Effective Use of Scientific Information: Social Goals, Incentive, Structures, and Learning under Uncertainty
Conducted as a sub-project of Surveillance and Control of Rift Valley Fever in the Greater Horn of Africa and the Middle East
Location: Columbia University (USA)
Principal Investigators:
David Krantz
Researchers:
Nicole Peterson, Sabine Marx, Dan Osgood, Glenn Sheriff, Ryan Murphy, Miguel Fonseca
Project Type: Lab
Funding:
National Science Foundation (NSF SES 0345840)
Goal
Many types of decision problems might be clarified by scientific forecasts that reduce uncertainty. Yet there exist many barriers to the use of forecasts. Our research addresses four such barriers: incompatibility, conflicting information, mistrust, and competitive disadvantage. Several interventions, such as incentive structures, learning in a community setting, and understanding people's social as well as economic goals, reduce these barriers. In the context of livestock trade in East Africa, with a particular focus on Rift Valley Fever (a mosquito-borne, climate-sensitive veterinary disease that sometimes disrupts trade), we examine the mix of social and economic goals underlying the decision processes of buying and selling animals in the face of disease risk.
Trade arrangements are often strongly tied to social relationships and social norms as trade occurs along ethnic lines and long-term social networks. By accounting for the social goals arising from these relationships we can device incentive structures and develop instructional methods useful in community settings to enhance probabilistic reasoning.
Background
This study expands on the research on competitive disadvantage, a situation that arises when an individual or group decision maker change their strategy to take advantage of scientific information (for example, a climate or a risk forecast). However, if other decision makers, with conflicting goals, also change strategy, some may end up as losers, i.e., less well off than if the information had not been available.
The resulting conflict and mistrust can act as a barrier to data collection and dissemination and impair the clear understanding of scientific information. Inspired by a particular problem of this sort, Rift Valley Fever in East Africa, we have been led to consider contractual arrangements in which all benefit by sharing the value of scientific information in a market setting.
Research Questions
How do incentives, learning, and social goals interact and how do they affect the communication of uncertain information?
How do social settings affect learning under uncertainty and can learning from experience be facilitated in a community setting?
Last Updated: June 1, 2006
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