Size Doesn't Really Matter
- 1 January 2008
- journal article
- Published by Hogrefe Publishing Group in Experimental Psychology
- Vol. 55 (1) , 31-37
- https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169.55.1.31
Abstract
When attempting to draw a ball of a specified color either from an urn containing 50 red balls and 50 black balls or from an urn containing an unknown ratio of 100 red and black balls, a majority of decision makers prefer the known-risk urn, and this ambiguity aversion effect violates expected utility theory. In an experimental investigation of the effect of urn size on ambiguity aversion, 149 participants showed similar levels of aversion when choosing from urns containing 2, 10, or 100 balls. The occurrence of a substantial and significant ambiguity aversion effect even in the smallest urn suggests that influential theoretical interpretations of ambiguity aversion may need to be reconsidered.Keywords
This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Conflict between intuitive and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1994
- Recent developments in modeling preferences: Uncertainty and ambiguityJournal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1992
- An empirical evaluation of descriptive models of ambiguity reactions in choice situationsJournal of Mathematical Psychology, 1989
- Ambiguity and rationalityJournal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1988
- Anticipatory anxiety and risk perceptionCognitive Therapy and Research, 1987
- Ambiguity and uncertainty in probabilistic inference.Psychological Review, 1985
- Cognitive processes in anxietyAdvances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1983
- What Price Ambiguity? or the Role of Ambiguity in Decision-MakingJournal of Political Economy, 1964
- Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage AxiomsThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1961
- Distortion of Subjective Probabilities as a Reaction to UncertaintyThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1961