University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Judgment Processes in Motivation: Anchoring and Adjustment Effects on Judgment and Behavior

Switzer, Fred Smith, III

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Description

Title
Judgment Processes in Motivation: Anchoring and Adjustment Effects on Judgment and Behavior
Author(s)
Switzer, Fred Smith, III
Issue Date
1988
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Hulin, Charles
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Business Administration, Management
  • Psychology, Industrial
Abstract
  • Task motivation (i.e., the allocation of time and effort to a task) is an important behavioral domain that has received little attention from judgment and decision making researchers. However, in several theories of motivation, including expectancy theories and the theory of behavior in organizations proposed by Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980), judgments of contingent relations are primary components. Tversky and Kahneman (1974) and others have demonstrated that judgments are often made using heuristic decision processes. The characteristics of heuristic judgment processes were hypothesized to affect contingency judgments and thus allocations of time and effort.
  • The effects of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic upon judgments of expected performance and upon allocations of time and effort were examined. These effects were tested under various conditions that are characteristic of task environments including: (1) a dynamic and continuous decision task; (2) the presence of irrelevant information; (3) the availability of feedback; (4) the availability of other task-relevant information; and (5) assigned task goals.
  • The results indicated that both irrelevant and different kinds of relevant information have strong anchoring effects on performance judgments. Several measures of task-relevant and task-irrelevant behaviors indicated that these changes in judgment had no concomitant effects on behavior. Theoretical implications and some possible explanations of this judgment-behavior discrepancy are discussed.
Graduation Semester
1988
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/69722

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