Framing experts' (dis)agreements about uncertain environmental events

Abstract

Agreements and disagreements between expert statements influence lay people's beliefs. But few studies have examined what is perceived as a disagreement. We report six experiments where people rated agreement between pairs of probabilistic statements about environmental events, attributed to two different experts or to the same expert at two different points in time. The statements differed in frame, by focusing on complementary outcomes (45% probability that smog will have negative health effects vs. 55% probability that it will not have such effects), in probability level (45% vs. 55% probability of negative effects), or in both respects. Opposite frames strengthened disagreement when combined with different probability levels. Approximate probabilities can be “framed” in yet another way by indicating reference values they are “over” or “under”. Statements that use different directional verbal terms (over vs. under 50%) indicated greater disagreement than statements with the same directional term but different probability levels (over 50% vs. over 70%). Framing and directional terms similarly affected consistency judgments when both statements were issued by the same expert at different occasions. The effect of framing on perceived agreement was significant for medium (10 and 20 percentage points) differences between probabilities, whereas the effect of directional term was stable for numerical differences up to 40 percentage points. To emphasize agreement between different estimates, they should be framed in the same way. To accentuate disagreements or changes of opinion, opposite framings should be used.

Combining verbal forecasts: The role of directionality and the reinforcement effect

“…Do analysts who say that “there is a chance” or “it is rather likely” agree or disagree about the future profitability of Alpha stocks? A previous study by Løhre et al (2019) showed that perceived agreement between forecasters is affected by the way their estimates are framed, for instance in terms of occurrence or non‐occurrence of a specific outcome. Directionality of verbal terms can be regarded as an instance of framing (Teigen & Brun, 2003).…”

Dimensions of uncertainty communication: What is conveyed by verbal terms and numeric ranges

“…Speakers using boundaries framed in the same way appear more in agreement with each other than speakers choosing opposite boundaries, even for estimates that are compatible. Similarly, experts adjusting their former estimates up or down were considered more consistent when both estimates were of the "more than"-type than when the second estimate was framed in terms of "less than", suggesting a change of opinion (Løhre et al, 2019b).…”

The Impact of Weather Forecast Inconsistency on User Trust

“…Nonetheless, when presented with conflicting financial advice from multiple advisors, participants' own estimates appear to be a simple average, suggesting that all of the advice was considered and weighted equally (Budescu and Yu 2007). It is important to note, however, that these are simultaneous forecasts from different sources that appear to ''disagree'' with one another (Løhre et al 2019) rather than sequential forecasts from the same source. It could be argued that sequential inconsistency in a single source is fundamentally different in that the inconsistency arises from differences in prediction from that same source, reflecting more directly upon it.…”