The DOI matches its Crossref record; 10 of the 10 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Biased predecision processing.
Abstract
Decision makers conduct biased predecision processing when they restructure their mental representation of the decision environment to favor one alternative before making their choice. The question of whether biased predecision processing occurs has been controversial since L. Festinger (1957) maintained that it does not occur. The author reviews relevant research in sections on theories of cognitive dissonance, decision conflict, choice certainty, action control, action phases, dominance structuring, differentiation and consolidation, constructive processing, motivated reasoning, and groupthink. Some studies did not find evidence of biased predecision processing, but many did. In the Discussion section, the moderators are summarized and used to assess the theories.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/1914185 · Cited by 48,524
The case for motivated reasoning.
Kunda, Z. (1990) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480 · Cited by 9,022
Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/5657.001.0001 · Cited by 3,537
Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., & Johnson, E. J. (1993) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139173933 · Cited by 3,487
Shafir, E. (1993) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(93)90034-s · Cited by 1,453
On the motivational nature of cognitive dissonance: Dissonance as psychological discomfort.
Elliot, A. J., & Devine, P. G. (1994) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.382 · Cited by 1,289
Choice under Conflict: The Dynamics of Deferred Decision
Tversky, A., & Shafir, E. (1992) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00047.x · Cited by 1,013
A New Look at Dissonance Theory
Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. (1984) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60121-5 · Cited by 928
Harmon-Jones, E., & Mills, J. (2019) · Cognitive dissonance: Reexamining a pivotal theory in psychology (2nd ed.). · doi:10.1037/0000135-001 · Cited by 760
Alive and Well after 25 Years: A Review of Groupthink Research
Esser, J. K. (1998) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1006/obhd.1998.2758 · Cited by 417
Cited by
Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory
Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2011) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x10000968 · Cited by 2,254
VOICE, CONTROL, AND BELONGING: The Double-Edged Sword of Procedural Fairness
MacCoun, R. J. (2005) · Annual Review of Law and Social Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.041604.115958 · Cited by 343
“Psychological processes of distortion can occur both before and after a decision (Brownstein, 2003).”
BackgroundThe agony of ambivalence and ways to resolve it: Introducing the MAID model
van Harreveld, F., van der Pligt, J., & de Liver, Y. N. (2009) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868308324518 · Cited by 343
Taste Perception: More than Meets the Tongue
Hoegg, J., & Alba, J. W. (2007) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/510222 · Cited by 303
Pre-decision regret before transition of dependents with severe dementia to long-term care
Hanssen, I., Mkhonto, F. M., Øieren, H., Sengane, M. L., Sørensen, A. L., & Tran, P. T. M. (2022) · Nursing Ethics · doi:10.1177/09697330211015339 · Cited by 10
Metadata
- Authors
- Brownstein, A. L.
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 2003
- Volume
- 129
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 545-568
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W1968274824
- Cited by
- 208
- References
- 10
- FWCI
- 6.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Biased predecision processing. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037/0033-2909.129.4.545
- The paper
- Brownstein, A. L. (2003). Biased predecision processing. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.4.545
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.