Detectability of the negative event: effect on the acceptance of pre- or post-event risk-defusing actions.

Full Abstract

In risky decision situations, many decision makers search for risk-defusing operators (RDOs). An RDO is an action intended by the decision maker to be performed additionally to a specific alternative and is expected to decrease the risk. Pre-event RDOs (e.g., vaccination) have to be applied before a negative event (e.g., infection) occurs. Post-event RDOs do not need to be initiated before and unless the event happens (e.g., medical treatment). For the successful application of Post-event RDOs, the negative event must be detected in time. Two experiments investigated the effect of uncertainty in the detection of the negative event. In Experiment 1, only a small minority of subjects noted this uncertainty without a cue, and even with cue, only a minority actively searched for probability information. In Experiment 2, the probability for correctly detecting the negative event was varied. When detection was certain, most subjects chose the alternative with a Post-event RDO, whereas this percentage decreased significantly with decreasing probability of correct detection. Also, in the conditions with a more extreme negative outcome, less decision makers chose the alternative with the Post-event RDO.Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science B.V.

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Author information

Author/s: Huber, Oswald (O); Huber, Odilo W (OW);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Route de Faucigny 2, CH-1701 Fribourg, Switzerland. oswald.huber(-atsign-)unifr.ch

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Acta psychologica (Acta Psychol (Amst)), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-May; vol 113 (issue 1) : pp 1-21

Dates: Created 2003/04/07; Completed 2003/05/23; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12679041, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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