Abstract:

Others’ advice can help decision makers improve the quality of their decision. However, most decision makers can not choose the appropriate strategy of advice taking. In other words, they tend to underestimate the efficiency of averaging strategy and use the egoistic weighting strategy. Factors affecting advice taking were listed as followings. The first was advice features, such as the advice types and advice numbers. The second one was task features. Then the judge’s features, including their power, emotion, self-esteem, cognitive style and complexity. The last one was the advisor factors, such as the advisor’s similarity with the decision maker, the adviser’s confidence and reliability, all of which can affect advice taking. Feature research should explore how the type of advisor power, as well the evaluation sensitivity of decision maker may influence the degree of advice taking. Secondly, the nominal advice-taking is also a good topic in China. Additionally, more attention is compulsory for the area of advice giving so that the research field of advice could be enriched and developed constantly.

Key words: advice taking, advice discounting effect, Judge-Advisor System, advice taking strategies, influencing factors