Decision Science News

THE SOCIAL LEARNING STRATEGIES TOURNAMENT

Kevin Laland and Luke Rendell have received funding from the European Commission to organize a major international multi-disciplinary tournament on the evolution of social learning, inspired by Robert Axelrod’s famous Prisoner’s Dilemma tournaments on the evolution of cooperation.

In recent years there has been a lot of interest (spanning several research fields, but especially economics, anthropology, and biology) in the problem of how best to acquire valuable information from others. Mathematical and computational solutions to this problem are starting to emerge, often using game-theoretical approaches. We feel the time is right for such a tournament, a sentiment shared by leading researchers in the field who are enthusiastic about this project. We have set up a committee of world-leading scientists as experts to help us design the tournament (Rob Boyd, Marc Feldman, Magnus Enquist, Kimmo Erikkson) and other leading authorities in this area of science, including Axelrod, have been advising us.

In the competition, entrants will submit behavioural strategies detailing how to respond to the problem of resource gain in a complex, variable environment in terms of combinations of individual and social learning. Where social learning is involved, entrants will be required to specify effective rules (e.g. conform, imitate the most successful individual, copy in proportion to each demonstrator’s payoff, copy when dissatisfied, etc). Entered strategies will be evaluated in two stages, with good performers in pair-wise contests going forward to an all-against-all melee. The author(s) of the strategy that performs best overall will be presented with a cash prize of 10,000 euros at the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Society meeting, in St. Andrews, U.K. in April 2009.

The competition is now running, and has a closing date of June 30 2008 and active website: http://www.intercult.su.se/cultaptation/tournament.php

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=170030408

RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN COGNITION AND DECISION MAKING AT MAX PLANCK – BERLIN

Decision Science News got its start at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition in Berlin, Germany and can attest that it is one of the sweetest, if not the sweetest, research posts on the planet. All research, no teaching, and next to zero admin. The rank is equivalent to assistant professor. The well-heeled institute pays for all travel and research costs. The support staff to faculty ratio is incredibly high. In addition, Berlin speaks English, has great nightlife, and sits between Eastern and Western Europe.

The Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, under the direction of Gerd Gigerenzer, is seeking applicants for a research scientist position equivalent to an assistant professor. The position is for 6 years (renewable every 2 years) beginning August 2008, but earlier or later start dates are possible. Salary depends on experience. Candidates must have a PhD. Except for mentoring doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows, there are no teaching requirements.

Candidates should be interested in studying the cognitive mechanisms underlying bounded, social, and ecological rationality in real-world domains. Current and past researchers in our group have backgrounds in psychology, cognitive science, economics, mathematics, biology, and computer science to name but a few. The center provides excellent resources, including support staff and equipment for conducting experiments and computer simulations, generous travel support for conferences, and, most importantly, the time to think.

For more information about our group please visit our homepage at www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/abc or write researchscientist2008 (at) mpib-berlin.mpg.de. The working language of the center is English, and knowledge of German is not necessary for living in Berlin and enjoying the active life and cultural riches of this city. We strongly encourage applications from women, and members of minority groups. The Max Planck Society is committed to employing more individuals with disabilities and especially encourages them to apply.

Please submit applications (consisting of a cover letter describing research interests, curriculum vitae, up to five reprints, and 3 letters of recommendation) by January 21st 2008 to ensure consideration. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. The preferred method of submission is a single PDF file for the cover letter and CV, plus PDF copies of the reprints e-mailed to researchscientist2008 (at) mpib-berlin.mpg.de. Alternatively, they can be mailed to Ms. Wiebke Moeller, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany. Letters of recommendation can be emailed or mailed.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=314832330

CAN PSYCHOLOGISTS HELP DOCTORS MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?

Gerd Gigerenzer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, has a piece in this month’s APA Observer about helping physicians understand screening tests.

Some choice quotes:

Medical doctors tend to think of psychologists as therapists, useful for emotionally disturbed patients, but not for members of their own trade. Research on transparent risk communication is beginning to change that view, however.

As a young researcher, I was struck by a study conducted by David Eddy, now Senior Advisor for Health Policy and Management at Kaiser Permanente. He asked American physicians to estimate the probability that a woman had breast cancer given a positive screening mammogram and provided them with the relevant information: a base rate of 1 percent, a sensitivity of 80 percent, and a false-positive rate of 9.6 percent. Approximately 95 out of 100 physicians wrongly reckoned this probability to be around 75 percent, whereas the correct answer is 7.7 percent (Eddy, 1982). Eddy concluded that many physicians make major errors in statistical thinking that threaten the quality of medical care.

