Behavioral Issues in Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Tommi Pajala

Behavioral Issues in Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Julkaisun otsikon käännös: Behavioraaliset tekijät monikriteerisessä päätöksenteossa

Tommi Pajala

Tieto- ja palvelujohtamisen laitos

Tutkimustuotos: Doctoral Thesis › Collection of Articles

Abstrakti

Päätöksenteko on suuressa roolissa taloudellisessa ja yhteiskunnallisessa toiminnassa. Joka päivä kuluttajat valitsevat tuotteiden välillä, ja johtajat valikoivat palkattavia työntekijöitä. Päätökset usein liittyvät moneen kriteeriin, mikä vaatii kykyä löytää eri kriteerien suhteen tasapainoinen vaihtoehto. Operaatiotutkimusessa näiden ongelmien tutkimuksen haaraa kutsutaan monikriteeriseksi päätöksenteoksi. Tässä väitöskirjassa kytken monikriteerisen päätöksenteon metodologiaa psykologian tuloksiin ihmisten käyttäytymisestä. Huolimatta käyttäytymistaloustieteen noususta, käyttäytymisen rooli operaatiotutkimuksen piirissä on verraten uusi tutkimussuunta. Tämä väitöskirja kontribuoi alaan soveltamalla psykologian tutkimustuloksia preferenssien ennustamisessa ja mallinnuksessa. Essee I tutkii empiirisesti sitä, voidaanko päätöksentekijän arvofunktiota approksimoida lineaarisella arvofunktiolla. Näytämme, että lineaarinen arvofunktio on toimiva malli preferenssien ennustamiseen, vaikka kaikille päätöksentekijöille ei edes teoriassa ole olemassa lineaarista arvofunktiota, joka selittäisi heidän tekemänsä päätökset. Essee II tarkastelee kontekstin merkitystä päätöksenteon virheille. Vaikka teoria usein käsittelee päätöksentekoa ilman kontekstia, näytämme, että emotionaalinen kiinnittyminen tuotteeseen sekä tuotetyyppi vaikuttavat todennäköisyyteen valita dominoitu vaihtoehto. Lisäksi näytämme, että kolmannen kriteerin lisääminen ei välttämättä johda informaatioähkyyn, kun lisätty kriteeri ei muuta vaihtoehtojen dominanssisuhteita. Essee III käsittelee kriteerien tärkeyden tulkintaa. Päätöksentekijät usein sanovat, että jokin kriteeri on jotain toista kriteeriä tärkeämpi. Kuitenkin monikriteerisen arvoteorian kehikossa kriteerien tärkeyden tulkinta on hankalaa. Esseessä III otamme aiemmasta kirjallisuudesta impaktin käsitteen, ja esitämme sille yhden toimivan määritelmän, jossa impakti määritellään AHP-tekniikalla estimoitujen painojen sekä kriteerin variaatiokertoimen tulona. Essee IV analysoi sitä, voidaanko päätöksentekotyylin mittareita käyttää selittämään päätöksenteon virheitä. Näytämme, että kognitiivinen reflektiotesti, sekä tarve tutkia eri vaihtoehtoja liittyvät korkeampaan virhetodennäköisyyteen. Kiinnostavaa on myös se, että itsensä hyvin analyyttisiksi luokittelevat päätöksentekijät tekevät yhtä paljon virheitä kuin muutkin. Kaiken kaikkiaan väitöskirjan tulokset näyttävät, että psykologiset ja behavioraaliset tekijät monikriteerisessä päätöksenteossa tulisi ottaa huomioon. Kontekstin huomiotta jättäminen voi johtaa vääriin johtopäätöksiin, ja psykologisten muuttujien tarkastelu lisää ymmärrystä yksilöiden välisistä eroista päätöksenteossa. Toisaalta lineaarinen arvofunktio voi toimia preferenssien ennustamisessa yhtä hyvin kuin monimutkaisemmat päätöksentekomallit.

