IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v144y2018icp112-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What are my chances? An imagery versus discursive processing approach to understanding ratio-bias effects

Author

Listed:
  • Schlosser, Ann E.

Abstract

Ratios are often used to communicate risk. Thus, it is important to understand when and why certain ratios communicate greater risk. Prior research on the ratio-bias effect suggests that people often assume greater risk when ratios use larger than smaller numbers. Yet, support for this effect has been mixed. The present research contributes to this literature by applying a dual-process theory that distinguishes between discursive and imagery-based processing of ratios, thereby offering new insights into the ratio-bias effect and when it occurs. Specifically, when processing discursively (as numbers), the ratio-bias effect should emerge. However, because imagery processing is more holistic, the ratio-bias effect should reverse when imagery processing is encouraged (via graphics or instructions to imagine). The results of six studies support these predictions. In addition to shedding light on how different ways of processing numerical information influences risk judgments and willingness to act, this research has important implications for crafting messages designed to communicate risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Schlosser, Ann E., 2018. "What are my chances? An imagery versus discursive processing approach to understanding ratio-bias effects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 112-124.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:144:y:2018:i:c:p:112-124
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.11.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597816304484
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.11.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rocio Garcia-Retamero & Mirta Galesic & Gerd Gigerenzer, 2010. "Do Icon Arrays Help Reduce Denominator Neglect?," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 30(6), pages 672-684, November.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:5:p:602-617 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Paul Slovic & Melissa L. Finucane & Ellen Peters & Donald G. MacGregor, 2004. "Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some Thoughts about Affect, Reason, Risk, and Rationality," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 311-322, April.
    4. Petty, Richard E & Cacioppo, John T & Schumann, David, 1983. "Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Involvement," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(2), pages 135-146, September.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:6:p:436-446 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Holbrook, Morris B & Moore, William L, 1981. "Feature Interactions in Consumer Judgments of Verbal versus Pictorial Presentations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 8(1), pages 103-113, June.
    7. Stone, Eric R. & Sieck, Winston R. & Bull, Benita E. & Frank Yates, J. & Parks, Stephanie C. & Rush, Carolyn J., 2003. "Foreground:background salience: Explaining the effects of graphical displays on risk avoidance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 19-36, January.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i::p:-416 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kirsten Passyn & Mita Sujan, 2006. "Self-Accountability Emotions and Fear Appeals: Motivating Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(4), pages 583-589, March.
    10. Marilyn M. Schapira & Ann B. Nattinger & Colleen A. McHorney, 2001. "Frequency or Probability? A Qualitative Study of Risk Communication Formats Used in Health Care," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(6), pages 459-467, December.
    11. MacInnis, Deborah J & Price, Linda L, 1987. "The Role of Imagery in Information Processing: Review and Extensions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 473-491, March.
    12. Schindler, Robert M & Kirby, Patrick N, 1997. "Patterns of Rightmost Digits Used in Advertised Prices: Implications for Nine-Ending Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(2), pages 192-201, September.
    13. Stone, Eric R. & Yates, J. Frank & Parker, Andrew M., 1994. "Risk Communication: Absolute versus Relative Expressions of Low-Probability Risks," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 387-408, December.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:1:y:2006:i::p:118-133 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garcia-Retamero, Rocio & Hoffrage, Ulrich, 2013. "Visual representation of statistical information improves diagnostic inferences in doctors and their patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 27-33.
    2. Xie, Guangming & Lü, Kevin & Gupta, Suraksha & Jiang, Yushi & Shi, Li, 2021. "How Dispersive Opinions Affect Consumer Decisions: Endowment Effect Guides Attributional Inferences," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 621-638.
    3. Tonkin, Emma & Meyer, Samantha B. & Coveney, John & Webb, Trevor & Wilson, Annabelle M., 2016. "The process of making trust related judgements through interaction with food labelling," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-11.
    4. Christine Otieno & Hans Spada & Alexander Renkl, 2013. "Effects of News Frames on Perceived Risk, Emotions, and Learning," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-1, November.
    5. Lyndal J. Trevena & Carissa Bonner & Yasmina Okan & Ellen Peters & Wolfgang Gaissmaier & Paul K. J. Han & Elissa Ozanne & Danielle Timmermans & Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher, 2021. "Current Challenges When Using Numbers in Patient Decision Aids: Advanced Concepts," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 41(7), pages 834-847, October.
    6. Samson, Alain & Voyer, Benjamin G., 2012. "Two minds, three ways: dual system and dual process models in consumer psychology," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47252, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Tobias Effertz & Marie-Kristin Franke & Thorsten Teichert, 2014. "Adolescents’ Assessments of Advertisements for Unhealthy Food: an Example of Warning Labels for Soft Drinks," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 279-299, June.
    8. Puccinelli, Nancy M. & Goodstein, Ronald C. & Grewal, Dhruv & Price, Robert & Raghubir, Priya & Stewart, David, 2009. "Customer Experience Management in Retailing: Understanding the Buying Process," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 15-30.
    9. Melissa L. Finucane & Joan L. Holup, 2006. "Risk as Value: Combining Affect and Analysis in Risk Judgments," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 141-164, March.
    10. Varsha Jain & Subhadip Roy & Adwita Pant, 2013. "Effect of colour and relative product size (RPS) on consumer attitudes," Transnational Marketing Journal, Oxbridge Publishing House, UK, vol. 1(1), pages 41-58, October.
    11. Garcia-Retamero, Rocio & Galesic, Mirta, 2010. "Who proficts from visual aids: Overcoming challenges in people's understanding of risks," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1019-1025, April.
    12. Paul C. Price & Grace A. Carlock & Sarah Crouse & Mariana Vargas Arciga, 2022. "Effects of icon arrays to communicate risk in a repeated risky decision-making task," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 17(2), pages 378-399, March.
    13. Kim, Minjeong, 2019. "Digital product presentation, information processing, need for cognition and behavioral intent in digital commerce," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 362-370.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:17:y:2022:i:2:p:378-399 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Alain Samson & Benjamin G. Voyer, 2012. "Two minds, three ways: dual system and dual process models in consumer psychology," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 2(2), pages 48-71, December.
    16. Genius Murwirapachena & Johane Dikgang, 2022. "The effects of presentation formats in choice experiments," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 24(3), pages 421-445, July.
    17. Jorge Villegas & Corene Matyas & Sivaramakrishnan Srinivasan & Ignatius Cahyanto & Brijesh Thapa & Lori Pennington-Gray, 2013. "Cognitive and affective responses of Florida tourists after exposure to hurricane warning messages," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 66(1), pages 97-116, March.
    18. Stallen, Mirre & Smidts, Ale & Rijpkema, Mark & Smit, Gitty & Klucharev, Vasily & Fernández, Guillén, 2010. "Celebrities and shoes on the female brain: The neural correlates of product evaluation in the context of fame," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 802-811, October.
    19. O'Cass, A., 2000. "An assessment of consumers product, purchase decision, advertising and consumption involvement in fashion clothing," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 545-576, October.
    20. Jakina Debnam, 2017. "Selection Effects and Heterogeneous Demand Responses to the Berkeley Soda Tax Vote," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1172-1187.
    21. Kang, Min Jung & Park, Heejun, 2011. "Impact of experience on government policy toward acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Korea," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3465-3475, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:144:y:2018:i:c:p:112-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.