Additivity neglect in probability estimates: Effects of numeracy and response format

Anine H. Riege and Karl Halvor Teigen

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2013, vol. 121, issue 1, 41-52

Abstract: When people are asked to estimate the probabilities for an exhaustive set of more than two events, they often produce probabilities that add up to more than 100%. Potential determinants for such additivity neglect are explored in four experiments. Additive responses vary between experimental conditions, mainly as a result of response format, with a scale format leading to fewer additive responses than a list format with self-generated, written probabilities. Participants with high numeracy scores produced more additive responses, especially after being primed with a numeracy scale. Additivity neglect for 100% sums appears to be unrelated to other subadditive judgments, like non-additive disjunctions. We conclude that additivity neglect is caused by a case-based approach, which comes natural in real-life situations where the full set of outcomes is not available.

Keywords: Probability estimates; Additivity; Numeracy; Response format; Predictions; Subadditivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:121:y:2013:i:1:p:41-52

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.11.004

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