Measuring Psychological Uncertainty: Verbal Versus Numeric Methods

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

Volumn 2, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 343-364

  Windschitl, Paul D ^a,b   Wells, Gary L ^a,b  

^a IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Department of Statistics Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence Iowa State University 2438 Osborn Dr Ames   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0000904056     PISSN: 1076898X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/1076-898X.2.4.343     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Abelson, R. P. (1994). A personal perspective on social cognition. In P. G. Divine, D. L. Hamilton, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Social cognition: Impact on social psychology (pp. 15-37). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
2. Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
3. Becker, M. H. (Ed.). (1974). The health belief model and personal health behavior. Health Education Monograph, 2, 324-508.
4. Beyth-Marom, R. (1982). How probable is probable? A numerical translation of verbal probability expressions. Journal of Forecasting, 1, 257-269.
5. Bran, W., & Teigen, K. H. (1988). Verbal probabilities: Ambiguous, context-dependent, or both? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 41, 390-404.
6. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7. Bryant, G. D., & Norman, G. R. (1980). Expressions of probability: Words and numbers. New England Journal of Medicine, 302, 411.
8. Budescu, D. V., & Wallsten, T. S. (1985). Consistency in interpretation of probabilistic phrases. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 36, 391-405.
9. Budescu, D. V., & Wallsten, T. S. (1995). Processing linguistic probabilities: General principles and empirical evidence. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 32, 275-318.
10. Budescu, D. V., Weinberg, S., & Wallsten, T. S. (1988). Decisions based on numerically and verbally expressed uncertainties. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 281-294.
11. Clark, D. A. (1990). Verbal uncertainty expressions: A critical review of two decades of research. Current Psychology: Research & Reviews, 9, 203-235.
12. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavior sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
13. Dane, F. C. (1985). In search of reasonable doubt: A systematic examination of selected quantification approaches. Law and Human Behavior, 9, 141-158.
14. Dovidio, J., & Fazio, R. (1992). New technologies for the direct and indirect assessment of attitudes. In J. Tanur (Ed.), Questions about survey questions. New York: Russell Sage.
15. Epstein, S. (1990). Cognitive-experiential self-theory. In L. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 165-192). New York: Guilford Press.
16. Epstein, S., Lipson, A., Holstein, C., & Huh, E. (1992). Irrational reactions to negative outcomes: Evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 328-339.
17. Erev, I., & Cohen, B. L. (1990). Verbal versus numerical probabilities: Efficiency, biases, and the preference paradox. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 5, 1-18.
18. Gigerenzer, G. (1991). From tools to theories: A heuristic of discovery in cognitive psychology. Psychological Review, 98, 254-267.
19. Gilovich, T., Vallone, R., & Tversky, A. (1985). The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 295-314.
20. González-Vallejo, C., Erev, I., & Wallsten, T. S. (1994). Do decision quality and preference order depend on whether probabilities are verbal or numerical? American Journal of Psychology, 107, 157-172.
21. González-Vallejo, C., & Wallsten, T. S. (1992). Effects of probability mode on preference reversal. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 855-864.
22. Howell, D. C. (1987). Statistical methods for psychology (2nd ed.). Boston: PWS-KENT.
23. Jaffe-Katz, A., Budescu, D. V., & Wallsten, T. S. (1989). Timed magnitude comparisons of numerical and nonnumerical expressions of uncertainty. Memory & Cognition, 17, 249-264.
24. James, W. (1950). The principles of psychology. New York: Dover. (Original work published 1890)
25. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291.
26. Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 15). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
27. Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Epstein, S. (1992). Cognitive-experiential self-theory and subjective probability: Further evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 534-544.
28. Langer, E. J. (1989). Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
29. Lehman, D. R., Lempert, R. O., & Nisbett, R. E. (1988). The effects of graduate training on reasoning: Formal discipline and thinking about everyday-life events. American Psychologist, 43, 431-442.
30. Miller, D. T., Turnbull, W., & McFarland, C. (1989). When a coincidence is suspicious: The role of mental simulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 581-589.
31. Miller, D. T., Turnbull, W., & McFarland, C. (1990). Counterfactual thinking and social perception: Thinking about what might have been. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 305-331.
32. Sloman, S. A. (1996). The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 3-22.
33. Sutherland, H. J., Lockwood, G. A., Tritchler, D. L., Sem, F., Brooks, L., & Till, J. E. (1991). Communicating probabilistic information to cancer patients: Is there "noise" on the line? Social Science and Medicine, 32, 725-731.
34. Tanner, W. P., Jr., & Swets, J. A. (1954). A decision-making theory of visual detection. Psychological Review, 61, 401-409.
35. Teigen, K. H. (1988). The language of uncertainty. Acta Psychologica, 68, 27-38.
36. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.)., The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1: Problems of general psychology. New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934)
37. Wallsten, T. S. (1990). Measuring vague uncertainties and understanding their use in decision making. In G. M. von Furstenberg (Ed.), Acting under uncertainty (pp. 377-398). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic.
38. Wallsten, T. S., Budescu, D. V., Rapoport, A., Zwick, R., & Forsyth, B. (1986). Measuring the vague meanings of probability terms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 348-365.
39. Wallsten, T. S., Budescu, D. V., & Zwick, R. (1993). Comparing the calibration and coherence of numerical and verbal probability judgments. Management Science, 39, 176-190.
40. Wallsten, T. S., Fillenbaum, S., & Cox, J. A. (1986). Base rate effects on the interpretations of probability and frequency expressions. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 571-587.
41. Weber, E. U., & Hilton, D. J. (1990). Contextual effects in the interpretations of probability words: Perceived base rate and severity events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 781-789.
42. Wilson, T. D. (1990). Self-persuasion via self-reflection. In J. M. Olson & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Self-inference process: The Ontario Symposium (pp. 43-67). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
43. Wilson, T. D., Dunn, D. S., Bybee, J. A., Hyman, D. B., & Rotondo, J. A. (1984). Effects of analyzing reasons on attitude-behavior consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 5-16.
44. Wilson, T. D., Dunn, D. S., Kraft, D., & Lisle, D. J. (1989). Introspection, attitude change, and attitude-behavior consistency: The disruptive effects of explaining why we feel the way we do. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 287-343.
45. Wilson, T. D., & Schooler, J. W. (1991). Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 181-192.
46. Zimmer, A. C. (1983). Verbal vs. numerical processing of subjective probabilities. In R. Scholz (Ed.), Decision making under uncertainty (pp. 159-182). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
47. Zimmer, A. C. (1984). A model for the interpretation of verbal predictions. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 20, 121-134.