Process Models Deserve Process Data: Comment on Brandstatter, Gigerenzer, and Hertwig (2006)

Psychological Review, Vol. 115, No. 1, pp. 263-272, 2008

10 Pages Posted: 7 Jan 2009

See all articles by Eric J. Johnson

Eric J. Johnson

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Marketing

Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck

University of Bern; ETH Zürich

Martijn C. Willemsen

Eindhoven University of Technology

Date Written: January 2008

Abstract

Resolution of debates in cognition usually comes from the introduction of constraints in the form of new data about either the process or representation. Decision research, in contrast, has relied predominantly on testing models by examining their fit to choices. The authors examine a recently proposed choice strategy, the priority heuristic, which provides a novel account of how people make risky choices. The authors identify a number of properties that the priority heuristic should have as a process model and illustrate how they may be tested. The results, along with prior research, suggest that although the priority heuristic captures some variability in the attention paid to outcomes, it fails to account for major characteristics of the data, particularly the frequent transitions between outcomes and their probabilities. The article concludes with a discussion of the properties that should be captured by process models of risky choice and the role of process data in theory development.

Keywords: risky choice, decision making, cognitive processes, process tracing

Suggested Citation

Johnson, Eric J. and Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael and Willemsen, Martijn C., Process Models Deserve Process Data: Comment on Brandstatter, Gigerenzer, and Hertwig (2006) (January 2008). Psychological Review, Vol. 115, No. 1, pp. 263-272, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1323475

Eric J. Johnson (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Marketing ( email )

New York, NY 10027
United States

Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck

University of Bern ( email )

Gesellschaftsstrasse 49
Bern, BERN 3001
Switzerland

ETH Zürich ( email )

Zürichbergstrasse 18
Zurich, 8092
Switzerland

Martijn C. Willemsen

Eindhoven University of Technology ( email )

Human-Technoogy Interaction
P.O. Box 513
5600 MB Endhoven
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.vlab.nl/willemsen

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