Taking advice, using information and knowing what you are doing

Subjective descriptions of judgment policies have been found to be imperfec t. This could be because subjective weights are obtained on just a single o ccasion after all judgments have been completed. It could also be because p eople have tended to state their perception of an ideal way of responding r ather than their perception of how they actually responded. Finally, it cou ld be because they experience difficulty in relating variation in stimulus dimensions to variation in quite different response dimensions. In our task , people made sales forecasts on the basis of four pieces of information, T hey also stated the weight they placed on each one and the weight they shou ld have placed on it. The means of weights stated on each trial were more a ppropriate than those stated at the end of all trials. Stated actual weight s were very similar to stated ideal weights. Weights were more appropriate when forecasts and cues varied along the same dimension than when they did not. Thus, our results are consistent with the view that all three factors affect people's ability to provide subjective descriptions of their judgmen t policies. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved. PsyscINFO c lassification: 2340.