How could doctors not have known the answer? Even if some of the doctors tested were “mathematically challenged,” they should already have known that only about one in 10 women with a positive screening mammogram has cancer. Mammography is one of the most frequently tested medical procedures, with widely published results about its accuracy. But most doctors don’t have the time to read medical journals, and few women know that a positive mammogram is like an activated car alarm — usually a false call. As a result, millions of women who test positive every year are unnecessarily frightened.

Gigerenzer points out that “relative risk reduction” is a much-bandied-about, little-understood way to present information.

Another numerical representation that tends to cloud doctors’ minds is relative risk. We read that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying of breast cancer by 25 percent. Many people believe this to mean that the lives of 250 out of 1,000 women are saved, whereas a group of Swiss gynecologists’ interpretations varied between one in 1,000 and 750 in 1,000! How large is the actual benefit? Randomized trials showed that, out of 1,000 women not screened, four died of breast cancer within about 10 years, whereas among those who were screened, three died. Thus, the absolute risk reduction is one out of 1,000 women, or 0.1 percent, whereas the relative risk reduction is 25 percent. In a representative 2006 survey of 1,000 German citizens, I found that hardly anyone understands what the 25 percent means. Other sources of confusion are single-event probabilities and five-year survival rates.

Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=362184895&size=m

DEC 2007 SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED

Society for Judgment and Decision Making Newsletter Editor Dan Goldstein reports that the final SJDM newsletter of 2007 is ready for download and that it is packed full of conference announcements and job opportunities, especially postdocs.

http://www.sjdm.org/files/newsletters/07-dec.pdf

Enjoy!

LAST CALL FOR 2007

The Society for Judgment and Decision-Making Newsletter, if you are not familiar with it, is a great place to go to learn about jobs, conferences, and ideas in the psychological study of decision making. Back issues here.

The next issue of the Newsletter (to be issued by year’s end) is accepting submissions, for example:

* Conference, workshop, summer institute announcements (with deadlines after early January)
* Prize announcements
* Essays (< 500 words)
* Book reviews
* Job postings
* Photos
* Haiku
* Links to Web sites
* Other topics of interest to Society members

Please send submissions as plain text or common word processor formats to editor Dan Goldstein (dan at dangoldstein dot com)

JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING AT SPSP, ALBUQUERQUE, NM, 2008

The Society for Personality and Social Psychology will again this year host a host of preconferences, including one on the world’s greatest topic, judgment and decision making (JDM). The program features some fine speakers:

Sheena Iyengar
Nicholas Epley
Jennifer Aaker
Alexander Todorov
David Dunning
Jennifer Beer
Lee Ross
Barbara Fredrickson

…and is organized by the team of Ayelet Fishbach, Peter McGraw, Neal Roese, and Kelly See.

Visit the SPSP 2008 JDM Preconference Web Site

MANAGEMENT PROFESSORSHIPS AT DUKE’S FUQUA SCHOOL

Decision Science News has the utmost respect for Duke and its many great JDMers such as Soll, Larrick, Ariely, Payne, Clemen, Fitzsimons and more.

The Management and Organizations Area at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University is seeking tenure-track faculty for Fall 2008 appointment. We will consider candidates at all levels, but are especially seeking appointments at the associate, full or chair level. We are interested in candidates who have research and teaching strength in topics such as decision making, teams, trust, justice, and organizational issues. We are also seeking faculty at the Full or Chair level with specialties relevant to leadership and/or ethics. Applicants should (depending upon level) demonstrate achievement of, or potential for, excellence in research and in teaching fulltime MBA and executive MBA students. Accomplished academic background in psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, organizational theory, or related fields is required.

The Management and Organizations Area at the Fuqua School of Business: The Management and Organizations Area and the Fuqua School as a whole have an excellent, growing faculty that undertakes its research and teaching activities throughout the world. The tenure-track members of the Management and Organizations area include Jonathon Cummings, Greg Fischer, Rick Larrick, Allan Lind, Patty Linville, John Payne, Ashleigh Rosette, Blair Sheppard, Sim Sitkin, Jack Soll, Kimberly Wade-Benzoni. Two Research Centers – The Center on Leadership and Ethics (COLE) and the Center on Decision Research — are led by our faculty. Faculty are also involved in our centers involving International Business, Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Health Sector Management, and Environmental Issues. We enjoy many ties to scholars throughout the school and across Duke University. As a result, Fuqua provides a rich personal and intellectual environment. Fuqua’s web page provides links throughout our school, university, and communities (www.fuqua.duke.edu).

