Contextual effects in the interpretations of probability words: Perceived base rate and severity of events.

Weber, Elke U.; Hilton, Denis

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.16.4.781

Cited by 197 publications

(184 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…Another finding that is easily interpreted in dispositional (propensity) terms and serves as another demonstration of the correspondence principle is reported by Weber and Hilton (1990). Employing medical scenarios, these authors showed that numerical interpretations of probability words were, among other things, dependent on the severity of the outcome predicted to occur.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

The probability—outcome correspondence principle: A dispositional view of the interpretation of probability statements

Keren

Teigen

2001

Memory & Cognition

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This article presents a framework for lay people's internal representations of probabilities, which supposedly reflect the strength of underlying dispositions, or propensities, associated with the predicted event. From this framework, we derive the probability-outcome correspondence principle, which asserts that strong dispositions should lead to (1) strong (forceful) and (2) immediate outcomes and, hence, be characterized by high probabilities. In contrast, weak dispositions lead to (1) weak (fragile) and (2) delayed outcomes and are thus associated with low probabilities. We describe six experiments designed to test the correspondence principle. In the final discussion, we examine the implications of the proposed framework, from both a normative and a descriptive viewpoint.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

The probability—outcome correspondence principle: A dispositional view of the interpretation of probability statements

Keren

Teigen

2001

Memory & Cognition

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“…In analogy, E. U. Weber and Hilton (1990) hypothesized and found that the disutility or negative valence of an outcome also affected people's interpretations of the probability with which the outcome was predicted to occur. Thus, slight chance was interpreted differently when referring to a slight chance of gastric disturbances as opposed to a slight chance of skin cancer, not only because these two outcomes had different a priori base rates, but also because skin cancer was a more severe outcome (with greater negative valence) than gastric disturbances.…”

Section: Interpretations Of Verbal Probabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People seem to infer the severity of outcomes from the probability with which they occur (E. U. Weber & Hilton, 1990), probably capitalizing on an ecological, negative correlation between the two variables, as already hypothesized by Edwards (1962b). In the area of motivation and task performance (e.g., Atkinson, 1964;Shapira, 1989), the utility of successfully completing a task has been assumed to derive, at least partially, from the task difficulty, that is, from the probability of successful completion.…”

Section: Modeling and Scaling Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From subjective probabilities to decision weights: The effect of asymmetric loss functions on the evaluation of uncertain outcomes and events.

Weber

1994

Psychological Bulletin

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Much of decision aiding uses a divide-and-conquer strategy to help people with risky decisions. Assessing the utility of outcomes and one's degree of belief in their likelihood are assumed to be separable tasks, the results of which can then be combined to determine the preferred alternative. Evidence from different areas of psychology now provides a growing consensus that this assumption is too simplistic. Observed dependencies in the evaluation of uncertain outcomes and the likelihood of the events giving rise to them are frequent and systematic. Dependencies seem to derive from general strategic processes that take into consideration asymmetric costs of over-vs. underestimates of uncertain quantities. This asymmetric-loss-function interpretation provides a psychological explanation for observed judgments and decisions under uncertainty and links them to other judgment tasks. The decision weights estimated when applying dependent-utility models to choices are not simply reflections of perceived subjective probability but a response to several constraints, all of which modify the weight of risky or uncertain outcomes.Perhaps more than any other social science, psychology maintains an ongoing debate about its status as a coherent field of scholarship (cf. Fowler, 1990;Koch, 1969;Simon, 1992), often expressing genuine concern about the paucity of established and cumulative results and theories. Thus, note the emergence of a consensus on an important behavioral fact from different areas of psychology as well as economics. This article brings together some commonalities in results and in the mechanisms designed to explain them. These should be of theoretical as well as practical interest to anybody interested in human judgments and decisions. With this interpretative review, I attempt to present these often technical results and theories in an integrative and more accessible way. I argue that people's behavior in the judgment and decision situations discussed can be seen as responsive to self-or outwardly imposed constraints in their environment rather than as the result of perceptual or cognitive errors. In particular, I suggest that in situations in which an uncertain quantity needs to be assessed, for example, the probability with which some event will occur or the value of Parts of this article were presented as an invited address at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Mathematical Psychology. This article was completed while I was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California, with financial support from National Science Foundation Grant SES-9022192 and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.I am grateful to Michael Birnbaum, David Budescu, Ward Edwards, Ido Erev, Bill Estes, Claudia Gonzalez, Danny Kahneman, Lola Lopes, Duncan Luce, Barbara Mellers, Robin Hogarth, David Sears, Zur Shapira, Abe Tesser, Tom Wallsten, Martin Weber, and two anonymous reviewers for many helpful comments and suggestions.Correspondence concerning this article should ...

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“…In addition, it is necessary to examine the effects of context on the meanings and subsequent interpersonal comparisons of phrases. Studies have documented effects of contexts such as outcome severity (Weber & Hilton, 1990), outcome valence (Mullet & Rivet, 1991), and perceived base rate of events (Wallsten, Fillenbaum, & Cox, 1986) on phrase meaning. Context may also affect membership function shape, but it remains to be determined whether it affects the probability signatures, and if so, whether the effect is uniform across participants.…”

Section: Between-participants Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpersonal comparison of subjective probabilities: Toward translating linguistic probabilities

Dhami

Wallsten

2005

Memory & Cognition

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Contextual effects in the interpretations of probability words: Perceived base rate and severity of events.

Cited by 197 publications

References 28 publications

The probability—outcome correspondence principle: A dispositional view of the interpretation of probability statements

The probability—outcome correspondence principle: A dispositional view of the interpretation of probability statements

From subjective probabilities to decision weights: The effect of asymmetric loss functions on the evaluation of uncertain outcomes and events.

Interpersonal comparison of subjective probabilities: Toward translating linguistic probabilities

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