There is a real tension in decision making between using a
broad sample of information and focusing on a compelling individual case. Recruiters will get a lot of information
about job candidates before scheduling an interview, but then will give a lot
of weight to the interview itself in making a final decision. Politicians may have a lot of statistics to
support a particular policy, but they are often driven to act by a specific
event.
Presumably, a decision based on a lot of evidence is better
than one that is based only on a specific case.
An interesting paper in the June, 2013 issue of Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin by Erin Burgoon, Marlone Henderson, and
Cheryl Wakslak examined how we evaluate other people’s decisions that are based
either on statistics or specific cases.
These researchers argued that the distance between you and
the decision maker would influence your preference for the kind of decision
that person has made. Research on
construal level theory by Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman and their colleagues
suggests that people think about situations more specifically when they are
mentally close to that situation than when they are mentally far from it. Thinking about a decision specifically can
lead to a preference for using information about a particular case over using
general statistical information. So, if
you hear about a person who has made a decision using specific case
information, you are probably happier with that decision if that person is
close by than if they are far away.
One study in this paper was run two weeks after the shooting
in Arizona that injured US Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Participants read that their representative
in Congress was supporting legislation to limit the size of the ammunition
magazines in automatic weapons. They
read an interview that supported this legislation. The interview focused either on statistics
about gun violence or specifically on the shooting in Arizona. Some participants were told that the
interview took place nearby in that representative’s local office, while others
were told that the interview was given in far-away Washington, DC. After reading the interview, participants
expressed their level of support for their member of Congress.
Participants who read that the interview was held nearby
showed equal levels of support regardless of whether the legislation was being
supported based on statistics or based on the specific shooting. Those who read that the interview was held in
Washington DC expressed a higher level of support for the Representative when
the interview focused on statistics than when it focused on the specific
case.
This finding demonstrates that distance from the decision
maker affects people’s beliefs about how that person should make a
decision. Another study in this series
related this finding more specifically to construal level theory.
Research on construal level theory finds that you can induce
a mindset to think about situations specifically or abstractly. For example, if you ask people to talk about
how to accomplish a goal, they think more specifically afterward than if you
ask them to talk about why they should accomplish that goal. Talking about how to do something focuses
people on more specific details than talking about why to do something, and
that influence carries over to other tasks people are performing.
In one study, participants were first asked to give feedback
to the superintendant of a local school district. They picked an issue of their choice and
talked either about how or why the superintendant should make a change.
Then, they read that the superintendant was going to make a
change to a school lunch program. They
were told that 85% of parents who were surveyed supported the change, but that
one irate parent left a long voicemail message opposing the program. (Another group of participants read the
opposite that 85% of parents opposed the program and one vocal parent supported
it.) Some people read that the
superintendant made a decision based on the consensus of the parents, while
others read that the superintendant made a decision based on the argument made
by the vocal parent. Then, people expressed
their support for the superintendant.
Overall, participants felt that the superintendent made a
better decision when the decision was based on the consensus of the parents
than when it was based on a specific individual. However, if the participants
had previously focused on “how” to accomplish a goal, they were more supportive
when the superintendant decided based on the specific individual than if the
participants had previously focused on “why” to accomplish a goal. So, a mindset that gets people to think
specifically increases their appreciation for choices made based on specific
information.
All things being equal, it is better to take a lot of data
into account when making a choice than to focus on a particular representative
case. To help yourself appreciate
decisions based on data, try to give yourself some mental distance from the
choice being made. That distance will
help you to focus on a broader context in which a decision is being made.
