Breaking through the 'wall of complexity' in a politically themed microworld: a challenge for elected officials and the general public.

IF 1.7 4区 心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL
Benoît Béchard, Helen M Hodgetts, Gabrielle Teyssier-Roberge, Frédéric Morneau-Guérin, Mathieu Ouimet, Sébastien Tremblay
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Abstract

Political leaders are often regarded as the most qualified individuals to address modern societal challenges, owing to the knowledge they acquire through their experience in dealing with complex issues, governance and management, and working towards making impactful decisions. To understand the influence of prior knowledge on decision-making, we conducted a comparative analysis of complex decision-making performance in a politically themed computer-simulated microworld involving incumbent elected officials and a general population sample, each contrasted with a random-response baseline produced with randomly generated decisions. Participants were tasked to govern a country for re-election while maintaining financial stability. The pattern of results suggests that decision-making faces a 'wall of complexity' whether one is an elected official or a citizen. Although elected officials generally reported having greater political knowledge, their performance was still relatively poor. The elected officials and general population subgroups performed at the same level and only slightly better than chance. Addressing the societal challenges of our time requires elected officials to possess more than domain-specific prior knowledge.

在以政治为主题的微观世界中突破“复杂之墙”:对民选官员和公众的挑战。
政治领导人通常被认为是最有资格应对现代社会挑战的人,因为他们通过处理复杂问题、治理和管理以及努力做出有影响力的决策的经验获得了知识。为了理解先验知识对决策的影响,我们在一个以政治为主题的计算机模拟微观世界中对复杂的决策绩效进行了比较分析,该微观世界涉及在任民选官员和普通人群样本,并与随机生成决策产生的随机响应基线进行了对比。参与者的任务是在维持金融稳定的同时管理一个国家进行连任。结果的模式表明,无论是民选官员还是公民,决策都面临着“复杂之墙”。虽然当选官员普遍报告说他们有更多的政治知识,但他们的表现仍然相对较差。当选官员和一般人口小组的表现相同,仅略好于偶然。解决我们这个时代的社会挑战需要民选官员拥有的不仅仅是特定领域的先验知识。
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来源期刊
Cognitive Processing
Cognitive Processing PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL-
CiteScore
3.10
自引率
5.90%
发文量
44
期刊介绍: Cognitive Processing - International Quarterly of Cognitive Science is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes innovative contributions in the multidisciplinary field of cognitive science.  Its main purpose is to stimulate research and scientific interaction through communication between specialists in different fields on topics of common interest and to promote an interdisciplinary understanding of the diverse topics in contemporary cognitive science. Cognitive Processing is articulated in the following sections:Cognitive DevelopmentCognitive Models of Risk and Decision MakingCognitive NeuroscienceCognitive PsychologyComputational Cognitive SciencesPhilosophy of MindNeuroimaging and Electrophysiological MethodsPsycholinguistics and Computational linguisticsQuantitative Psychology and Formal Theories in Cognitive ScienceSocial Cognition and Cognitive Science of Culture
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