Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: The hypothesis that category descriptions are interpreted narrowly, in terms of representative instances, is examined by comparing probability judgments for packed descriptions of events to judgments for coextensional unpacked descriptions. The representativeness of the unpacked instance was varied along with the type of unpacking (direct vs. priming). In contrast to the prediction of Support Theory (Tversky & Koehler, 1994), we found no evidence that unpacking has a nonnegative effect on probability judgments (subadditivity). Instead, we found a negative effect with low representative direct unpackings (superadditivity). Our data suggest that probability judgments are proportional to the typicality of instances in the description.
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2624418574