ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a normative-descriptive approach, combining empirical and analytic efforts, to examine the effects of different goals in a distributed dynamic task processing context. In the Reward Structure (REST) experiment, which is conducted within a controlled laboratory environment, team versus individual goals are operationalized through team versus individual reward structures. The chapter is organized as follows. At first it describes the experiment context, the independent variables manipulated, and dependent variables collected. Next it presents the experimental results, and discusses their implications. Normative models are formulated for the decision problem, and their solutions are described. The experimental results presented as the one-way effects of reward structure and task requirement on team decision making and coordination and interactions between reward structure and task requirement. Finally the chapter explains the normative-descriptive models are presented that include observed human biases and limitations, and that are shown to replicate quite well the experimental data over all conditions.
