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Do People Make Decisions Under Risk Based on Ignorance? An Empirical Test of the Priority Heuristic against Cumulative Prospect Theory

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  • Andreas Glöckner

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

  • Tilmann Betsch

    (University of Erfurt)

Abstract

Brandstätter, Gigerenzer and Hertwig (2006) put forward the priority heuristic (PH) as a fast and frugal heuristic for decisions under risk. According to the PH, individuals do not make trade-offs between gains and probabilities, as proposed by expected utility models such as cumulative prospect theory (CPT), but use information in a non-compensatory manner and ignore information. We conducted three studies to test the PH empirically by analyzing individual choice patterns, decision times and information search parameters in diagnostic decision tasks. Results on all three dependent variables conflict with the predictions of the PH and can be better explained by the CPT. The predictive accuracy of the PH was high for decision tasks in which the predic-tions align with the predictions of the CPT but very low for decision tasks in which this was not the case. The findings indicate that earlier results supporting the PH might have been caused by the selection of decision tasks that were not diagnostic for the PH as compared to CPT.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Glöckner & Tilmann Betsch, 2008. "Do People Make Decisions Under Risk Based on Ignorance? An Empirical Test of the Priority Heuristic against Cumulative Prospect Theory," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_05, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2008_5
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    Cited by:

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    13. Charles-Cadogan, G., 2018. "Losses loom larger than gains and reference dependent preferences in Bernoulli’s utility function," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 220-237.
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    15. Ivan Moscati, 2022. "Behavioral and heuristic models are as-if models too — and that’s ok," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22177, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    16. Andreas Glöckner & Tilmann Betsch, 2008. "Multiple-Reason Decision Making Based on Automatic Processing," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_12, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
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    18. Michael H. Birnbaum & Jeffrey P. Bahra, 2012. "Testing transitivity of preferences using linked designs," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(5), pages 524-567, September.
    19. Tomasz Potocki, 2012. "Cumulative Prospect Theory as a model of economic rationality," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 31.
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    Keywords

    Decision Strategy; Fast and Frugal Heuristics; Bounded Rationality; Decision Latency; Process Tracing; Cumulative Prospect Theory;
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