Cognitive strategies for coping with uncertain outcomes

Abstract It was proposed that, when faced with highly desirable but uncertain outcomes, people may employ cognitive strategies in an attempt to influence their future affective responses to the outcomes in question. The present study attempted to demonstrate the use of two such strategies. First, it was hypothesized that when people are faced with a low probability of obtaining a highly desirable outcome, they tend to derogate that outcome by perceiving it as less attractive. Second, it was proposed that when people are faced with uncertainty regarding the occurrence of a highly desirable outcome, they tend to underestimate the likelihood of its occurrence, in an attempt to avoid future disappointment. These hypotheses were tested within the context of a lottery in which subjects were given a low, moderate, or high chance of winning a prize that was either high or low in attractiveness. As predicted, subjects viewed the highly attractive prize as less valuable and attractive when they had a low probability of winning than when the probability of winning was moderate or high. Subjects also perceived themselves as less likely to win when the prize was high in attractiveness than when it was low in attractiveness. The relationship of these findings to studies of self-handicapping and attribute ambiguity is discussed.