Cultural Differences in Viewing Uncertainty and Assessing Probabilities

Decision time, subjective probability, and task difficulty

“…In the present study, the 50% responses plausibly consisted of a proportion of occasions when no evidence was obtained by subjects to delay an arbitrary choice; on other occasions, evidence might have been retrieved, but evaluation revealed it to be equivocal. Such a mixture may explain why the 50% responses were faster than allowable by a model predicting a linear relationship between subjective confidence and decision time (Branthwaite, 1974;Cohen et al, 1960) but not fast enough to fit the threestage model proposed by Phillips and Wright (1977). However, we found no evidence of a bimodal distribution of the binary decision times that resulted in 50% responses.…”

“…A total of 37 British students attending Huddersfield Polytechnic voluntarily completed the Probability Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ; detailed in Phillips & Wright, 1977), which contains 75 general-knowledge questions, such as "Which is larger? (a) Black Sea, (b) Caspian Sea."…”

“…Clearly, the type of information processed by a subject varied little from decision to deci- appear that the presence of nonlinearity in the data may largely be attributable to the response times for 50% judgments, which were discrepantly low. A post hoc trend analysis (Gaito, 1965;Kirk, 1982) (Scheffe, 1953) showed that the 50% response times were not significantly shorter than those for the next highest subjective probability category, 51 %-60% [F(1,240) These results were inconsistent with Phillips and Wright's (1977) sequential model of probabilistic processing, in that the decision time of a 50% response was no shorter than that of other probabilistic responses, excluding 100% responses. There was also only moderate support for a strict monotonic decreasing relationship between binary decision time and associated confidence or probability over the half (50%-100%) range of probability.…”

“…Independently, Phillips and Wright (1977) proposed a three-stage sequential model of the cognitive processes involved in answering a question. This model was developed in the context of probability responses given to general-knowledge questions.…”

Cross-cultural exploration of the Indecisiveness Scale: A comparison of Chinese and American men and women

“…Differences in decision making along this cultural divide have already been found for confidence judgments (Phillips & Wright, 1977;Yates, Lee, Shinotsuka, Patalano, & Sieck, 1998), risk assessment (Hsee & Weber, 1999;Weber & Hsee, 1998), and preferred decision making style . Furthermore, it is unknown whether components of indecisiveness are universal or whether cultural differences might exist, such as in the relationship between effortful decision making and negative emotion.…”