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Published on: September 19, 2012
Feedback produces divergence from prospect theory in descriptive choice
Ryan K Jessup1, Anthony J Bishara, Jerome R Busemeyer
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University, USA. ryan.jessup@gmail.com
Trial-by-trial feedback in decision-making tasks causes individuals to underweight small probabilities, shifting choices toward objective probability weighting. This contrasts with typical overweighting observed in descriptive paradigms without feedback.
Area of Science:
- Decision-making research
- Cognitive psychology
- Behavioral economics
Background:
- Individuals making experience-based choices tend to underweight small probabilities.
- This contrasts with the typical overweighting of small probabilities in descriptive choice paradigms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if trial-by-trial feedback in a repeated descriptive paradigm influences decision-making toward experiential or descriptive patterns.
- To determine the role of feedback in probability weighting during decision-making.
Main Methods:
- A repeated gambling task was employed to compare choices between participants receiving feedback and those who did not.
- Individual-subject level model comparison was used to analyze decision weights.
Main Results:
- Participants receiving feedback underweighted small probabilities compared to those without feedback.
- Feedback significantly influenced decision weights, moving them closer to objective probability weighting.
Conclusions:
- Feedback is a crucial factor in decision-making, even when descriptive information is fully available.
- Feedback can alter how individuals weigh probabilities, particularly small ones, aligning choices with objective values.
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