Refine
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (3)
Language
- English (3)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (3)
Keywords
- Social and economic psychology, organizations, leadership, workplace, gender inequality, gender differences, economic psychology, self enhancement, overconfidence (1)
- Social psychology (1)
- decision processes (1)
- economic psychology, social psychology, decision making, decision strategies, confidence bias, gender differences, reinforcement heuristic (1)
- ego-depletion (1)
- reinforcement heuristic (1)
- self-control (1)
According to dual-process models, human behavior is the result of an interaction between automatic and controlled processes. Although automatic processes often lead to positive results, they can also lead to severely negative consequences. The current dissertation investigated via 4 studies the effect of self-control depletion, mindsets, framing, and preference for consistency on the usage of automatic processes in decision tasks where heuristics (e.g., reinforcement heuristic) can either conflict or be aligned with Bayesian updating. In particular, Study 1 hypothesized that when a reinforcement heuristic opposed Bayesian updating, ego-depletion would influence the reliance on automatic processes. Three sub-studies (1a, 1b and 1c) were conducted using different depletion manipulations plus controls. Although the manipulation checks indicated successful ego-depletion induction, only Study 1a found the predicted effect. It seems that the ego depletion effects in complex decision-making tasks are less robust than previously reported in the literature.
Despite various efforts to decrease gender differences in organizations and the underrepresentation of females in management positions, progress is little. However, efforts can only be effective if the source of the problem is identified and understood. Thus, a considerable number of studies has been carried out in an attempt to understand which aspects facilitate the underrepresentation of females in management (e. g., Joshi, Son,& Roh, 2015; Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007; Eagly & Karau, 2002). Research has shown that the reason for the gender disparity in leading positions is twofold. First, individual differences in characteristics and behavior are compelling predictors of gender imbalance in organizations (Bass & Bass, 2009; Joshi & Roh, 2009; Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002; Mumford et al., 2000). Second, current research on gender inequality emphasized that some work contexts seem to be more vulnerable to this phenomenon (Joshi & Roh, 2009; Gardiner & Tiggemann, 1999). Although the topic is ubiquitous and has been widely discussed in various disciplines, research has often been conducted within the confines of laboratory settings, and field research neglected to systematically include the work context as an explanatory variable.
In order to shed new light on this issue, the work presented here investigated gender
differences in career-relevant psychological aspects and behaviors, depending on the
position and the female/male dominance of work environment. In a literature review, three constructs emerged that have not been systematically explored in the workplace as
potential indicators of gender differences in managers and non-managers. Therefore, cognitive reflection, confidence in one’s own skills, and deceptive behavior were investigated in three field studies, looking directly at females and males in leading and non-leading positions in female- and male-dominated fields.
Study 1a and 1b focused on the examination of the constructs within the private sector. Female and male managers and non-managers in multiple companies in Germany from the male-dominated manufacturing and the female-dominated service sector were surveyed. Results indicated a strong influence of business sectors on gender differences in self-image and work-related behavior. In order to cope with gender-incongruent work environments, males and females followed different strategies. In the female-dominated service sector, males coped with the incongruency by engaging in impression management by being overconfident as well as using self-enhancement by deceiving. In contrast to males, females only engaged in self-enhancement by deceiving in the male-dominated manufacturing sector. Both strategies were used to appear in a more positive light and to cope with the gender-incongruent workplace. Study 2 examined the three constructs in the government sector, more specifically, in female and male politicians from Germany’s national and its sixteen state parliaments and civil servants. In contrast to the private sector, males and females did neither use self-enhancement nor impression management strategies. This finding was surprising as the underrepresentation of females is an issue in both, business and politics.
Overall, the findings of the present work on cognitive reflection, confidence and deception shed new light on gender differences as overconfidence and deception functioned as impression management and self-enhancement strategies for males and females to manage the demands of female- and male-dominated industries. In contrast, this does not apply for politics where those strategies were not used. Moreover, the results suggest that the investigation of female- and male-dominated environments is crucial to explain the behavior of females and males and truly provides a better understanding of gender
differences at work.
