Emotional Dominance Or Cognitive Dominance?the Effect Of Social Distance On The Biases Of Probability Evaluations

The biases of probability evaluations of events affect human’s judgment and decision making.The mainstream theories or models of decision making mainly focused on decision making for the self when exploring human’s biases of probability evaluations.However,people in social life often make decisions for others with different social distance,such as deciding for relatives,friends,or customers.How and why do these biases of probability evaluations change when the object of decision making extends from the center of self(i.e.,social distance increases)?Emotional channel theory assumes that the change of social distance can induce the change of the anticipated positive and negative emotion,which probably influences individuals’probability evaluations.Cognitive channel theory assumes that the change of social distance can induce decision-makers’ cognitive integration(i.e.,compensatory strategies)or neglect(i.e.,non-compensatory strategies)of the outcome-dimension and the probability-dimension,which probably influences individuals’ probability evaluations.The purpose of the current study is to explore the effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations and its mechanisms,to examine the effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations is through the emotional/cognitive single channel or emotional-cognitive dual channels,emotional channel dominance or cognitive channel dominance.This study includes three parts.In the first part,two studies were conducted to examine the effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations.Study 1 manipulated social distance by asking the participants to make decisions either for themselves or for others,Study 2 manipulated social distance by asking the participants to make decisions either for close others or for distant others,to investigate how social distance influenced the biases of probability evaluations.In the second part,four studies were conducted to examine the mechanism underlying the effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations,to explore the single/dual channel problem,the emotional/cognitive dominance problem.Based on the perspective of process detection,Study 3(combination of parameters)and Study 4(separation of parameters)manipulated social distance,detected the change of individuals’ emotional state(e.g.,anticipated positive and negative emotion)and cognitive focus(e.g.,the attention on probability-dimension or outcome-dimension),and measured the deviation of the biases of probability evaluations,to explore the single/dual channel problem and the emotional/cognitive dominance problem.Based on the perspective of priming detection,Study 5(manipulating emotional state)and Study 6(manipulating cognitive focus)made the individuals in the close and far social distance make decisions under the same emotional state and cognitive focus,to examine whether the effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations disappeared or reduced,and then to explore the emotional/cognitive dominance problem and the relationship between emotional channel and cognitive channel.In the third part,two field studies were conducted to further examine whether transforming social distance can adjust the biases of probability evaluations and optimize individuals’ judgment and decision making in real life.Study 7 took the estimation of college entrance examination as an example,and employed on-site intervention,to examine whether increased social distance can reduce the biases of probability evaluations and improve the accuracy of estimation of college entrance examination.Study 8 took the traffic violation as an example,and changed the social distance between pedestrians and traffic warnings,to examine whether decreased social distance can improve pedestrians’ overestimation of traffic accident and reduce the behavior of running across the street against the red light.The results showed that:First,increased social distance reduced the biases of probability evaluations:(1)Increased social distance(Study 1:from deciding for self to deciding for others;Study 2:from deciding for close others to deciding for distant others)reduced the biases of overestimating small probabilities and underestimating large probabilities.(2)the bias-buffering effect of social distance was stronger in the gain domain than in the loss domain(Studies 1 and 2).Second,social distance affected the biases of probability evaluations by emotional and cognitive dual channels:(1)social distance reduced the biases of overestimating small probabilities and underestimating large probabilities by reducing the difference of anticipated positive emotion and anticipated negative emotion and increasing the use of compensatory strategies(i.e.,integrating the outcome-dimension with the probability-dimension)(Studies 3 and 4).(2)The effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations was disappeared with the same emotional state,was reduced with the same cognitive focus(Studies 5 and 6).Third,the results supported emotional dominance in the dual channels:(1)The mediating effect of emotional state(strong and stable)was significantly greater than the mediating effect of cognitivefocus(weak and unstable)(Studies 3 and 4).(2)The effect of social distance on the biases of probability evaluations was disappeared with the same emotional state,but was not disappeared,just reduced with the same cognitive focus(Studies 5 and 6).(3)The reduction of emotional arousal improved the use of compensatory strategies,whereas the use of cognitive strategies did not affect individuals’ emotional arousal(Studies 5 and 6).Fourth,transforming social distance adjusted the biases of probability evaluations and optimized individuals’ judgment and decision making in real life:(1)Increased social distance reduced students’ biases of probability evaluations and improved their accuracy of estimation of college entrance examination(Study 7).(2)Decreased the social distance between pedestrians and traffic warnings improved pedestrians’ overestimation of traffic accident and reduced the behavior of running across the street against the red light(Study 8).These results indicate that social distance affects the biases of probability evaluations by mainly by emotional and cognitive dual channels(emotional dominance),which suggests the mainstream theories or models(such as cumulative prospect theory,double parameter theory)should make an adjustment relying on social distance and domain.Therefore,the current study puts forward a new weighting function,a new fourfold pattern of risk attitudes,and a dual channel-emotional dominance model in social decision making.Additionally,these results suggest that the method of transforming social distance can adjust the biases of probability evaluations and optimize people’s judgment and decision making in real life.