Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?

When faced with risky decisions, people tend to be risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses (the reflection effect). Studies examining this risk-sensitive decision making, however, typically ask people directly what they would do in hypothetical choice scenarios. A recent flurry of studies...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Elliot A Ludvig, Marcia L Spetch
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/6145a6b01b08475aa37302d57eb2a308
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
id oai:doaj.org-article:6145a6b01b08475aa37302d57eb2a308
record_format dspace
spelling oai:doaj.org-article:6145a6b01b08475aa37302d57eb2a3082021-11-18T06:52:45ZOf black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0020262https://doaj.org/article/6145a6b01b08475aa37302d57eb2a3082011-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/21673807/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203When faced with risky decisions, people tend to be risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses (the reflection effect). Studies examining this risk-sensitive decision making, however, typically ask people directly what they would do in hypothetical choice scenarios. A recent flurry of studies has shown that when these risky decisions include rare outcomes, people make different choices for explicitly described probabilities than for experienced probabilistic outcomes. Specifically, rare outcomes are overweighted when described and underweighted when experienced. In two experiments, we examined risk-sensitive decision making when the risky option had two equally probable (50%) outcomes. For experience-based decisions, there was a reversal of the reflection effect with greater risk seeking for gains than for losses, as compared to description-based decisions. This fundamental difference in experienced and described choices cannot be explained by the weighting of rare events and suggests a separate subjective utility curve for experience.Elliot A LudvigMarcia L SpetchPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 6, p e20262 (2011)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Elliot A Ludvig
Marcia L Spetch
Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
description When faced with risky decisions, people tend to be risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses (the reflection effect). Studies examining this risk-sensitive decision making, however, typically ask people directly what they would do in hypothetical choice scenarios. A recent flurry of studies has shown that when these risky decisions include rare outcomes, people make different choices for explicitly described probabilities than for experienced probabilistic outcomes. Specifically, rare outcomes are overweighted when described and underweighted when experienced. In two experiments, we examined risk-sensitive decision making when the risky option had two equally probable (50%) outcomes. For experience-based decisions, there was a reversal of the reflection effect with greater risk seeking for gains than for losses, as compared to description-based decisions. This fundamental difference in experienced and described choices cannot be explained by the weighting of rare events and suggests a separate subjective utility curve for experience.
format article
author Elliot A Ludvig
Marcia L Spetch
author_facet Elliot A Ludvig
Marcia L Spetch
author_sort Elliot A Ludvig
title Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
title_short Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
title_full Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
title_fullStr Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
title_full_unstemmed Of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
title_sort of black swans and tossed coins: is the description-experience gap in risky choice limited to rare events?
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate 2011
url https://doaj.org/article/6145a6b01b08475aa37302d57eb2a308
work_keys_str_mv AT elliotaludvig ofblackswansandtossedcoinsisthedescriptionexperiencegapinriskychoicelimitedtorareevents
AT marcialspetch ofblackswansandtossedcoinsisthedescriptionexperiencegapinriskychoicelimitedtorareevents
_version_ 1718424232739733504