Expressed Likelihood as Motivator: Creating Value through Engaging What's Real.
Our research tested two predictions regarding how likelihood can have motivational effects as a function of how a probability isexpressed. We predicted that describing the probability of afutureevent that could be either A or B using the language of high likelihood ("80% A") rather than low likelihood ("20% B"), i.e., high rather than lowexpressedlikelihood, would make apresentactivity more real and engaging, as long as the future event had properties relevant to the present activity. We also predicted that strengthening engagement from the high (vs. low) expressed likelihood of a future event would intensify the value of present positive and negative objects (in opposite directions). Both predictions were supported. There was also evidence that this intensification effect from expressed likelihood was independent of the actual probability or valence of the future event. What mattered was whether high versus low likelihood language was used to describe the future event.
Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
E Tory
ET
Higgins
Becca
B
Franks
Dana
D
Pavarini
Steen
S
Sehnert
Katie
K
Manley
engagement; likelihood; motivation; probability; value