They also used them to make decisions.
First of all we wrote a paper about this experiment which was published in the journal “Acta Psychologica.” Besides that I went with Maarten Schellekens to an international conference on decision making research. Before Willem and I had been to several of these conferences, but this time Willem could not join us because of other obligations.
This was a striking result because it suggests that we had detected decision rules that all people, whether young or old, educated or less educated, knew. They also used them to make decisions.
First of all we wrote a paper about this experiment which was published in the journal “Acta Psychologica.” Besides that I went with Maarten Schellekens to an international conference on decision making research. Before Willem and I had been to several of these conferences, but this time Willem could not join us because of other obligations.
Presenting our results in Poland
Maarten Schellekens and I took in the spring of 1987 a plane to Warsaw. Although there was the liberty movement of Solidarity, Poland was still ruled by the repressive communist regime. As Maarten was very curious about Polish politics and a bit naïve in this matter, I urged on him to refrain from questioning our Polish colleagues.
At the Warsaw airport we were cordially received by the Polish organizers of the conference and before bringing us to our hotel they drove us a bit around in Warsaw and asked if we wanted to see the grave of Popiełuszko. Maarten asked me whether that was a famous communist. Fortunately I had warned him not to ask Polish people such things. He was not aware the Popiełuszko was a priest which was so popular under the anti-communist people that he was murdered.
Before going to sleep we took a drink at the bar. I put off my coat and placed it next to me. As I did not watch it constantly, I finally saw that my fashionable coat was gone. Maria, a Polish colleague, borrowed me the next day a coat and insisted that we had to declare the theft at the police so that I could at least be compensated by my travel insurance. Before moving by bus with our group to the conference place outside Warsaw, Maria, Maarten and I went by taxi to the police. Maria translated the facts into Polish and a friendly policeman typed with great trouble the declaration, a bit ashamed of his typewriter, since the keys were not functioning well. Thereafter Maria wrote down the declaration into English and the policeman put an impressive seal on it. When I glanced at Maarten his face was full of astonishment. This took us two hours and then we moved to the conference site.
Maarten Schellekens and I took in the spring of 1987 a plane to Warsaw. Although there was the liberty movement of Solidarity, Poland was still ruled by the repressive communist regime. As Maarten was very curious about Polish politics and a bit naïve in this matter, I urged on him to refrain from questioning our Polish colleagues.
At the Warsaw airport we were cordially received by the Polish organizers of the conference and before bringing us to our hotel they drove us a bit around in Warsaw and asked if we wanted to see the grave of Popiełuszko. Maarten asked me whether that was a famous communist. Fortunately I had warned him not to ask Polish people such things. He was not aware the Popiełuszko was a priest which was so popular under the anti-communist people that he was murdered.
Before going to sleep we took a drink at the bar. I put off my coat and placed it next to me. As I did not watch it constantly, I finally saw that my fashionable coat was gone. Maria, a Polish colleague, borrowed me the next day a coat and insisted that we had to declare the theft at the police so that I could at least be compensated by my travel insurance. Before moving by bus with our group to the conference place outside Warsaw, Maria, Maarten and I went by taxi to the police. Maria translated the facts into Polish and a friendly policeman typed with great trouble the declaration, a bit ashamed of his typewriter, since the keys were not functioning well. Thereafter Maria wrote down the declaration into English and the policeman put an impressive seal on it. When I glanced at Maarten his face was full of astonishment. This took us two hours and then we moved to the conference site.
To the great surprise of everyone the conference was held in a 18th century Palace in the countryside of Nieborow. In an opulent library we gave our talks. During the breaks we took a walk through fancy palace gardens.
There was little to eat and as only drink vodka was available. Every evening after the frugal meals the Polish colleagues arranged vodka parties. Only the speakers of the next day refrained from drinking. Maarten again was very astonished and I had to explain him that this conference was not normal . At normal conferences people did not get drunk every evening.
When I presented our paper I stood in an elegant room next to the library in front of a huge ancient globe, projecting the findings on the other wall. A great part of the audience had to make efforts to keep their eyes open. Only the speakers of the same day asked questions.
This was quite an experience for me too and I considered not to go anymore to conferences held in Eastern Europe since there was no space for serious scientific discussion.
This was quite an experience for me too and I considered not to go anymore to conferences held in Eastern Europe since there was no space for serious scientific discussion.