Detecting and measuring crucial differences between cognitive maps

Abstract

The reasoning underlying the attitude of stakeholders towards the implementation of a means can be captured in causal cognitive maps about the effects of the means on relevant goals. For acyclic cognitive maps with weighted-directed signed links we propose quantitative measures for the weight of the paths between means and goals and a measure for the total result of the means on all goals. In data concerning the cognitive maps of 94 employees about their perceived consequences of a merger, the latter measure correlates strongly with their attitude towards the merger. Finally we propose a method to detect for which links in the map the cognitive differences between individuals contribute most to their differences in attitudes towards the means, in the sense that agreement on these links would decrease the variance in the attitudes most.