Abstract
Many studies have investigated judgment and decision making under uncertainty (i.e., when the possible outcomes of a given alternative occur with some known exact probability between 0 and 1). Fewer studies, however, have investigated judgment and decision making in which the probabilities associated with different outcomes are ambiguous (i.e., known to be in a certain interval such as.40–.60, rather than known to be a specific value such as.50). Judgment under both uncertainty and ambiguity was investigated by having subjects evaluate two-outcome prospects that varied in expected value, level of probability ambiguity, and the center of the ambiguous probability range. Results indicated a preference for unambiguous probabilities when the probability of obtaining the better outcome was.50 or greater and a preference for a small amount of ambiguity when the probability of obtaining the better outcome was moderately low (.30).
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This research was supported in part by the Grants-In-Aid Program for Faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University. Preliminary results from this study were presented at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, San Francisco.
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Stasson, M.F., Hawkes, W.G., Smith, H.D. et al. The effects of probability ambiguity on preferences for uncertain two-outcome prospects. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 31, 624–626 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337373
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337373