Community : The “Triangle” area of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and surrounding communities is a wonderful place, frequently cited as one of the best places in the United States to live. Our region in North Carolina is one of the fastest growing and most dynamics parts of the U.S., with an outstanding variety of arts, social, recreational, educational, and intellectual opportunities.

Research Environment : We have a supportive research culture that is driven by the goal of outstanding scholarship, at all levels of the faculty. The research environment is rich with opportunities for field research in addition to larger sample empirical work. Many local and global organizations have key locations at Research Triangle Park and elsewhere in the Triangle area, and there are many opportunities for Fuqua faculty members to conduct research at dynamic companies and social organizations. In addition, our strong Executive Education and multi-faceted MBA degree programs provide many opportunities to link with companies throughout the world. The school provides faculty members with strong research support, including summer research funding, research assistants from our doctoral programs, world-class colleagues in departments and schools throughout Duke University, and strong linkages with outstanding faculty members and doctoral students at UNC-Chapel Hill and other nearby universities.

Teaching : Our teaching environment is innovative and exciting. The Fuqua School has five MBA degree programs, plus extensive open-enrollment Executive Education and Corporate Education programs. Faculty members generally teach in the programs that most interest them. Business Week, the Financial Times, and other business publications have ranked our programs among the top in the world in recent years. Management teaching plays a central role in all our programs and there is ample room for developing new courses and modules in any program.

Interested candidates should send a vita, letter of application, three letters of recommendation, and representative samples of research (publications, working papers, or dissertation proposals). We will start reviewing applications on December 3, 2007.

Applications must be submitted electronically:

http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/areas/management/managementrecruit.html
Recruiting Coordinator: Beverly James, Management Area Recruiting Coordinator, Fuqua School of Business, Box 90120 , Duke University , Durham , North Carolina , USA , 27708.

Duke University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer

SJDM ELECTS NEXT PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER

The results of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making elections are in:

• The newly elected president is Dan Ariely.

• The newly elected executive board member is Dan Goldstein.

Though this suggests conspiracy, we will remind readers that a recent analysis of the SJDM member directory (p. 7) found the most common SJDM first name to be, you guessed it, Daniel.

At of the recent conference, Jon Baron handed over the presidency to Michael Birnbaum who will serve until Dan Ariely takes over in Fall 2008.

2008 SUMMER INSTITUTE IN INFORMED PATIENT CHOICE

Patients make decisions about a matter that is very important to them, their health. New findings on the representation of information can improve decision making, and new tools, such as the Distribution Builder put these findings to work. It is a bright new era of informed patient choice. This coming summer, try to catch Dartmouth’s summer institute on the topic.

Interprofessional Education in Decision Support
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
June 25 – July 2, 2008

The Background Motivation for SIIPC 2008:
• Patient-centered care could be improved if the different members of multidisciplinary health care teams can work together in providing high-quality Decision Support /Patients’ Decision Aids (DS/PtDAs).
• Therefore, we need to develop, test, and implement effective, sustainable interprofessional training programs to teach DS/PtDAs as a clinical skill.
• To do this well, we need to build collaborative links between experts in DS / PtDAs and experts in inter-professional education.

The SIIPC 2008 Format:
Throughout the week, 12 Faculty & 70 selected Fellows will:
• Identify promising theories, methods, and outcomes evidence for designing educational programs for effective interprofessional training in the clinical practice of DS /PtDAs.
• Compare different models for implementing interprofessional clinical training programs in DS/PtDAs.
• Debate whether there’s a need to certify clinicians in the practice of DS/PtDAs, and, if so, identify the key principles for establishing a sustainable process for certification.
• Develop collaborative links among scientists who are prepared to investigate key basic and applied problems in the field of interprofessional education about the clinical practice of DS/DAs.
This discussion, debate, and exploration will take place in lectures, in small workgroups, and in interactive electronically-supported research “labs”.

Applying for a Summer Institute Fellowship
For application forms and information about the submission process, visit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cecs/cic/2008/index.html and click on “Applications”
The application deadline is January 15, 2008. Applicants’ submissions will be reviewed by the Planning Committee. Selected Fellows will be notified in April, 2008. Fellows will be provided with housing on the Dartmouth campus, some meals, and course materials.