Confidence judgments and decision making are part of everyday life. In an ideal world, people would assess their skills and knowledge accurately and base their decisions only on rational deliberations. Yet, this is often not the case. Confidence judgments in own skills or performance are often biased (e.g., Dunning, 2011; Moore & Healy, 2008; Moore & Schatz, 2017; Sanchez & Dunning, 2018; Pikulina, Renneboog, & Tobler, 2017; Michailova & Schmidt, 2016). Also, people tend to deviate from rational decision strategies (e.g., Achtziger & Alós-Ferrer, 2014; Alós-Ferrer, Hügelschäfer, & Li, 2016, 2017; Charness, Karni, & Levin, 2010; Erev, Shimonovich, Schurr, & Hertwig, 2008; Fiedler, Brinkmann, Betsch, & Wild, 2000; Tschan et al., 2009). Therefore, the research aim of the present dissertation was twofold. In the first chapter of the present dissertation I investigated confidence judgments in own skills and the confidence bias, the processes underlying these confidence judgments, and the influences of gender and monetary incentive on confidence judgments. The second aim was to investigate the influence of goal and implementation intentions on rational decision making and how this influence is reflected in the neural correlate of reinforcement learning.
A common finding in research on confidence judgments is the confidence bias (e.g. Moore & Schatz, 2017; Moore & Healy, 2008; Pikulina et al., 2017; Sanchez & Dunning, 2018; Lebreton et al., 2018). In most cases, the confidence bias reflects overconfidence, which means that people’s subjective confidence exceeds their actual ability or performance (Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1977). In some cases, there is also evidence for underconfidence, suggesting that people underestimate their abilities (Kruger & Dunning, 1999; Kruger & Burrus, 2004). Gender is an important predictor of the confidence bias. Underconfidence is more prevalent in females, whereas males often display overconfidence (e.g., Barber & Odean, 2001; Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2014; Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007). In Study 1, I investigated the processes underlying confidence judgments and the confidence bias by means of response times, and I examined potential gender differences.
Participants answered general knowledge questions and judged their confidence on the correctness of each answer. Participants had overall a good sense of whether their answer was correct or incorrect. This was reflected by higher confidence judgments on correct answers compared to incorrect ones. The analysis of response times on the confidence judgments revealed that male participants who took longer to judge their confidence were made more accurate judgments than males who responded quickly. This relationship was not found for females. In Study 2, half of the participants received a monetary incentive for good performance in the general knowledge test. The monetary incentive for performance increased the time invested in both tasks (the knowledge questions and the confidence judgments). However, this increased effort did not lead to better performance on the knowledge questions, nor did it yield more accurate confidence judgments. The response times suggested that males who invested more time in the confidence judgments were more accurate (as in Study 1). However, the opposite was true for females. The more time females invested in their judgment the more underconfident they were. This influence of the response time on the confidence bias was only found for incentivized participants. In Study 3, the accuracy of the confidence judgment was incentivized. Contrary to the expectations, the monetary incentive did not reduce the confidence bias but led both males and females to be overconfident. In this study, the response time on the confidence judgment did not predict the confidence bias. On the whole, the results demonstrate that (a) the processes of confidence judgments differ between females and males, and (b) the effectiveness of monetary incentives for improving the accuracy of confidence judgments depends strongly on the incentive being contingent on the performance in the task at hand.
The second chapter of the present dissertation investigated the influence of goal and implementation intentions (P. M. Gollwitzer, 1999) on rational decision making (see also Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2017). The impact of intentions was examined by the neural correlate of reinforcement learning, i.e. the feedback-related negativity (FRN; Holroyd & Coles, 2002). Participants worked on a probability updating task in which the optimal strategy to maximize the expected payoff was to follow Bayes’ rule by integrating new information with prior probabilities (Bayes & Price, 1763). The optimal decision rule conflicted with a simpler suboptimal decision strategy, i.e. the reinforcement heuristic (see Achtziger & Alós-Ferrer, 2014; Charness & Levin, 2005). The goal and implementation intention manipulation was proposed to control the automatic process of the reinforcement heuristic and hence foster rational decision making. The results showed that the goal intention and the implementation intention had no influence on the number of reinforcement errors (in contrast to the findings of Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2017). However, both, the goal and implementation intentions increased the amplitude of the FRN which, on the neural level, indicated a stronger reliance on the reinforcement heuristic than in the control group. The findings shed some light on the impact of goal and implementation intentions on rational decision making. They demonstrate that careful consideration of the use of intentions as an intervention for improved decision making is required to avoid undesired side-effects. Taken together, the present dissertation provided new insights into the processes underlying confidence judgments, the confidence bias, rational decision making, and its neural correlates.
