Judging the accuracy of a likelihood judgment: the case of smoking risk

A standard method for assessing whether people have appropriate internal representations of an event's likelihood is to check whether their subjective probability or frequency estimates for the event correspond with the assumed objective value for that event. When a person's estimate for the event exceeds its assumed objective probability or frequency, the person's expectancy for the event is concluded to be greater than warranted. This paper describes three lines of reasoning as to why conclusions of this sort can be problematic. Recently published findings as well as data from two new experiments are described to support this main thesis. The case of smoking risk is used to illustrate the more general problem, and issues that must be considered to avoid or contend with the problem are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  A. Tversky,et al.  Unpacking, repacking, and anchoring: advances in support theory. , 1997 .

[2]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Probability, danger, and coercion , 1995 .

[3]  W. Viscusi.  Comment: The Perils of Qualitative Smoking Risk Measures , 2000 .

[4]  Wibecke Brun,et al.  Ambiguous probabilities: when doesp=0.3 reflect a possibility, and when does it express a doubt? , 2000 .

[5]  G. Wells,et al.  The Alternative-Outcomes Effect , 1998 .

[6]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Fifty–fifty = 50%? , 1999 .

[7]  L. Kirkpatrick,et al.  Cognitive-experiential self-theory and subjective probability: further evidence for two conceptual systems. , 1992 .

[8]  Gerd Gigerenzer,et al.  How to Improve Bayesian Reasoning Without Instruction: Frequency Formats , 1995 .

[9]  Seymour Epstein,et al.  The relation of rational and experiential information processing styles to personality, basic beliefs, and the ratio-bias phenomenon. , 1999 .

[10]  N. Weinstein.  Accuracy of smokers' risk perceptions , 1998, Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

[11]  J. Eiser.  Risk judgements reflect belief strength, not bias , 1994 .

[12]  R F Nease,et al.  Perceptions of breast cancer risk and screening effectiveness in women younger than 50 years of age. , 1995, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

[13]  D. Budescu,et al.  Processing Linguistic Probabilities: General Principles and Empirical Evidence , 1995 .

[14]  Douglas A. Kysar,et al.  Taking behavioralism seriously: some evidence of market manipulation. , 1999, Harvard law review.

[15]  Windschitl.  The Binary Additivity of Subjective Probability Does not Indicate the Binary Complementarity of Perceived Certainty. , 2000, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.

[16]  Rami Zwick,et al.  Comparing the calibration and coherence of numerical and verbal probability judgments , 1993 .

[17]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Fault trees: Sensitivity of estimated failure probabilities to problem representation. , 1978 .

[18]  P. Slovic,et al.  Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Communication: The Effects of Using Actual Cases, Providing Instruction, and Employing Probability Versus Frequency Formats , 2000, Law and human behavior.

[19]  S. Epstein,et al.  Conflict Between Intuitive and Rational Processing: When People Behave Against Their Better Judgment , 1994 .

[20]  M H Birnbaum,et al.  Judgments of proportions. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[21]  Nigel Harvey,et al.  Are absolute frequencies, relative frequencies, or both effective in reducing cognitive biases? , 2000 .

[22]  Karl Halvor Teigen,et al.  Studies in subjective probability III: The unimportance of alternatives , 1983 .

[23]  W. Klein,et al.  Objective standards are not enough: affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral responses to social comparison information. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Associative and rule-based processing: A connectionist interpretation of dual-process models. , 1999 .

[25]  Gary L. Wells,et al.  Measuring psychological uncertainty: Verbal versus numeric methods , 1996 .

[26]  P. Slovic.  What does it mean to know a cumulative risk? Adolescents' perceptions of short‐term and long‐term consequences of smoking , 2000 .

[27]  S. Reddy,et al.  Measurement Errors in Probability Judgments , 1996 .

[28]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Rejoinder: the perils of Viscusi's analyses of smoking risk perceptions , 2000 .

[29]  William C. Howell,et al.  A test of task influences in uncertainty measurement , 1982 .

[30]  S. Epstein,et al.  The Generality of the Ratio-Bias Phenomenon , 1995 .

[31]  R. Buehler,et al.  Frequency, Probability, and Prediction: Easy Solutions to Cognitive Illusions? , 1999, Cognitive Psychology.

[32]  Elke U. Weber,et al.  The Interpretation of 'Likely' Depends on the Context, But 70% is 70% - Right? The Influence of Associative Processes on Perceived Certainty , 1999 .

[33]  S. Sloman.  The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. , 1996 .

[34]  Norbert Schwarz,et al.  Response Scales: Effects of Category Range on Reported Behavior and Comparative Judgments , 1985 .

[35]  K. Teigen.  Subjective sampling distributions and the additivity of estimates , 1974 .

[36]  Cheryl Frenck-Mestre,et al.  Determinants of numerical versus verbal probabilities , 1993 .

[37]  W. C. Howell,et al.  Uncertainty measurement: A cognitive taxonomy , 1978 .

[38]  R. Borland.  What do people's estimates of smoking related risk mean? , 1997 .

[39]  G. Gigerenzer.  Why the distinction between single-event probabilities and frequencies is important for psychology (and vice versa). , 1994 .

[40]  J. Eiser,et al.  Accidents, Disease, and the Greenhouse Effect: Effects of Response Categories on Estimates of Risk , 1991 .

[41]  A. Tversky,et al.  Support theory: A nonextensional representation of subjective probability. , 1994 .

[42]  Peter Whalley,et al.  The Supra-Additivity of Subjective Probability , 1983 .

[43]  W. Kip Viscusi,et al.  Smoking: Making the Risky Decision , 1992 .

[44]  W. Viscusi.  Do Smokers Underestimate Risks? , 1990, Journal of Political Economy.

[45]  W. Kip Viscusi,et al.  Age Variations in Risk Perceptions and Smoking Decisions , 1991 .

[46]  Reid Hastie,et al.  Revision of beliefs when a hypothesis is eliminated from consideration. , 1985 .

[47]  Kimihiko Yamagishi.  When a 12.86% Mortality is More Dangerous than 24.14%: Implications for Risk Communication , 1997 .

[48]  S. Epstein.  Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious. , 1994, The American psychologist.