Information effects on decision-making

This paper summarizes the results of an experiment dealing with the effects of initial information and feedback on goal-setting and performance of the competing individuals. Three hypotheses were examined:. 1) More information will result in more accurate levels of goal-setting and decision-making. 2) The goals set at a given time are a function of previous goals, previous success in achieving the goals and learning experience about the environment. 3) The rate of learning of participants with less information will be higher than those with more information. The subjects were 48 graduate business students in six groups, eight individuals in each. There were four distinct types of initial information and feedback, so that every two persons of the eight in each group received one of the four information and feedback types. The results tend to support, in part, hypotheses 1 and 3. No support was found for hypothesis 2.