You Need to Recognise Ambiguity to Avoid It

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hong, Chew Soo; Ratchford, Mark; Sagi, Jacob S.
• 署名单位: National University of Singapore; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Vanderbilt University; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12541
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 2480-2506
• 关键词: individual-differences; decision-making; uncertainty; Ellsberg; RISK; preferences; BEHAVIOR; CHOICE

摘要

After screening for attentiveness and comprehension, we present subjects with Ellsberg's (1961) two-urn problem using essentially equivalent but representationally complex matrices. High-comprehension subjects exhibit rates of ambiguity aversion typical of the standard two-urn problem, while low-comprehension subjects appear to randomise. In screening, we classify subjects as probability-minded' or ambiguity-minded', depending on whether they assign probabilities to draws from a card deck of unknown composition. Among high-comprehension subjects, mindedness' explains twenty times more variation in ambiguity attitudes than all other demographic characteristics combined. Compared with their probability-minded' counterparts, ambiguity-minded' subjects are younger and more educated, analytic, and reflective about their choices.