A judge–advisor system (JAS) is a type of advice structure often studied in advice taking research, a subset of decision-making in the social sciences. The two roles in a JAS are the judge and advisor roles. The judge is the decision maker who evaluates information concerning a particular decision and makes the final judgment on the decision outcome. The advisor is an individual who provides advice, information, or suggestions to the judge.Sniezek, J. A. & Buckley, T. (1995). Cueing and cognitive conflict in judge–advisor decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 159–174. A key component of the dynamics in a JAS is the differentiation between the two roles in that while the advisor provides input to the decision, the ultimate decision-making authority resides solely with the judge. This one person decision power differentiates the JAS and related models such as Hollenbeck's Hierarchical Decision-Making Team modelHollenbeck, J.R, Ilgen, D.R, Sego, D.J, Hedlund, J, Major, D.A, & Phillips, J. (1995). Multilevel theory of team decision making: Decision performance in teams incorporating distributed expertise. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 292-316. from more widely studied models where the final decision is mutually decided upon by the team as a whole.
While JASs can be easily thought of as between superiors and subordinates, differential social or power standings are not necessary. All that is required is that only one individual (the judge) has the final say in the decision outcome; all other input given to the judge may be taken under consideration but need not be acted on. Therefore, even a situation where a friend receives advice from a peer can be considered a JAS.
Though examples of JASs are prevalent in real-world settings, they are studied most frequently in laboratory experiments in which judge/advisor roles are randomly assigned and situations/variables are manipulated at a between-subjects level.Bonaccio, S. & Dalal, R. S. (2006). Advice taking and decision-making: An integrative literature review, and implications for the organizational sciences. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101, 127–151. Such manipulations allow for a systematic study of the factors that affect how a judge reacts and responds to advisor advice.
Advice utilization and advice discounting
Advice utilization is the degree to which judges take advisor advice into consideration in their final decision outcome, and advice discounting is any effect that lowers the degree of advice utilization. Both of these terms are frequently used interchangeably in JAS literature, as they are related in opposition to one another (i.e., advice discounting is a lack of advice utilization). The amount of utilization is one of the most considered outcomes of a JAS decision process and depends on all the types of inputs described below. In addition to these inputs, there are theories for other sources of advice discounting in decision-making literature; three of the most dominant theories are differential information, anchoring, and egocentric bias.
The differential information theory proposes that advice discounting stems from the fact that, unlike with people's own opinions, they are not aware of advisors' internal reasons for their opinions and so are less apt to fully accept them.Yaniv, I. (2004a). Receiving other people's advice: Influence and benefit. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 93, 1–13.Yaniv, I. & Kleinberger, E. (2000). Advice taking in decision making: Egocentric discounting and reputation formation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 83, 260–281. The second theory, anchoring, suggests that people use their own opinion as to the starting point for their choice, and only use advisor input to a certain extent that will adjust their initial position up or down.Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131. The third theory, egocentric bias, proposes advice discounting happens due to judges believing they are superior to others, so weigh their own opinion stronger than inputs from any other source.Krueger, J. L. (2003). Return of the ego—self-referent information as a filter for social prediction: Comment on Karniol (2003). Psychological Review, 110, 585–590.
In JAS literature, one of the most robust advice discounting classification is egocentric advice discounting, which draws conceptually from the basic theories of anchoring and egocentric bias. Simply put, egocentric advice discounting is the tendency of individuals to prefer advice and opinions that closely align to their own opinions formed prior to hearing any input. Therefore, judges tend to overly weigh advice from advisors that is similar to their own viewpoint regardless of what sort of expertise an advisor appears to have. Conversely, if the advice given is very dissimilar to the judge's initial opinions, that advice will be discounted much more than should be justified given the advisor's level of expertise.
