Exploring the role of conscientiousness on visualization-supported decision-making

Abstract

Understanding how visualizations can support decision-making continues to be one of the most relevant challenges in current research. However, prior work provides limited knowledge regarding how the decision-maker profile and, in particular, psychological constructs affect decision-making. Weighing how conscientiousness affects one’s tendency to follow the rules and prioritize tasks, this work explores if this personality trait plays a role in visualization-supported decision-making. We asked participants to perform a series of multi-attribute choices using visualizations of high-dimensional data. Further, we study if the quality feedback of the past choice affects the decision-making process. Our results suggest that the feedback quality of past decisions affects how much individuals invest in data analysis and decision-making. In addition, user confidence is affected by conscientiousness scores, resulting in conscientious individuals changing their choices more often. Our findings provide new insights into the research challenges of analyzing decision-making in a visualization setting.