A new study argues that people's instinct to treat probabilities as evenly split when they are uncertain is widespread.
In a working paper Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber, both of Harvard University, argue that the bias towards 50:50 has shown up in many contexts. One is decision-making under known risks, such as gambling at a slot machine(老虎机). Economists have long realized that people are more sensitive to changes in probabilities the nearer they are to the boundaries of 0% and 100% For example, the chance of a big win of, say, $I million rising from 0% to 1% seems much more significant than the chance of the same win rising from 20% to 21%. At the extremes, there is a tendency to compress(压缩) odds to evens.
Other researchers have found that ambiguous risks have a similar compression effect: it can make people act as if they are facing known odds that are closer to 50:50 than might seem rational, given the information on offer. Messrs Enke and Graeber argue that this tendency even shows up in surveys of expectations about the performance of the economy and the stockmarket.
The authors suggest a new theory to explain this behavior: “cognitive uncertainty". It could be described as a simple lack of confidence. If people know that they may not be doing the sums right, or that their memory may be falling them, or that they are not sure what their own preference are, then their choices depend on the information they are presented and more on a “mental default" of equal probabilities.
In a series of online gambling experiments Mr. Enke and Mr. Graeber show that the more uncertain people are in their judgements, the more likely they are to hedge their bets (几面下注)----even when they have access to information that should, in theory, be useful.
Researchers have in the past suggested that odds of 50:50 are really code for “I don't know". Forecasters put odds on evens because words like "probable" and "likely" are interpreted very differently by different people. But numbers mean nothing without confidence.
38．People tend to treat probabilities as evenly split when
A．they are gambling at a fair slot machine.
B．the economists have realized people's sensitivity.
C．they are trying to earn more money in the boundaries.
D．they follow their instinct for widespread uncertainty.
39．We can conclude from the passage that the compression effect
A．is considered very unique in extreme situations.
B．applies when people make predictions for economic performance.
C．enables ambiguous risks to be clearer and more obvious.
D．affects people's answers on surveys of the stockmarket.
In a working paper Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber, both of Harvard University, argue that the bias towards 50:50 has shown up in many contexts. One is decision-making under known risks, such as gambling at a slot machine(老虎机). Economists have long realized that people are more sensitive to changes in probabilities the nearer they are to the boundaries of 0% and 100% For example, the chance of a big win of, say, $I million rising from 0% to 1% seems much more significant than the chance of the same win rising from 20% to 21%. At the extremes, there is a tendency to compress(压缩) odds to evens.
Other researchers have found that ambiguous risks have a similar compression effect: it can make people act as if they are facing known odds that are closer to 50:50 than might seem rational, given the information on offer. Messrs Enke and Graeber argue that this tendency even shows up in surveys of expectations about the performance of the economy and the stockmarket.
The authors suggest a new theory to explain this behavior: “cognitive uncertainty". It could be described as a simple lack of confidence. If people know that they may not be doing the sums right, or that their memory may be falling them, or that they are not sure what their own preference are, then their choices depend on the information they are presented and more on a “mental default" of equal probabilities.
In a series of online gambling experiments Mr. Enke and Mr. Graeber show that the more uncertain people are in their judgements, the more likely they are to hedge their bets (几面下注)----even when they have access to information that should, in theory, be useful.
Researchers have in the past suggested that odds of 50:50 are really code for “I don't know". Forecasters put odds on evens because words like "probable" and "likely" are interpreted very differently by different people. But numbers mean nothing without confidence.
38．People tend to treat probabilities as evenly split when
A．they are gambling at a fair slot machine.
B．the economists have realized people's sensitivity.
C．they are trying to earn more money in the boundaries.
D．they follow their instinct for widespread uncertainty.
39．We can conclude from the passage that the compression effect
A．is considered very unique in extreme situations.
B．applies when people make predictions for economic performance.
C．enables ambiguous risks to be clearer and more obvious.
D．affects people's answers on surveys of the stockmarket.
苏19057182-3号