Outcome effects: The impact of decision process and outcome controllability

✍ Scribed by Hun-Tong Tan; Marlys Gascho Lipe

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 159 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3257
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0771(199712)10:4<315::aid-bdm257>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

An `outcome eect' refers to the phenomenon whereby performance evaluations of decision makers are aected by the outcomes of those decisions. Although some consider such an eect to be a judgmental error, judgment by outcomes may not be dysfunctional when the evaluator does not know how the decision maker chose his or her action. In such situations, outcomes may provide some noisy information about decision quality. We test whether an outcome eect will still occur when the decision methodology and quality are more explicitly identi-®ed. Further, we test whether outcome controllability, a previously unexplored moderator variable, will have an impact on the outcome eect. Our ®rst experiment, using undergraduates as subjects, shows that decision quality and controllability have an impact on performance evaluations but that the ubiquitous outcome eect still obtains. These results were replicated with experienced business people, except that controllability only aected their judgments in the case of negative outcomes. Implications of these results are discussed.