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Going Up–Going Down: How Good Are People at Forecasting Trends and Changes in Trends?
Author(s) -
O'CONNOR MARCUS,
REMUS WILLIAM,
GRIGGS KEN
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of forecasting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.543
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1099-131X
pISSN - 0277-6693
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-131x(199705)16:3<165::aid-for653>3.0.co;2-y
Subject(s) - series (stratigraphy) , econometrics , time series , economics , computer science , statistics , mathematics , geology , paleontology
Prior studies of judgemental time‐series forecasting have found that people have problems with downward‐sloping series. This laboratory‐based study presents a controlled experiment of series direction and it investigates the problems of changing trends. Results confirm that people have significant difficulties in dealing with downward‐sloping series and that behaviour is consistent with a general tendency to anticipate that downward series will reverse themselves. There is a significantly less tendency to do so for upward series. Results are discussed in terms of systematic and unsystematic error.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.