Logo image
Back
Context dependency in risky decision making: Is there a description-experience gap?
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Context dependency in risky decision making: Is there a description-experience gap?

Inkyung Park, Paul D Windschitl, Andrew R Smith, Shanon Rule, Aaron M Scherer and Jillian O Stuart
PloS one, Vol.16(2), pp.e0245969-e0245969
2021
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245969
PMCID: PMC7877666
PMID: 33571207
url
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245969View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

When making decisions involving risk, people may learn about the risk from descriptions or from experience. The description-experience gap refers to the difference in decision patterns driven by this discrepancy in learning format. Across two experiments, we investigated whether learning from description versus experience differentially affects the direction and the magnitude of a context effect in risky decision making. In Study 1 and 2, a computerized game called the Decisions about Risk Task (DART) was used to measure people's risk-taking tendencies toward hazard stimuli that exploded probabilistically. The rate at which a context hazard caused harm was manipulated, while the rate at which a focal hazard caused harm was held constant. The format by which this information was learned was also manipulated; it was learned primarily by experience or by description. The results revealed that participants' behavior toward the focal hazard varied depending on what they had learned about the context hazard. Specifically, there were contrast effects in which participants were more likely to choose a risky behavior toward the focal hazard when the harm rate posed by the context hazard was high rather than low. Critically, these contrast effects were of similar strength irrespective of whether the risk information was learned from experience or description. Participants' verbal assessments of risk likelihood also showed contrast effects, irrespective of learning format. Although risk information about a context hazard in DART does nothing to affect the objective expected value of risky versus safe behaviors toward focal hazards, it did affect participants' perceptions and behaviors-regardless of whether the information was learned from description or experience. Our findings suggest that context has a broad-based role in how people assess and make decisions about hazards.

Details

Metrics

23 Record Views
5 Times Cited - Web of Science
Logo image