S. Devries et Ham. Wilke, AN ADVISER IN RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT SITUATIONS - CONFIGURAL WEIGHING OFRECOMMENDATIONS, Journal of economic psychology, 16(1), 1995, pp. 115-135
The major aim of the present study is to investigate how an adviser's
recommendations affect the behavior of actors in resource management s
ituations. Some real-life examples of resource management situations a
re: fishing the seas and water consumption in a period of draught. In
previous research (see Messick and Brewer, 1983) it was found that, wh
en the situation had a social dilemma character, subjects deviated fro
m the optimal collective harvest in a greedy or self-advantageous way.
However, it was not always clear what was the optimal amount to harve
st as a collective. Therefore, the biases may have been due to self-ad
vantageously biased estimates of this optimum, rather than to a total
disregard of the collective interest. In that case, an adviser might b
e able to reduce these biases. However, based on a study by Birnbaum a
nd Stegner (1979), we predicted that compliance with recommendations w
ould be biased in the same direction as intended behavior before advic
e was given. In two studies, employing resource management settings, w
e found support for this prediction.