Members in the Media
From: Pacific Standard

How Changing Predictions Affect Our Decision-Making

Pacific Standard:

If you heard on the radio this morning that there was a 30 percent chance of rain, would you pack an umbrella? Now, what if that estimate represents a revision over the previous night’s forecast—down from 40 percent, say, or up from 20 percent? According to a new study, revisions like that affect how we subjectively perceive probabilities—and maybe how we make decisions about everything from umbrellas to climate change.

But that is not how we human beings think about probability. In reality, psychologists Sam Maglio and Evan Polman point out, we experience probabilities more as a kind of psychological distance: The higher the probability of an event, the nearer and more important the event seems.

Read the whole story: Pacific Standard

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