Accounting and convincing: The effect of two types of justification on thedecision process

The effect of two types of justification pressure on the decision process w as investigated. Three groups of 15 subjects each had to choose the head of a corrective home for criminal adolescents out of six candidates, who were described on 16 attributes. Two groups worked under justification pressure : subjects in the Accounting group were informed that they had to explain t heir decision afterwards, subjects in the Convincing group that they had to convince the other members of the executive board to vote for their select ed candidate. From the third group, no justification was requested. It was found that justification pressure leads to a distinct increase in the amoun t of utilized information and to a more elaborate choice process, while the global decision heuristics do not seem to change. The two justification gr oups did not differ in the amount of information utilized, but the Convinci ng group employed a more elaborate process. This result shows that justific ation pressure is one of the task characteristics affecting the decision pr ocess, and proves that a latent justification pressure as assumed in some d ecision theories does not have the same effect as an explicit one. Copyrigh t (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.