The Future Ambiguity Effect: How Narrow Payoff Ranges Increase Future Payoff Appeal

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Liu, Yuanyuan; Heath, Timothy B.; Onculer, Ayse
• 署名单位: Xi'an Jiaotong University; State University System of Florida; University of South Florida; ESSEC Business School
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2019.3375
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 3754-3770
• 关键词: INTERTEMPORAL CHOICE; ambiguous payoffs; ambiguity aversion

摘要

Increasing a current payoff's ambiguity from a precise value (e.g., $150) to a range (e.g., $140-$160) generally reduces the payoff's appeal, as does delaying the payoff from, for example, now to one year from now. However, we report five studies in which adding small ranges to future payoffs increases future payoff appeal, an emergent property designated the future ambiguity effect. This effect generalizes across various choice sets, payoff levels, and delays, and it prevails even when a future smaller ambiguous payoff is preferred more than a future larger precise payoff. Two underlying processes are proposed and supported: (1) the payoff ambiguity's explicit risk of receiving a smaller payoff distracts people from the future's larger implicit risk of receiving nothing, and (2) payoff ambiguity restores some of the excitement lost to the future's psychological distance. Nonetheless, the future ambiguity effect is not universal, given that larger ranges can reduce and even eliminate it (boundary condition).