Confidence matching in group decision-making

Dan Bang; Laurence Aitchison; Rani Moran; Santiago Herce Castanon; Banafsheh Rafiee; Ali Mahmoodi; Jennifer Y.F. Lau; Peter E. Latham; Bahador Bahrami; Christopher Summerfield

doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0117

Confidence matching in group decision-making

Dan Bang, Laurence Aitchison, Rani Moran, Santiago Herce Castanon, Banafsheh Rafiee, Ali Mahmoodi, Jennifer Y.F. Lau, Peter E. Latham, Bahador Bahrami, Christopher Summerfield

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

76 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Most important decisions in our society are made by groups, from cabinets and commissions to boards and juries. When disagreement arises, opinions expressed with higher confidence tend to carry more weight 1,2. Although an individual's degree of confidence often reflects the probability that their opinion is correct 3,4, it can also vary with task-irrelevant psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors 5-9. Therefore, to combine their opinions optimally, group members must adapt to each other's individual biases and express their confidence according to a common metric 10-12. However, solving this communication problem is computationally difficult. Here we show that pairs of individuals making group decisions meet this challenge by using a heuristic strategy that we call 'confidence matching': They match their communicated confidence so that certainty and uncertainty is stated in approximately equal measure by each party. Combining the behavioural data with computational modelling, we show that this strategy is effective when group members have similar levels of expertise, and that it is robust when group members have no insight into their relative levels of expertise. Confidence matching is, however, sub-optimal and can cause miscommunication about who is more likely to be correct. This herding behaviour is one reason why groups can fail to make good decisions 10-12.

Original language	English
Journal	Nature Human Behaviour
Volume	1
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0117
Publication status	Published - 26 May 2017

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title = "Confidence matching in group decision-making",

abstract = "Most important decisions in our society are made by groups, from cabinets and commissions to boards and juries. When disagreement arises, opinions expressed with higher confidence tend to carry more weight 1,2. Although an individual's degree of confidence often reflects the probability that their opinion is correct 3,4, it can also vary with task-irrelevant psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors 5-9. Therefore, to combine their opinions optimally, group members must adapt to each other's individual biases and express their confidence according to a common metric 10-12. However, solving this communication problem is computationally difficult. Here we show that pairs of individuals making group decisions meet this challenge by using a heuristic strategy that we call 'confidence matching': They match their communicated confidence so that certainty and uncertainty is stated in approximately equal measure by each party. Combining the behavioural data with computational modelling, we show that this strategy is effective when group members have similar levels of expertise, and that it is robust when group members have no insight into their relative levels of expertise. Confidence matching is, however, sub-optimal and can cause miscommunication about who is more likely to be correct. This herding behaviour is one reason why groups can fail to make good decisions 10-12.",

author = "Dan Bang and Laurence Aitchison and Rani Moran and {Herce Castanon}, Santiago and Banafsheh Rafiee and Ali Mahmoodi and Lau, {Jennifer Y.F.} and Latham, {Peter E.} and Bahador Bahrami and Christopher Summerfield",

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AU - Aitchison, Laurence

AU - Moran, Rani

AU - Herce Castanon, Santiago

AU - Rafiee, Banafsheh

AU - Mahmoodi, Ali

AU - Lau, Jennifer Y.F.

AU - Latham, Peter E.

AU - Bahrami, Bahador

AU - Summerfield, Christopher

PY - 2017/5/26

Y1 - 2017/5/26

N2 - Most important decisions in our society are made by groups, from cabinets and commissions to boards and juries. When disagreement arises, opinions expressed with higher confidence tend to carry more weight 1,2. Although an individual's degree of confidence often reflects the probability that their opinion is correct 3,4, it can also vary with task-irrelevant psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors 5-9. Therefore, to combine their opinions optimally, group members must adapt to each other's individual biases and express their confidence according to a common metric 10-12. However, solving this communication problem is computationally difficult. Here we show that pairs of individuals making group decisions meet this challenge by using a heuristic strategy that we call 'confidence matching': They match their communicated confidence so that certainty and uncertainty is stated in approximately equal measure by each party. Combining the behavioural data with computational modelling, we show that this strategy is effective when group members have similar levels of expertise, and that it is robust when group members have no insight into their relative levels of expertise. Confidence matching is, however, sub-optimal and can cause miscommunication about who is more likely to be correct. This herding behaviour is one reason why groups can fail to make good decisions 10-12.

AB - Most important decisions in our society are made by groups, from cabinets and commissions to boards and juries. When disagreement arises, opinions expressed with higher confidence tend to carry more weight 1,2. Although an individual's degree of confidence often reflects the probability that their opinion is correct 3,4, it can also vary with task-irrelevant psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors 5-9. Therefore, to combine their opinions optimally, group members must adapt to each other's individual biases and express their confidence according to a common metric 10-12. However, solving this communication problem is computationally difficult. Here we show that pairs of individuals making group decisions meet this challenge by using a heuristic strategy that we call 'confidence matching': They match their communicated confidence so that certainty and uncertainty is stated in approximately equal measure by each party. Combining the behavioural data with computational modelling, we show that this strategy is effective when group members have similar levels of expertise, and that it is robust when group members have no insight into their relative levels of expertise. Confidence matching is, however, sub-optimal and can cause miscommunication about who is more likely to be correct. This herding behaviour is one reason why groups can fail to make good decisions 10-12.

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Confidence matching in group decision-making

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