Audience Decision-Making Expertise 25affects their search effort, search patterns, and how efficiently they eliminate inferior alterna-
tives.^193 Whereas experts actively search for specific information in a top-down fashion using
their domain knowledge, or schemata, to structure the search, novices examine information
in the way it is presented.^194 Thus, product novices are more influenced by the way the con-
tents of ads are displayed than product experts.^195 Lacking the expert’s schemata, novices may
only search for information that confirms their underdeveloped schemata. With somewhat
more developed schemata, novices are more likely to notice information that disconfirms
components of their schemata and to revise their schemata accordingly.^196 As expertise grows,
audiences find fewer instances of disconfirming information and the need to revise their
schemata lessens.^197
Without a well-developed schema to guide search, novice audiences make decisions less effi -ciently than experts.^198 Novice audiences process more information than experts when making
similar decisions^199 and have trouble identifying information that is irrelevant and safe to ignore.^200
For this reason, novice newspaper consumers take longer to choose between newspapers than more
knowledgeable ones.^201 Expert consumers, on the other hand, are able to use search strategies that
reduce their effort without compromising the quality of their decisions.^202
The Development of Expert-Like Decision Schemata
How do novice audience members become experts? In order to acquire expertise in a domain,
novices must develop expert schemata.^203 Novices begin to develop a schema of a task or deci-
sion as they repeat it.^204 Novices can develop a schema after performing a task or making a
decision only twice if they are able to identify what the two experiences have in common.^205
Abstract diagrams that highlight decision criteria can help novices formulate schemata,^206 as can
decision matrices.^207
Exposure to analogies can also help novices formulate schemata.^208 Novices are sometimes ableto acquire a schema by comparing just two analogs to one another.^209 They may also develop a
schema as a side effect of applying what they learned from solving one problem to an unsolved
target problem.^210 Not surprisingly, novices’ schemata become more developed and complex with
additional experience.^211
Schemata can be developed both consciously and unconsciously. Helping novice leaders con-sciously develop expert-like schemata is the focus of many leadership training programs.^212 Novices
also develop more complex schemata by unconsciously combining several simpler existing sche-
mata into one.^213 Interestingly, sleep appears to facilitate the development of new schemata, as well
as the integration of new information into existing schemata and the disbandment of existing
schemata that are no longer useful—a process critical to creative thinking.^214
Although truly novice audience members do not possess predefined schemata to guidetheir decision making, they sometimes appreciate and use experts’ decision criteria and
benchmarks when they are made available to them. Note consumers’ widespread reliance on
Consumer Reports to make purchasing decisions. Consumer Reports provides novice consumers
with experts’ decision criteria for a variety of products and rates each product according to
how well it meets the experts’ criteria for that product category. Each product attribute that
is rated—quality, capacity, efficiency, reliability, and so on—corresponds to one of the experts’
decision criteria. Consumer Reports also provides consumers with benchmark information,
comparing the ratings and prices of many different products within the same product cat-
egory. In addition, Consumer Reports computes an overall score for each product using the
weighted sums rule. When novice consumers are presented with decision matrices such as
those provided by Consumer Reports , they become “instant experts.”^215 As cognitive scientists