Attributions for ambiguity in a treatment‐decision context can create ambiguity aversion or seeking

Abstract

The phenomenon of ambiguity aversion suggests that people prefer options that offer precisely rather than imprecisely known chances of success. However, past work on people's responses to ambiguity in health treatment contexts found ambiguity seeking rather than aversion. The present work addressed whether such findings reflected a broad tendency for ambiguity seeking in health treatment contexts or whether specific attributions for ambiguity play a substantial role. In three studies, people choose between two treatment options that involved similar underlying probabilities, except that the probabilities for one option involved ambiguity. The attributions offered for the ambiguity played an important role in the results. For example, when the range of probabilities associated with an ambiguous treatment was attributed to the fact that different studies yield different results, participants tended to show ambiguity aversion or indifference. However, when the range was attributed to something that participants could control (e.g., regular application of a cream) or something about which they were overoptimistic (e.g., their immune system function), participants tended to show ambiguity seeking. Health professionals should be mindful of how people will interpret and use information about ambiguity when choosing among treatments.

Ambiguity in advertised compensation: Recruiting implications of nominal compliance with pay transparency legislation.

“…Because the two types of explanations—differences in candidate desirability and local cost-of-living—differ in key respects, both are tested but no hypothesis is advanced with respect to differences between them. Stuart et al (2022) found that people asked to choose between a hypothetical medical treatment with a 75% success rate and one with a 60%–90% success rate were much more likely to choose the ambiguous option if it was explained as resulting from a factor perceived as individually controllable, but they preferred the precise option when ambiguity was attributed to different studies yielding different results. Job candidates might be perceived as having more control if a wide range is attributed to differences in individual qualifications.…”

“…In contrast to decision-making research on vagueness using stylized laboratory gambles or medical treatment scenarios (e.g., Stuart et al, 2022), personnel recruitment is a context where actors have partly conflicting interests (Bangerter et al, 2012). Although job seekers are motivated to seek out signals that allow them to make inferences about unknown organizational characteristics (Connelly et al, 2011;Rynes, 1991), people are typically skeptical of nebulous recruitment advertising claims (e.g., "supportive leadership") because they understand that employers have incentives to embellish.…”