Refinement of outcome bias measurement in the parental decision-making context

The aim of this study was twofold: one was to test the impact of the involvement on the parental outcome bias, and the second was to refine the measurement of outcome bias, normally reported as the difference between evaluations of a single decision, with different outcomes assigned to it. We introduced the evaluation of a decision without an outcome, to induce theoretically normative evaluation, unbiased by outcome, from which the evaluation shift could be calculated in either direction. To test this refinement in the parental decision-making context, we produced childcare dilemmas with varying levels of complexity, since the rise of complexity induces stronger bias. Complexity was determined by the particular combination of two factors: parental involvement in a decision - the amount of motivation, interest and drive evoked by it – and whether the decision was health-related or not. We presented parents with the decisions for evaluation, followed by a positive and a negative outcome, and without an outcome. The results confirm the interaction between involvement and domain on decision evaluation. Highly involving decisions yielded weaker outcome bias than low-involvement decisions in both health and non-health domain. Results also confirm the validity of the proposed way of measuring OB, revealing that in some situations positive outcomes skew evaluations more than negative outcomes. Also, a highly-involving dilemma followed by negative outcome did not produce significantly different evaluation compared to evaluation of a decision without outcome. Thus, adding a neutral position rendered OB measurement more precise and our involvement-related insights more nuanced. peerReviewed publishedVersion

本研究旨在实现双重研究目标：其一，检验参与度对父母结果偏差（outcome bias）的影响；其二，优化结果偏差的测量范式——传统结果偏差通常以单一决策在被赋予不同结果后的评价差值进行表征。我们引入无结果情境下的决策评价方式，以推导出理论上符合规范、不受结果干扰的中立评价，据此可计算双向的评价偏移量。为在父母决策场景中验证这一优化后的测量方法，我们构建了复杂度各异的育儿困境情境，因决策复杂度越高，引发的结果偏差越强。复杂度由两个因素的特定组合决定：一是父母在决策中的参与度——即该决策激发的动机、兴趣与投入程度；二是决策是否与健康相关。我们向受试父母呈现待评价的决策场景，随后分别为其提供正向、负向结果，以及无结果三种评价情境。研究结果证实了参与度与决策领域在决策评价中的交互效应：在健康与非健康两类领域中，高参与度决策引发的结果偏差均弱于低参与度决策。结果同时验证了所提出的结果偏差测量方法的有效性，研究发现部分情境下正向结果对评价的扭曲程度强于负向结果。此外，伴随负向结果的高参与度困境，其评价结果与无结果情境下的中立评价无显著差异。综上，引入无结果的中立评价基准，使得结果偏差的测量更为精准，也让我们关于参与度相关的研究结论更为细致入微。本研究为经同行评审的正式发表版本。