WEIGHTING AND TRIMMING - HEURISTICS FOR AGGREGATING JUDGMENTS UNDER UNCERTAINTY

In making major decisions (e.g., about medical treatment, acceptance o f manuscripts for publication, or investment), decision makers frequen tly poll the opinions and subjective estimates of other judges, The ag gregation of these opinions is often beset by difficulties, First, dec ision makers often encounter conflicting subjective estimates, Second, estimates are often expressed with a measure of uncertainty, The deci sion maker thus needs to reconcile inconsistencies among judgmental es timates and determine their influence on the overall aggregate judgmen t, In the empirical studies, I examine the idea that weighting and tri mming are two important heuristics in the aggregation of opinions unde r uncertainty, The results from these studies are contrasted with the findings of a normative study using a computer simulation that was des igned to assess the objective effects of weighting and trimming operat ions on the accuracy of estimation. (C) 1997 Academic Press.