Journal article
The influence of reasons on interpretations of probability forecasts
Journal of behavioral decision making, Vol.16(2), pp.107-126
04/2003
DOI: 10.1002/bdm.437
Abstract
When providing a probability estimate for an event, experts often supply reasons that they expect will clarify and support that estimate. We investigated the possible unintended influence that these reasons might have on a listener's intuitive interpretation of the event's likelihood. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that people who read positive reasons for a doctor's probability estimate regarding a hypothetical surgery were more optimistic than those who read negative reasons for the identical estimate. Experiment 3 tested whether a doctor's failure forecast for a surgery would result in differing levels of pessimism when the potential risk was attributed to one complication that had a probability of 0.30 versus three complications that had a disjunctive probability of 0.30. Overall, the findings are consistent with the argument that a probability estimate, albeit numerically precise, can be flexibly interpreted at an intuitive level depending on the reasons that the forecaster provides as the basis for the estimate.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The influence of reasons on interpretations of probability forecasts
- Creators
- Annette R Flugstad - University of Iowa, USAPaul D Windschitl - University of Iowa, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of behavioral decision making, Vol.16(2), pp.107-126
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- DOI
- 10.1002/bdm.437
- ISSN
- 0894-3257
- eISSN
- 1099-0771
- Number of pages
- 20
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/2003
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984214748502771
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