Antecedents to advice utilization
Judge decision-making style
Decision-making style refers to differences in the ways individuals approach decision tasks and respond to situations.Harren, V. A. (1979). Research with the assessment of career decision making. Character Potential: A Record of Research, 9, 63–69. In a JAS, judges' differing styles can affect the way they accept and respond to advisor advice. Five styles identified by Scott and Bruce (1995) are rational, intuitive, dependent, spontaneous and avoidant.Scott, S. G. & Bruce, R. A. (1995). Decision-making style: The development and assessment of a new measure. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 818–831.
Rational: relying on logical evaluations and exhaustive searches for all relevant information Intuitive: relying on intuition, hunches, and other intangibles Dependent: relying on others for advice and direction Spontaneous: relying on a strong urge to make decisions as soon as possible Avoidant: relying on strategies for putting off the decision-making process as long as possible
These styles are not mutually exclusive within an individual, but there are discernible pattern differences across people. While not explicitly examined in many JAS studies, an understanding of these decision-making style differences can inform future understanding of advice-taking dynamics.
Decision-making competence
Judges may differ in their susceptibility to a number of different errors in decision-making; these characteristic differences are considered their specific decision-making competencies. While decision-making competency has been broken down into categories in several different ways, one of the most widely accepted frameworks is the Adult Decision-Making Competence scale (A-DMC), developed by Bruine de Bruin et al.Bruine de Bruin, W., Fischhoff, B., & Parker, A. M. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 938–956. The A-DMC consists of 7 categories of decision-making competencies that include dimensions such as Resistance to Framing and Recognizing Social Norms (see Bruine de Bruin et al., 2007, for a full description). Weaknesses in these different areas make judges more susceptible to particular errors in judgment and may influence the way advisor input is received and acted upon.
Trust and confidence
The level of trust a judge has with an advisor is directly related to the degree to which advice is taken into account. When judges trust their advisors, they are more likely to accept the advice given to them, all other factors being equal.Sniezek, J. A. & Van Swol, L. M. (2001). Trust, confidence, and expertise in a judge–advisor system. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84, 288–307. Note that the trust relationship in a JAS is frequently unbalanced due to the greater importance of trust for the judge than the advisor. This results because the judge must place a certain amount of trust in the advisors in order to utilize their advice in the decision, which only the judge is ultimately responsible for. Advisors, on the other hand, typically need not trust a judge in order to simply relay a suggestion or information. Given this dynamic, considerations of trust levels need only be made from the judge's and not the advisor's perspective. Key influencers of JAS trust levels include perceived advisor confidence and subject expertise.
Type of advice
The type of advice given by an advisor can influence the way it is received by the judge. In a JAS, the concept of advice needs to be broader than the typical definition of a recommendation for a particular outcome in a decision situation. While this sort of input is certainly one kind of advice, other types of advice also exist. Dalal and Bonaccio (2010) suggest that there are 4 different kinds of advice:Dalal, R. S. & Bonaccio, S. (2010). What types of advice do decision-makers prefer? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 112, 11–23.
Recommendation for: advice in favor of a particular alternative Recommendation against: advice against one or more alternatives Information: neutral advice giving more information about the alternatives without suggesting a particular one Decision Support: no specific outcome advice; instead, input or support to guide the judge's decision-making process
Judges react to these four types of advice with differential preferences. While specifics of the particular type of decision task and the judge's individual differences can affect the degree of preference between types, initial research shows Information-type advice to be most preferred. This sort of advice has been little recognized in much of the past advice-taking literature and is expected to receive more attention in the future.
Task type
The difficulty of the decision task influences the extent judges rely on advisor inputs. When a difficult task is given to a judge, there is a tendency to over-rely on the advice received from advisors; conversely, judges tend to rely less than they should on advisor information when the task seems relatively easy.Gino, F. & Moore, D. A. (2007). Effects of task difficulty on use of advice. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 21–35. For example, if judges need to make a decision about which stocks will be best performers based on complex financial data they are given, they will be likely to defer to the advice of their advisors regardless of their supposed expertise since the judge's own grasp of the situation is so low. However, if the decision task seems more straightforward or simple to the judges, they will be far likelier to weigh their own opinions more heavily than their advisors' inputs regardless of the states of expertise the advisors have.