Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information

Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information

Numerical performance information is increasingly important to political decision-making in the public sector. Some have suggested that biases in citizens' processing of numerical information can be exploited by politicians to skew citizens' perception of performance. I report on an experi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Asmus Leth Olsen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Society for Judgment and Decision Making 2013-05-01
Series:Judgment and Decision Making
Subjects:
leftmost-digit-bias
cognitive biases
performance information.NAKeywords
Online Access:http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121112/jdm121112.pdf
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spelling doaj-9ccd6abb4ff742118c4d6bf787809dbf2021-05-02T02:40:49ZengSociety for Judgment and Decision MakingJudgment and Decision Making1930-29752013-05-0183365371Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance informationAsmus Leth OlsenNumerical performance information is increasingly important to political decision-making in the public sector. Some have suggested that biases in citizens' processing of numerical information can be exploited by politicians to skew citizens' perception of performance. I report on an experiment on how citizens evaluate numerical performance information from a public school context. The experiment is conducted with a large and diverse sample of the Danish population (N=1156). The analysis shows a strong leftmost-digit-bias in citizens' evaluation of school grading information. Thus, very small changes in reported average grades, which happen to shift the leftmost grade digit, can lead to very large shifts in citizens' evaluation of performance. The rightmost digit on the grade is almost fully ignored.http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121112/jdm121112.pdfleftmost-digit-biascognitive biasesperformance information.NAKeywords
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Asmus Leth Olsen
spellingShingle Asmus Leth Olsen
Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
Judgment and Decision Making
leftmost-digit-bias
cognitive biases
performance information.NAKeywords
author_facet Asmus Leth Olsen
author_sort Asmus Leth Olsen
title Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
title_short Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
title_full Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
title_fullStr Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
title_full_unstemmed Leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? An experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
title_sort leftmost-digit-bias in an enumerated public sector? an experiment on citizens' judgment of performance information
publisher Society for Judgment and Decision Making
series Judgment and Decision Making
issn 1930-2975
publishDate 2013-05-01
description Numerical performance information is increasingly important to political decision-making in the public sector. Some have suggested that biases in citizens' processing of numerical information can be exploited by politicians to skew citizens' perception of performance. I report on an experiment on how citizens evaluate numerical performance information from a public school context. The experiment is conducted with a large and diverse sample of the Danish population (N=1156). The analysis shows a strong leftmost-digit-bias in citizens' evaluation of school grading information. Thus, very small changes in reported average grades, which happen to shift the leftmost grade digit, can lead to very large shifts in citizens' evaluation of performance. The rightmost digit on the grade is almost fully ignored.
topic leftmost-digit-bias
cognitive biases
performance information.NAKeywords
url http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121112/jdm121112.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT asmusletholsen leftmostdigitbiasinanenumeratedpublicsectoranexperimentoncitizensjudgmentofperformanceinformation
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