The Effects Of Task Features And Decision Rules On Preference Reversal In Group Decision Making

Slovic and Lichtenstei(1971) found that there was a systematic divergence between prices of lotteries and subjects' expressed preference for playing the respective lotteries. That is ,subjects tended to choose 'p-bet',i.e., a bet with a high probability of winning a modest amount and a low probability of losing an even more modest amount, but to set higher selling price for '$-bet', i.e., a bet with a modest probability of winning a large amount and a large probability of losing a modest amount. This phenomenon is called preference reversal. Preference reversal was confirmed to widely exist in the economic behaviors.Most of the researches on preference reversal were on individual . The present research investigated this preference reversal phenomenon in groups in a hiring decision task. The study explored a particular elicitation effect ,choice versus matching preference reversal, for decisions with weight or no weight task features, majority or unanimity decision rules. It also explored the effect of confidence on preference reversal.Results revealed that task features could affect preference reversal and decision rules did not affect group preference reversal. The difference between individual and group was significant .The effect of confidence on preference reversal wasn't significant.