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judge in order to simply relay a suggestion or information. Given this dynamic,
considerations of trust levels need only be made from the judge's and not the advisor's
perspective. Key influencers of JAS trust levels include perceived advisor confidence
and subject expertise.
Type of Advice
The type of advice given by an advisor can influence the way it is received by the judge.
In a JAS, the concept of advice needs to be broader than the typical definition of a
recommendation for a particular outcome in a decision situation. While this sort of input
is certainly one kind of advice, other types of advice also exist. Dalal and Bonaccio
(2010) suggest that there are 4 different kinds of advice:
Recommendation for: advice in favor of a particular alternative
Recommendation against: advice against one or more alternatives
Information: neutral advice giving more information about the alternatives without
suggesting a particular one
Decision Support: no specific outcome advice; instead, input or support to guide
the judge's decision-making process
Judges react to these four types of advice with differential preferences. While specifics
of the particular type of decision task and the judge's individual differences can affect
the degree of preference between types, initial research shows Information-type advice
to be most preferred. This sort of advice has been little recognized in much of the past
advice-taking literature and is expected to receive more attention in the future.
Task Type
The difficulty of the decision task influences the extent judges rely on advisor inputs.
When a difficult task is given to a judge, there is a tendency to over-rely on the advice
received from advisors; conversely, judges tend to rely less than they should on advisor
information when the task seems relatively easy. For example, if judges need to make a
decision about which stocks will be best performers based on complex financial data
they are given, they will be likely to defer to the advice of their advisors regardless of
their supposed expertise since the judge's own grasp of the situation is so low.
However, if the decision task seems more straightforward or simple to the judges, they
will be far likelier to weigh their own opinions more heavily than their advisors' inputs
regardless of the states of expertise the advisors have.
While the most often used decision tasks in JAS literature are ones that involve picking
the "right" or "best" option, an entirely different kind of decision to consider is one
involving a choice based on taste or preference. These situations come up frequently in
life and are part of almost every consumer decision about the kind of music to buy,
clothes to wear, or restaurants to visit. Though less explored in JAS literature, Yaniv et
al. (2011) provided evidence that in these situations of preference, similarity of the
advisor to the judge is the strongest predictor of how much the judge will accept the
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