Effectively managing risk is crucial to successful engineering design. Formal methods offer strategies for making decisions under uncertainty and mitigating risk. However, insights from other fields such as cognitive science and behavioral economics suggest that decision-makers may exhibit behaviors in response to feedback which can undermine these strategies. This study presents results from an experiment in which participants were tasked with selecting a design factor of safety for four design prompts under objective risk conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to receive only negative or positive feedback after each decision. Results suggest that the type of feedback influenced the choice of factor of safety even though subjects were provided with the exact benefits and probabilities of all possible outcomes. This experiment suggests further study of the mechanisms by which engineering decision-makers incorporate feedback is necessary.
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ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
August 6–9, 2017
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Design Engineering Division
- Computers and Information in Engineering Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-5812-7
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
An Experimental Study of Feedback and Risk in Engineering Decision-Making Available to Purchase
Mojtaba Arezoomand,
Mojtaba Arezoomand
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Search for other works by this author on:
Jesse Austin-Breneman
Jesse Austin-Breneman
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Search for other works by this author on:
Mojtaba Arezoomand
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Jesse Austin-Breneman
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Paper No:
DETC2017-68336, V02AT03A019; 10 pages
Published Online:
November 3, 2017
Citation
Arezoomand, M, & Austin-Breneman, J. "An Experimental Study of Feedback and Risk in Engineering Decision-Making." Proceedings of the ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 2A: 43rd Design Automation Conference. Cleveland, Ohio, USA. August 6–9, 2017. V02AT03A019. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2017-68336
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