Research
Current research
PhD thesis: Public policy and changing preferences
According to preference utilitarianism, a good public policy is one that fulfill's people's preferences. However, preferences are not stable, and in particular they may be influeced by the public policy itself, once it is implemented.
How should this fact be integrated into the choice between different public policies? How do subjects think about changing preferences? Are all preferences equal, or are some better than others? If ambition rises along with living standard, has well-being risen? The full proposal is here.
Patient acceptance of decision aids
With Jon Baron, I am currently working on research investigating the patient's perspective in the use of medical decision aids. Research has shown that the use of computerized decision aids, combining information and comparing it to existing data, improves medical decision making. However, many physicians are reluctant to use such aids (as are experts in other fields). If they do use such devices, they make exceptions to the formula's prediction, and these exceptions generally reduce the quality of their decision making. My studies investigate the perspective of those ultimately affected by the decision, patients who rely on expert medical advice. We investigate how much patients would trust decision aids, if they would trust physicians who use them, and if not, why not?
One reason that we are investigating is that patients may be reluctant to assume responsibility for their medical decisions, and would rather have someone else to carry the responsibility, and especially someone else to blame for a bad outcome. Maybe a human is seen as capable of carrying such responsibility, but not a machine. Then, the reluctance to assume responsibility would be a motivation to follow the recommendation when the recommender is human, but it would be a lesser motivation to follow the recommendation when it comes from a computer program.
We are also planning to extend this research into further domains, such as decisions about hiring employees or granting loans. A general question is whether, and how, acceptance of such decision aids can be improved. Subject payment is funded through the Russell Sage Foundation; the grant proposal is here.
Publications
Journal papers
- Promberger, M., & Baron, J. (2006). Do patients trust computers? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, (special issue in memory of Paul Meehl, edited by O. Morera and R. Dawes), 19, 455-468.
Conference papers
- Promberger, M. (June, 2006). Public policy and changing preferences. Paper presented at FUR XII at LUISS in Rome.
- Promberger, M., & Baron, J. (June, 2006). Patients' trust in computers vs. physicians. Poster presented at the conference ``Advice and Trust in Decision Making'' at University College London.
- Promberger, M., & Baron, J. (November, 2005). Do patients trust computers? Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.
Last modified: Fri Nov 23 15:31:03 GMT 2007