Ambiguity and Conflict Aversion When Uncertainty Is in the Outcomes

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Michael Smithson¹  Daniel Priest¹  Yiyun Shou¹  Ben R. Newell² 

[1] Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales

关键词: uncertainty;    ambiguity aversion;    conflict aversion;    risk;    decision;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00539

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

We argue that the way ambiguity has been operationalized throughout the literature on ambiguity effects has an important limitation, insofar as ambiguity in outcomes has been neglected. We report two studies where judges do encounter ambiguity in the sampled outcomes and find evidence that ambiguity aversion is not less than when judges are given a range of outcomes without reference to ambiguous outcomes themselves. This result holds regardless of whether people are presented with a sample all at once or sample outcomes sequentially. Our experiments also investigate the effects of conflicting information about outcomes, finding that conflict aversion also does not decrease. Moreover, ambiguity and conflict aversion do not seem to arise as a consequence of judges ignoring uncertain outcomes and thereby treating outcome sets as reduced samples of unambiguous (or unconflicting) information. Instead, ambiguity and conflict aversion are partly explained by more pessimistic outcome forecasts by judges. This pessimism, in turn, may be due to the judges’ uncertainty about how the chance of a desirable outcome from an ambiguous or conflictive alternative compares with an equivalent risky alternative. Both studies used hypothetical scenarios, and no incentives were provided for participants’ decisions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY