Roberts Maxwell J, Taylor Richard J, Newton Elizabeth J
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
Br J Psychol. 2007 Nov;98(Pt 4):627-44. doi: 10.1348/000712607X173763.
People's strategy selections appear to reflect attempts to maximize performance by selecting the most effective option for a particular task or format. Theories that account for such behaviour will be named rational models of strategy selection. However, it is possible to find instances where people are apparently biased towards using less effective strategies, and such behaviour appears to go against these models. Two experiments are reported in which participants were instructed to use first one, and then the other of two possible strategies for solving a compass point directions task (the instructed phase), and were subsequently permitted to use any strategy (the free-choice phase). A substantial minority of participants selected the less effective spatial strategy during the free-choice phase. Overall, it was found that people who rely on the spatial strategy when given a free-choice tend to be those who: (1) have not been given particular incentive to perform as well as possible; (2) have difficulty executing the better alternative, cancellation and (3) are particularly prone to making errors at the spatial strategy. Hence, although evidence was found in support of rational models of strategy selection, it is also suggested that these must additionally take account of the motivational and conceptual difficulties that people may have with a task.
人们的策略选择似乎反映出他们试图通过为特定任务或形式选择最有效的选项来实现绩效最大化。解释此类行为的理论将被称为策略选择的理性模型。然而，有可能发现人们明显倾向于使用效率较低的策略的情况，而且这种行为似乎与这些模型相悖。本文报告了两项实验，在实验中，参与者被指示先使用两种可能的策略中的一种，然后再使用另一种来解决罗盘方向任务（指示阶段），随后被允许使用任何策略（自由选择阶段）。在自由选择阶段，相当一部分参与者选择了效率较低的空间策略。总体而言，研究发现，在自由选择时依赖空间策略的人往往是那些：（1）没有受到尽可能出色表现的特别激励的人；（2）在执行更好的替代策略（取消策略）方面有困难的人；（3）在空间策略上特别容易出错的人。因此，尽管有证据支持策略选择的理性模型，但也有人认为，这些模型还必须额外考虑人们在任务中可能遇到的动机和概念方面的困难。
