Essays on consumer judgment and decision making under uncertainty
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The dissertation studies several factors that impact likelihood judgments and decisions in concrete situations characterized by uncertainty. The first two essays study the entry decision in a lottery where the number of participants is unknown. This decision is not affected by the number of prizes, i.e. by the number of winners to be rewarded (Essay 1), whereas it is influenced by the similarity with the previous winners, a logically irrelevant factor (Essay 2). Consumers' insensitivity to the number of prizes is driven by the combined effect of the low evaluability of this attribute and decision making without likelihood judgment. Similarity with the previous winners increases participation intention because of the Interpersonal Hot Hand Fallacy: consumers believe their chances of winning the next random drawing are higher when they are similar to the lucky previous winners than when they are dissimilar. The final essay shows that, when regretting a recent decision before its consequences are known, people tend to be optimistic about these consequences, provided that the self-significance of the decision is limited
Source: HAL
Author: Sandra Laporte
Institution: Groupement de Recherche et d'Études en Gestion d’HEC
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W630742878