Decisions from experience and the effect of rare events in risky choice.

@article{citeulike:2988964, abstract = {When people have access to information sources such as newspaper weather forecasts, drug-package inserts, and mutual-fund brochures, all of which provide convenient descriptions of risky prospects, they can make decisions from description. When people must decide whether to back up their computer's hard drive, cross a busy street, or go out on a date, however, they typically do not have any summary description of the possible outcomes or their likelihoods. For such decisions, people can call only on their own encounters with such prospects, making decisions from experience. Decisions from experience and decisions from description can lead to dramatically different choice behavior. In the case of decisions from description, people make choices as if they overweight the probability of rare events, as described by prospect theory. We found that in the case of decisions from experience, in contrast, people make choices as if they underweight the probability of rare events, and we explored the impact of two possible causes of this underweighting--reliance on relatively small samples of information and overweighting of recently sampled information. We conclude with a call for two different theories of risky choice.}, address = {University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.}, author = {Hertwig, R. and Barron, G. and Weber, E. U. and Erev, I. }, citeulike-article-id = {2988964}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00715.x}, issn = {0956-7976}, journal = {Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS}, keywords = {choicebehavior, decisionmaking, economics, human, rare\_events}, month = {August}, number = {8}, pages = {534--539}, posted-at = {2008-07-11 16:55:46}, priority = {2}, title = {Decisions from experience and the effect of rare events in risky choice.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00715.x}, volume = {15}, year = {2004} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2988964 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2988964 TI - Decisions from experience and the effect of rare events in risky choice. JF - Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS VL - 15 IS - 8 SP - 534 EP - 539 AD - University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. SN - 0956-7976 N2 - When people have access to information sources such as newspaper weather forecasts, drug-package inserts, and mutual-fund brochures, all of which provide convenient descriptions of risky prospects, they can make decisions from description. When people must decide whether to back up their computer's hard drive, cross a busy street, or go out on a date, however, they typically do not have any summary description of the possible outcomes or their likelihoods. For such decisions, people can call only on their own encounters with such prospects, making decisions from experience. Decisions from experience and decisions from description can lead to dramatically different choice behavior. In the case of decisions from description, people make choices as if they overweight the probability of rare events, as described by prospect theory. We found that in the case of decisions from experience, in contrast, people make choices as if they underweight the probability of rare events, and we explored the impact of two possible causes of this underweighting--reliance on relatively small samples of information and overweighting of recently sampled information. We conclude with a call for two different theories of risky choice. KW - choicebehavior KW - decisionmaking KW - economics KW - human KW - rare_events AU - Hertwig, R AU - Barron, G AU - Weber, EU AU - Erev, I PY - 2004/08// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00715.x ER -