Julkaisun otsikon käännös	Behavioraaliset tekijät monikriteerisessä päätöksenteossa
Alkuperäiskieli	Englanti
Pätevyys	Tohtorintutkinto
Myöntävä instituutio	Aalto-yliopisto
Ohjaaja	Wallenius, Jyrki, Ohjaaja
Kustantaja	Aalto University
Painoksen ISBN	978-952-60-7682-9
Sähköinen ISBN	978-952-60-7683-6
Tila	Julkaistu - 2017
OKM-julkaisutyyppi	G5 Artikkeliväitöskirja

Tutkimusalat

monikriteerinen päätöksenteko
behavioraalinen OR

Pääsy asiakirjaan

http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-7683-6Lisenssi: Määrittelemätön

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title = "Behavioral Issues in Multiple Criteria Decision Making",

abstract = "Decision making is ubiquitous in the modern world. From one moment to the next, consumers are choosing between products, managers are choosing whom to hire, and politicians are choosing which legal project to support. Many decisions involve multiple criteria, necessitating the need to find a balanced alternative. Such decisions are modelled in a stream of research called Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). In this dissertation, I connect MCDM methodologies with behavioral research from psychology. Despite the rise of psychological ideas in behavioral economics, behavioral operational research is still a relatively new field. This dissertation contributes to it by extending and applying psychological ideas in preference prediction and modeling. Essay I empirically investigates the feasibility of approximating a decision maker's value function with a linear value function. We show that a linear value function is a suitable model for preference prediction, even when there is no linear value function that could theoretically explain all the decision maker's choices. Essay II investigates how the context of the choice problem affects errors in decision making. While value theory treats decisions often without the context, we show that emotional attachment and product type affect the rate of choosing dominated alternatives. Furthermore, adding a third criterion does not necessarily lead to information overload, when the added information does not change the dominance relationships of the alternatives. Essay III investigates the meaning of judgments of importance. We know decision makers often say that one criterion is more important than another. However, in the framework of multi-attribute value theory, interpreting such statements is difficult. In essay III, we take the concept of impact from previous literature, and come up with a suitable explanatory model by defining it as the product of AHP weight and the coefficient of variation for the criterion. Essay IV analyzes whether psychological measures of decision style can explain errors in decision making. We find an effect for cognitive reflection, and the tendency to seek out alternatives. Intriguingly, decision makers who considered themselves analytically minded made the same number of mistakes as other decision makers, who did not consider themselves analytical. Taken all together, these results show that there are important psychological and behavioral aspects in MCDM that highlight differences between properties of formal models and behavior of real decision makers. Ignoring the context in decision making may result in false conclusions, and utilizing psychological variables would improve our understanding of individual differences in decision making. Additionally, a simple linear value function may work just as well in prediction as more complex models.",

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year = "2017",

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isbn = "978-952-60-7682-9",

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AB - Decision making is ubiquitous in the modern world. From one moment to the next, consumers are choosing between products, managers are choosing whom to hire, and politicians are choosing which legal project to support. Many decisions involve multiple criteria, necessitating the need to find a balanced alternative. Such decisions are modelled in a stream of research called Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). In this dissertation, I connect MCDM methodologies with behavioral research from psychology. Despite the rise of psychological ideas in behavioral economics, behavioral operational research is still a relatively new field. This dissertation contributes to it by extending and applying psychological ideas in preference prediction and modeling. Essay I empirically investigates the feasibility of approximating a decision maker's value function with a linear value function. We show that a linear value function is a suitable model for preference prediction, even when there is no linear value function that could theoretically explain all the decision maker's choices. Essay II investigates how the context of the choice problem affects errors in decision making. While value theory treats decisions often without the context, we show that emotional attachment and product type affect the rate of choosing dominated alternatives. Furthermore, adding a third criterion does not necessarily lead to information overload, when the added information does not change the dominance relationships of the alternatives. Essay III investigates the meaning of judgments of importance. We know decision makers often say that one criterion is more important than another. However, in the framework of multi-attribute value theory, interpreting such statements is difficult. In essay III, we take the concept of impact from previous literature, and come up with a suitable explanatory model by defining it as the product of AHP weight and the coefficient of variation for the criterion. Essay IV analyzes whether psychological measures of decision style can explain errors in decision making. We find an effect for cognitive reflection, and the tendency to seek out alternatives. Intriguingly, decision makers who considered themselves analytically minded made the same number of mistakes as other decision makers, who did not consider themselves analytical. Taken all together, these results show that there are important psychological and behavioral aspects in MCDM that highlight differences between properties of formal models and behavior of real decision makers. Ignoring the context in decision making may result in false conclusions, and utilizing psychological variables would improve our understanding of individual differences in decision making. Additionally, a simple linear value function may work just as well in prediction as more complex models.

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KW - behavioral OR

KW - monikriteerinen päätöksenteko

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KW - multiple criteria decision making

KW - behavioral OR

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SN - 978-952-60-7682-9

T3 - Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

PB - Aalto University

ER -

Behavioral Issues in Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Abstrakti

Tutkimusalat

Pääsy asiakirjaan

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