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Making Decisions From a Distance: The Impact of Technological Mediation on Riskiness and Dehumanization

Published: 28 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Telepresence means business people can make deals in other countries, doctors can give remote medical advice, and soldiers can rescue someone from thousands of miles away. When interaction is mediated, people are removed from and lack context about the person they are making decisions about. In this paper, we explore the impact of technological mediation on risk and dehumanization in decision-making. We conducted a laboratory experiment involving medical treatment decisions. The results suggest that technological mediation influences decision making, but its influence depends on an individual's self-construal: participants who saw themselves as defined through their relationships (interdependent self-construal) recommended riskier and more painful treatments in video conferencing than when face-to-face. We discuss implications of our results for theory and future research.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing
      February 2015
      1956 pages
      ISBN:9781450329224
      DOI:10.1145/2675133
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      Published: 28 February 2015

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      1. computer-mediated decision making
      2. decontextualized decision making
      3. dehumanization
      4. risk-preference
      5. risk-taking
      6. teledecision
      7. telemedicine
      8. telepresence

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