Supported By:
The Center for Informed Choice at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice The Agency for Health Care Research and Quality.*

*Funding for this conference was made possible in part by 1R13HS017378-01 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

OBHDP CALL FOR PAPERS: CONNECTING BIOLOGY AND BUSINESS

The journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes has always been a home for research in Judgment and Decision Making, and its editorial board comprises quite a few of its scholars. Guest editors Colin Camerer, Drazen Prelec, and Scott Shane are announcing an exciting call for papers on the biological bases of business.

“In recent years, researchers have begun to use biological methods to examine issues related to business. Studies have looked at such topics as the role of genetic factors in leadership, entrepreneurship, and job satisfaction; the role of neural circuits in purchasing decisions, investment behavior, and response to financial reward; the effect of hormones on occupational choice, managerial decisions, and risk taking; the physiological effects on employees of workplace stress, organizational reward systems, and leadership styles; and the biological basis of key managerial issues such as strategic responses in competitive situations; the drive for power; and reputation.

This research has generated some fascinating findings. For instance, we now know that there is a genetic component to leadership. We also know that different parts of the neural system are stimulated by immediate and delayed financial reward. And we know that hormones affect occupational choice. While these are only a few illustrative examples of what studies of the biological basis of business have taught us, most management researchers know little about these findings. Much of the research in this vein has been published in journals that management scholars do not routinely follow, and the different studies themselves have been isolated from one another, making it difficult to see the cumulative set of findings and their effect on management unless scholars systematically look for it. We believe that the time is right to bring the biological basis of business to the attention of the mainstream of the management research community.

Our goal in this special research forum is simple, but also broad. We seek to understand how human biology affects business-related behavior. Therefore, we invite papers that examine any aspect of this topic. Our aims are threefold:
• First, we aim to bring together research that examines how biological factors affect different areas of management from organization behavior to entrepreneurship to business strategy to financial decision making to marketing. We believe that the phenomenon orientation of management research often leads researchers examining similar theoretical issues in different areas of business study to fail to connect their work. By organizing a special issue around the theme of biology rather than around different business topics as is often the case in management research, we hope to bring together the findings in disparate areas in a way that illuminates the power of the theme.
• Second, we hope to link together research that takes fundamentally different approaches to examine the biological basis of business. For instance, we want to bring together researchers who conduct behavioral genetics studies with those examining the physiology of emotion and those who use brain imaging to examine brain imaging because we believe that by putting papers from these different perspectives together will help to stimulate thought about the connections between them. These connections are important, we believe, because a biological basis of business will ultimately need to collect all of these pieces into a coherent and related whole.
• Third, we seek to bring to the attention of the academic community in management the widespread research that has been conducted to examine the biological basis of business, both to introduce additional researchers to the methodologies used in this area, to show the important stylized facts that have been collected, and to demonstrate the evidence for theoretical arguments that have been amassed to date.
Because the domain of this research forum is very broad – the examination of any aspect of biology on any aspect of business – we expect that researchers will identify a number of research questions that we have not thought of. However, in the interest of suggesting ideas, prospective contributors may wish to consider (but are certainly not limited to) the following research questions: Is there a biological component to risk taking? If so, what is it? Do hormones affect occupational choice? If so, how? Are there physiological differences between entrepreneurs and/or managers and the rest of the population? If so, what are they? What parts of the brain are used to make different types of managerial decisions? How does brain function affect decisions in organizations? How do emotions affect decision making? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie key organizational issues such as conformity to authority, creativity and innovation, planning, among other things? What is the biological basis of such things as wishful thinking and organizational sense-making? How does brain function lead to anomalies in intertemporal choice? How does advertising tap brain circuitry for desire and reward? Is there a genetic basis for entrepreneurship, creativity and/or innovation? What are the physiological reactions to work environments and how do they affect organizational behavior? What are the physiological effects of different organizational reward mechanisms, such as money, recognition, and power? How do managerial actions affect hormone release? Are reputations, preferences for organizations, and organizational networks, among other things, encoded dopaminergenically? How does the neural system affect investment behavior?
Timeline
Submissions are due no later than june 30, 2008. The editors will select papers to be presented at a conference to take place at Case Western Reserve university on october 20-21, 2008 from among the submissions. The travel and accommodation expenses for one author will be paid for by the conference organizers. The papers presented at the conference will then go through the refereeing process. A subset of the papers presented at the conference will be published in a special issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
For additional information
For additional information about the conference or special issue, please contact scott shane at scott.shane at case.edu, or 216-368-5538. Submissions should be sent electronically to Scott Shane.”

Photo credit: Center for the Study of Neuroeconomics at George Mason University