title: Detectability of the negative event: effect on the acceptance of pre- or post-event risk-defusing actions.
abstract: In risky decision situations, many decision makers search for risk-defusing operators (RDOs). An RDO is an action intended by the decision maker to be performed additionally to a specific alternative and is expected to decrease the risk. Pre-event RDOs (e.g., vaccination) have to be applied before a negative event (e.g., infection) occurs. Post-event RDOs do not need to be initiated before and unless the event happens (e.g., medical treatment). For the successful application of Post-event RDOs, the negative event must be detected in time. Two experiments investigated the effect of uncertainty in the detection of the negative event. In Experiment 1, only a small minority of subjects noted this uncertainty without a cue, and even with cue, only a minority actively searched for probability information. In Experiment 2, the probability for correctly detecting the negative event was varied. When detection was certain, most subjects chose the alternative with a Post-event RDO, whereas this percentage decreased significantly with decreasing probability of correct detection. Also, in the conditions with a more extreme negative outcome, less decision makers chose the alternative with the Post-event RDO.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Route de Faucigny 2, CH-1701 Fribourg, Switzerland. oswald.huber@unifr.ch
authors.forename: Oswald
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.forename: Odilo W
authors.initials: OW
authors.lastname: Huber
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013997:Time Factors