Advice taking in decision making: egocentric discounting and reputation formation
Abstract
Our framework for understanding advice-taking in decision making rests on two theoretical concepts that motivate the studies and serve to explain the findings. The first is egocentric discounting of others' opinions and the second is reputation formation for advisors. Advice discounting is attributed to differential information, namely, the notion that decision makers have privileged access to their internal reasons for holding their own opinion, but not to the advisors' internal reasons. Reputation formation is related to the negativity effect in impression formation and to the trust asymmetry principle. In three studies we measured decision makers' weighting policy for advice and, in a fourth study, their willingness to pay for it. Briefly, we found that advice is discounted relative to one's own opinion, while advisors' reputations are rapidly formed and asymmetrically revised. The asymmetry implies that it may be easier for advisors to lose a good reputation than to gain one. The cognitive and social origins of these phenomena are considered. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.
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When some information is missing, decision-makers must rely on estimates, and humans tend to err in these estimates, often overestimating their chance of being correct, leading to ego bias.
“Unfortunately, humans tend to err in these estimates, often overestimating their chance of being correct, leading to an implicit, unwarranted preference for their own opinions, an ego bias [52][53][54][55][56][57] .”
From Enhancing human-AI collaboration: The case of colonoscopy (2024) · cites this paper as [57]
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“In this respect, our studies bear similarity to impression formation studies, which typically involve judgments about hypothetical personality profiles and tend to emphasize the role of heuristic processes, such as confirmation bias, primacy effect, and negativity effect (Fiske, 1980; Hamilton & Huffman, 1971; Skowron…”
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Self-citationDo as AI say: susceptibility in deployment of clinical decision-aids
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Power, competitiveness, and advice taking: Why the powerful don’t listen
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The effects of asymmetry among advisors on the aggregation of their opinions
Budescu, D. V., Rantilla, A. K., Yu, H.-T., & Karelitz, T. M. (2003) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1016/s0749-5978(02)00516-2 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
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Expressions of doubt and trust in online user reviews
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Should I Follow AI-based Advice? Measuring Appropriate Reliance in Human-AI Decision-Making
Schemmer, M., Hemmer, P., Kühl, N., Benz, C., & Satzger, G. (2022) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2204.06916 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
“For example, so-called egocentric discounting—humans systematically overweighting their own decisions—increases under-reliance on AI [36].”
BackgroundWhy Does Advice Discounting Occur? The Combined Roles of Confidence and Trust
Wang, X., & Du, X. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02381 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Enhancing human-AI collaboration: The case of colonoscopy
Introzzi, L., Zonca, J., Cabitza, F., Cherubini, P., & Reverberi, C. (2024) · Digestive and Liver Disease · doi:10.1016/j.dld.2023.10.018 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Laxar, D., Eitenberger, M., Maleczek, M., Kaider, A., Hammerle, F. P., & Kimberger, O. (2023) · BMC Medicine · doi:10.1186/s12916-023-03068-2 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“Despite this, studies show that when taking advice, regardless of the experiment, the mean WoA is approximately 30%, slightly lower than in our observations [17, 30].”
ResultQuantifying machine influence over human forecasters
Abeliuk, A., Benjamin, D. M., Morstatter, F., & Galstyan, A. (2020) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-72690-4 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Examining the trade‐off between confidence and optimism in future forecasts
Stavrova, O., & Evans, A. M. (2019) · Journal of Behavioral Decision Making · doi:10.1002/bdm.2087 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Yaniv, I., & Kleinberger, E.
- Affiliations
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- ORCID
- Yaniv, Ilan
- Venue
- Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2000-11
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 260-281
- ISSN
- 0749-5978 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1966980020
- Cited by
- 701
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 49 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 29 · 2012: 47
- FWCI
- 2.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
- Keywords
- advice taking, reputation formation, trust asymmetry, negativity bias, impression formation, differential information, decision-making
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