Measuring Ambiguity Attitudes Without Incentives: Evidence from an Introspection-Based Method

Ilke Aydogan (), Maria Montoya-Villalobos () and Loïc Berger ()
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Ilke Aydogan: LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - ULCO - Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Maria Montoya-Villalobos: Université de Lille
Loïc Berger: CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IÉSEG School Of Management [Puteaux], EIEE - European Institute on Economics and the Environment, CMCC - Centro Euro-Mediterraneo per i Cambiamenti Climatici [Bologna]

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Abstract: Measuring ambiguity attitudes using monetary incentives may be logistically complex, costly, and time-consuming. We propose and test a simplified, introspectionbased method that retains the core strengths of state-of-the-art approaches for measuring ambiguity preferences while being suitable for survey implementation. The method involves a hypothetical binary choice between a risky and an ambiguous option, followed by an introspective assessment of the strength of preference. We assess the validity of our method by comparing it to incentivized choice-based measures in two experiments: a laboratory study with university students and an online study with a representative sample of the French population. Our findings show that the introspection-based method captures ambiguity aversion reasonably well but falls short in measuring ambiguity-generated likelihood insensitivity, mainly because it does not reproduce the ambiguity seeking observed for low-likelihood events under incentives. These results offer new evidence on the strengths and limitations of non-incentivized approaches to eliciting ambiguity preferences.

Keywords: Ambiguity elicitation; Strength of Preference; Survey validation; Hypothetical bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05773578v1
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