Globig, Laura Katharina; (2024) Changing Evidence Accumulation and Sharing Behaviour Through Incentives. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Behaviour is driven by external incentives (e.g., money, social feedback) and internal incentives (e.g., emotions). We monitor the stock market for profitable investments, we share posts online to receive positive feedback, and we accumulate evidence for the success of a medical procedure to ease pre-surgery anxiety. This thesis explores how incentives alter evidence accumulation and sharing behaviour. People accumulate evidence to form beliefs which elicit positive emotions, even if these beliefs are incorrect. This bias is adaptive, as the benefits for well-being typically outweigh the harm of inaccuracy. Chapter 2 examines if evidence accumulation becomes less biased in threatening environments, where severe harm is probable. Combining a social-threat manipulation with a sequential sampling task and Drift-Diffusion Modelling (DDM), I find that under threat, participants are less biased and require weaker evidence for negative conclusions. This may increase precautionary actions. Although financial accuracy incentives are thought to reduce biases, the empirical evidence is mixed. Chapter 3 examines why they may fail to reduce biased evidence accumulation. Coupling a perceptual task with DDM, I show that while accuracy incentives increase caution, they modulate a separate element of the accumulation process and thus do not reduce the bias, possibly due to its unconscious nature. I propose that when accuracy incentives are coupled with feedback, decisions become more accurate. External incentives are pervasive online: people share information to receive ‘likes’. I hypothesize that the incentive structure of social media platforms, whereby social rewards (‘likes’) and punishments (‘dislikes’) are dissociated from accuracy, contributes to the spread of misinformation. Chapter 4 combines simulated social media environments and DDM to show that when feedback is contingent on accuracy, sharing becomes more discerning, reducing misinformation spread. This thesis unveils the mechanisms through which incentives influence evidence accumulation and sharing behaviour, offering insights for interventions to mitigate biased decision-making.

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