Data from: Click or skip: the role of experience in easy-click checking decisions

New websites and smartphone applications provide easy-click checking opportunities that can help consumers in many domains. However, this technology is not always used effectively. For example, many consumers skip checking “Terms and Conditions” links even when a quick evaluation of the terms can save money, but check their smartphone while driving even thought this behavior is illegal and dangerous. Four laboratory experiments clarify the significance of one contributor to such contradictory deviations from effective checking. Studies 1, 2, and 3 show that, like basic decisions from experience, checking decisions reflect underweighting of rare events, which in turn is a sufficient condition for the coexistence of insufficient and too much checking. Insufficient checking emerges when most checking efforts impair performance even if checking is effective on average. Too much checking emerges when most checking clicks are rewarding even if checking is counterproductive on average. This pattern can be captured with a model that assumes reliance on small samples of past checking decision experiences. Study 4 shows that when the goal is to increase checking, interventions which increase the probability that checking leads to the best possible outcome can be far more effective than efforts to reduce the cost of checking.

新兴网页与智能手机应用程序为消费者提供了一键式便捷核查渠道，可在诸多领域为其提供助力。然而此类技术的应用并非总能发挥实效。例如，即便快速审阅服务条款（Terms and Conditions）能够为消费者节省开支，多数人仍会跳过此类链接的核查步骤；但即便驾车时查看手机属于违法且极具危险性的行为，不少驾驶者仍会忍不住操作手机。四项实验室实验阐明了此类背离有效核查的矛盾行为背后，某一影响因素的关键作用。实验1、2与3的结果显示，与基于经验的基础决策逻辑一致，核查决策体现出对稀有事件的权重低估现象；而这一现象正是“核查不足”与“核查过度”并存的充分条件。当多数核查行为即便整体上确实有效，但仍会损害整体收益时，便会出现核查不足的情况；而当多数点击核查的操作都能获得正向回报，但整体上核查反而适得其反时，则会出现核查过度的现象。此类行为模式可通过一个假设模型进行拟合，该模型假定决策者依赖于过往核查决策经验的小样本集合。实验4的结果表明，若目标为提升核查行为的发生率，那么提升核查操作达成最优结果概率的干预手段，要远比降低核查操作成本的举措更为有效。