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The stochastic difference model assumes that decision makers trade normalized attribute value differences when making choices. The model is stochastic, with choice probabilities depending on the normalized difference variable, d, and a decision threshold, delta. The decision threshold indexes a person's sensitivity to attribute value differences and is a free estimated parameter of the model. Depending on the choice context, a person may be more or less sensitive to attribute value differences, and hence delta may be used to measure context effects. With proportional difference used as the normalization, the proportional difference model (PD) was tested with 9 data sets, including published data (e.g., J. L. Myers, M. M. Suydam, & B. Gambino, 1965; A. Tversky, 1969). The model accounted for individual and group data well and described violations of stochastic dominance, independence, and weak and strong stochastic transitivity.

This article presents a stochastic judgment model (SJM) as a framework for addressing a wide range of issues in statement verification and probability judgment. The SJM distinguishes between covert confidence in the truth of a proposition and the selection of an overt response. A series of experiments demonstrated the model's validity and yielded new results: Binary true-false responses were biased toward true relative to underlying judgment. Underlying judgment was also biased in that direction. Also, in a domain about which Ss had some knowledge, they discriminated true and false statements better when they compared complementary pairs before judging individual statements than when they performed those tasks in the opposite order. The authors interpret the results in terms of the SJM and discuss them with respect to implications for theories of statement verification and for research on the accuracy of probability judgments.Two central and closely related aspects of thinking are to search one's knowledge and to assess one's confidence that a proposition is or will be true, but the relevant research literature is disjointed. One segment focuses primarily on memorial factors in such tasks (e.g., Bacon, 1979;Begg & Armour, 1991;Begg, Armour, & Kerr, 1985; Hasher, Goldstein, & Topino, 1911), and the other focuses primarily on the accuracy of probability judgments (reviewed recently by Keren, 1991; see also Wallsten, Budescu, & Zwick, 1993). Between these two extremes is research on feeling-of-knowing (recently reviewed by Nelson & Narens, 1990), which tends to integrate the two sets of issues by simultaneously assessing subjects' strategies for searching memory and the accuracy of their consequent judgments. Our goal is also one of integration, but rather than focusing on strategies for knowledge search, we develop a model that distinguishes covert degree of confidence from overt responding. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a framework for quantitatively testing hypotheses about the cognitive processes of knowledge search, judgment, and response selection, and ultimately for relating these processes to questions of judgmental accuracy at the level of individual subjects.We created the stochastic judgment model (SJM) in response to paradoxical judgment data, but it provides the means for addressing a wide range of issues. In the first part of this article, we describe two experiments that in light of results by Wallsten et al. (1993) motivated the model. Next, we develop the SJM

Department store chains use advertised price reductions as a major promotional tool to attract consumers to their stores. In advertising discounts, retailers typically use price claims that vary on two key dimensions. First, discounts may be specified either precisely (e.g., 60% off) or with nonspecific () information as in a range of discounts (e.g., 50–70% off). Second, discounts may be offered on an entire group (e.g., Sale on “All” items) or on a subset of an advertised group of items (e.g., “Save 50–70% on items marked with a yellow dot”—only items marked with a yellow dot qualify for the discount). Our objective in this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to understand how consumers respond to tensile versus precise claims on a group of advertised items for different price image stores. Using a series of three experimental studies, we identify key variables that consumers use informing an overall valuation of an advertised sale offer using a tensile versus a precise price claim. The studies also help us to link characteristics of the advertisement and the advertising store to the variables that affect a consumer's valuation of a sale offer using such claims. Consequently, we are not only able to obtain an understanding of a consumer's judgment process, but are also able to provide insights on how to design effective price claims by using variables that are under the retailer's control. We propose that consumers' valuation of an advertised sale offer depends on their subjective assessments about the probability with which they will find a desirable item at a discounted price (called ), the size of that discount (called ), and the probability of liking the sale item. In Experiment 1, we hold the probability of liking the sale item (all sale items are identical) and collect data from consumer responses to price advertisements to determine how consumer assessments of subjective probability and subjective discount depend on the type of price claim (precise versus tensile) used, the advertised level of discount, and the fraction of stock to be on sale. Our results show that when the fraction of stock specified to be on sale is low (high), consumers responding to a tensile claim are optimistic (pessimistic) about the discount they believe they will get, expecting a subjective discount greater (smaller) than the midpoint of the tensile range. Correspondingly, in responding to a precise claim, consumers expect a subjective discount equal to the advertised discount. There is also no difference in the subjective probability assessed for tensile and precise claims. Consequently, when the fraction of stock on sale is low (high) advertised deals with tensile claims are perceived to be more (less) attractive than with precise claims. In Experiment 2 we examine the real-world case of consumer responses to price advertisements from two stores (that differ in price image) in which the fraction of items on sale is not specified but needs to be and advertised sale items are comprised of three brands differing in quality...

Based on Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT) and a series of experimental and correlational studies, Dijksterhuis and his colleagues conclude that when making complex choices/decisions, conscious thought—deliberation while attention is directed at the problem—leads to poorer choices/decisions than “unconscious thought”—deliberation in the absence of conscious attention directed at the problem. UTT comprises six principles said to apply to decision making, impression formation, attitude formation and change, problem solving, and creativity. Because the implications of UTT for psychological research and theory are considerable, the authors critically examined these six principles (and the studies used to support them) in light of the extant scholarship on unconscious processes, memory, attention, and social cognition. Our examination reveals that UTT is a theory of the unconscious that fails to take into account important work in cognitive psychology, particularly in the judgment and decision making area. Moreover, established literatures in social psychology that contradict fundamental tenets of UTT and its empirical basis are ignored. The authors conclude that theoretical and experimental deficiencies undermine the claims of the superiority of unconscious thinking as portrayed by UTT.