DEVIL'S ADVOCACY AND DIALECTICAL INQUIRY EFFECTS ON PREDICTION PERFORMANCE: TASK INVOLVEMENT AS A MEDIATING VARIABLE
研究了四种探究方法（专家、魔鬼代言人、辩证探究及带解释的辩证探究）对财务预测任务绩效的影响，发现任务投入高时辩证探究更有效，支持了先前实验室研究的批评。
ABSTRACT Critics of previous laboratory experiments comparing devil's advocacy (DA) to dialectical inquiry (DI) have suggested that these experiments produced misleading results because (1) they used subjects who had low levels of task involvement and (2) the DI treatment used was confusing to subjects and required further explanation to be useful. The present study examines the effects of four inquiry methods—expert (E), DA, DI, and DI with explanatory statement (DI+)—on subjects' performance at a financial prediction task. Results show that DA, DI, and DI + were superior to E when the state of the world differed significantly from assumptions underlying the expert's plan. For subjects with high task involvement, DI and DI + were more effective than E and DA. The results support some of the criticisms of previous laboratory research and suggest that future research on these decision aids should include task involvement as a factor.