Developing expert political judgment: The impact of training and practice on judgmental accuracy in geopolitical forecasting tournaments
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The heuristics-and-biases research program highlights reasons for expecting people to be poor intuitive forecasters. This article tests the power of a cognitive-debiasing training module (“CHAMPS KNOW”) to improve probability judgments in a four-year series of geopolitical forecasting tournaments sponsored by the U.S. intelligence community. Although the training lasted less than one hour, it consistently improved accuracy (Brier scores) by 6 to 11% over the control condition. Cognitive ability and practice also made largely independent contributions to predictive accuracy. Given the brevity of the training tutorials and the heterogeneity of the problems posed, the observed effects are likely to be lower-bound estimates of what could be achieved by more intensive interventions. Future work should isolate which prongs of the multipronged CHAMPS KNOW training were most effective in improving judgment on which categories of problems.
Source: Judgment and Decision Making
Authors: Welton Chang, Eva Chen, Barbara Mellers, Philip Tetlock
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
Award: G4291749221
OpenAlex ID: W4313425124