Prior research has traced poor judgment quality to poor calibration. We suggest inconsistency to be another reason for poor judgment quality—utilizing different models on different occasions resulting in increased wandering in judgments. We demonstrate differing consistency in the utilization of models depending upon which variable is used as a cue and which is used as the criterion to be predicted. This results in differing correlations underlying judgments between the same two variables, an internally inconsistent pattern. We trace this to the utilization of lay causal models to make predictions but with the strength of the causal story moderating the consistency in use of the model.


*Arul Mishra is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, S252 PBB, Iowa City, IA 52242 (arul-mishra@uiowa.edu). Dhananjay Nayakankuppam is assistant professor of marketing at the Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, W234 PBB, Iowa City, IA 52242 (dhananjay-nayakankuppam@uiowa.edu). Both authors contributed equally to the research, and order of authorship is alphabetical. The authors thank Joe Priester, Himanshu Mishra, and the participants of the JDM Brown Bag at the University of Iowa for their feedback at various stages of this project.

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