People's motivations bias how they gather information

人类的动机会对其收集信息的方式有所影响

上海译锐翻译   2019-7-8     10:58 a.m.

A new study suggests people stop gathering evidence earlier when the data supports their desired conclusion than when it supports the conclusion they wish was false. Filip Gesiarz, Donal Cahill and Tali Sharot of University College London, U.K. report in PLOS Computational Biology.

英国伦敦大学学院的Filip Gesiarz、Donal Cahill和Tali Sharot在《公共科学图书馆计算生物学》发表了一篇新的论文。根据新的研究，当证据与人们所希望的结论相符时，他们便会更早停止收集证据。但是，当证据证明他们所希望的结论是不正确的时，他们就会继续收集证据。

Previous studies had already provided some clues that people gather less information before reaching desirable beliefs. For example, people are more likely to seek a second medical opinion when the first diagnosis is grave. However, certain design limitations of those studies prevented a definitive conclusion and the reasons behind this bias was previously unknown. By fitting people's behavior to a mathematical model Gesiarz and colleagues were able to identify the reasons for this bias.

此前的研究已经提供了一些线索，这些线索表明，人们在获得想要的结论前所收集的信息会更少。比如，当第一次诊断比较严重时，人们更有可能去寻找第二种医学观点。然而，这些研究中所存在的某些设计上的局限性防止形成一个具体的结论，而这一影响的原因在此前却属于未知数。通过将人类的行为与数学模型相匹配，Gesiarz和他的同事们能够发现这一影响背后的原因。

"Our research suggests that people start with an assumption that their favored conclusion is more likely true and weight each piece of evidence supporting it more than evidence opposing it. Because of that, people will find no need to gather additional information that could have revealed their conclusion to be false. They will stop the investigation as soon as the jury tilts in their favor" said Gesiarz.

Gesiarz表示：“我们的研究表明，人们会在一开始提供一个假设。根据这一假设，他们所希望的结论则更有可能是真实的。在这一假设中，和那些与结论背道而驰的证据相比，他们会重视每一条支持这一结论的证据。正因为如此，人们发现他们不需要收集更多可能会证明他们的结论是错误的信息。当陪审团将天平的一侧向赞成倾斜时，他们会立刻停止调查。”

In this new study 84 volunteers played an online categorization game in which they could gather as much evidence as they wanted to help them make judgements and were paid according to how accurate they were. In addition, if the evidence pointed to a certain category they would get bonus points and if it pointed to another category they would lose points. So while there was reason to wish the evidence pointed to a specific judgement, the only way for volunteers to maximize rewards was to provide accurate responses. Despite this, they found that the volunteers stopped gathering data earlier when it supported the conclusion they wished was true than when it supported the undesirable conclusion.

在这项新的研究中，84位志愿者要玩一款在线分类游戏。在这个游戏中，他们可以收集尽可能多的信息来进行判断，系统会根据这些判断的准确性对他们进行付款奖励。此外，如果证据指向某个类别，那么，志愿者可以获得奖励分。如果证据指向另外一个类别，则志愿者可能会失分。因此，尽管志愿者有理由希望证据指向一个具体的判断，但是志愿者获得最高奖励的唯一方法就是提供准确的回答。尽管如此，研究人员发现，当证据表明他们所期望的结论是真实的，那么他们就会提前停止收集信息。如果证据指向一个他们所不期望看到的结论，则他们会继续收集数据。

"Today, a limitless amount of information is available at the click of a mouse," Sharot says. "However, because people are likely to conduct less through searches when the first few hits provide desirable information, this wealth of data will not necessarily translate to more accurate beliefs."

Sharot表示：“今天，只要轻轻一点鼠标，就会有无数的信息。但是，如果前几次点击就为人们提供了他们想要的信息，那么人们就可能不会再进行深入的搜寻。那么，丰富的数据则肯定无法转化为正确的观念。”

Next, the authors hope to determine what factors make certain individuals more likely to have a bias in how they gather information than others. For instance, they are curious whether children might show the same bias revealed in this study, or whether people with depression, which is associated with motivation problems, have different data-gathering patterns.

接下来，作者们希望判断哪些因素会让某些人比其他人更有可能对他们收集信息的方式有偏见。比如，他们很想知道孩子们是否持有同样的偏见，或消极的、存在动机问题的人群是否有不同的数据收集方式。

文章来源：科学日报      编辑：Susan