How individuals weigh their previous estimates to make a new estimate in the presence or absence of social influence

Abstract

Individuals make decisions every day. How they come up with estimates to guide their decisions could be a result of a combination of different information sources such as individual beliefs and previous knowledge, random guesses, and social cues. This study aims to sort out individual estimate assessments over multiple times with the main focus on how individuals weigh their own beliefs vs. those of others in forming their future estimates. Using dynamics modeling, we build on data from an experiment conducted by Lorenz et al. [1] where 144 subjects made five estimates for six factual questions in an isolated manner (no interaction allowed between subjects). We model the dynamic mechanisms of changing estimates for two different scenarios: 1) when individuals are not exposed to any information and 2) when they are under social influence. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.