ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND HUMAN PERFORMANCE 30, 330--350 (1982) Information Search in Judgment Tasks: A Regression Model and Some Preliminary Findings TERRY CONNOLLY AND NAVEED GILANI Georgia Institute of Technology Previous studies of predecisional information search have predominantly drawn on Bayesian models for normative guidance. An analogous model for the continuous-variable case, in which the judge may purchase one or more items of costly but imperfect information to guide a decision in which errors are also costly, is presented. Results are reported for two experiments using a task based on this model. The findings indicate that information acquisition and use are influenced by several normatively irrelevant task characteristics as well as by appropriate normative factors and that departures from optimality may be quite large. Implications for further research are suggested. The topic of predecisional information search in judgmental decision making has been of interest to a number of investigators for both theoreti- cal and practical reasons. From a theoretical orientation, investigators such as Payne (1976) and Payne, Braunstein, and Carroll (1978) have studied information search as a means of illuminating underlying cognitive processes in decision making. Other investigators, more interested in ap- plications, have focused on such issues as physicians' acquisition of diag- nostic tests (e.g., Elstein, Shulman, & Sprafka, 1978); military command- ers' acquisition of intelligence reports (e.g., Levine, Samet, & Brahlek, 1975); managers' acquisition of information provided by management in- formation systems (e.g., Cardozo, Ross, & Rudelius, 1972); and consum- ers' acquisition of product-related information (e.g., Jacoby, 1977). The focus of these studies is on tasks in which the individual (a) makes decisions of some consequence (i.e., payoffs for correct and incorrect decisions differ); (b) acquires imperfectly predictive information that is costly (in money, effort, or delay); and (c) decides the amount of informa- tion to be acquired before choosing. In such tasks the individual faces a complex tradeoff between information costs and error penalties, with judgmental skill as a crucial linking process: Skilled judges may be able to make accurate predictions on little information, while those less skilled may require more information to reach the same level of accuracy. Valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper were provided by M. Bazerman, E. J. Conlon, H. J. Einhorn, R. M. Hogarth, G. Wolf, and two anonymous reviewers. Financial support was provided, in part, under Grant 78-NI-AX-003 from the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. 330 0030-5073/82/060330-21502.00/0 Copyright © 1982by AcademicPress, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.