IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v9y1989i2p116-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterizing Physicians' Perceptions of Ambiguity

Author

Listed:
  • Shawn P. Curley
  • Mark J. Young
  • J. Frank Yates

Abstract

Ambiguity, typically characterized as imprecision in judged probabilities, is distinguishable from that uncertainty typically measured using probabilities. It reflects the inadequacy of a point probability judgment and the assumptions upon which it is based. Ambiguity influences both patients' and physicians' decisions, but it is unknown how decision makers conceptualize ambiguity. Toward this goal, properties of three ambiguity indicators were examined: a confidence rating, a plausible range, and an interquartile range. Board-certified internists and fourth-year medical students evaluated simulated cases of suspected coronary artery disease. Their judgments provided insights into the three ambiguity indicators. The distri bution-based interquartile range was largely redundant with the plausible range, and was least adequate. The confidence rating was not equivalent to the plausible range, and ap peared to best reflect the construct of ambiguity as it has been defined. Key words: ambiguity; probability judgments; decision making. (Med Decis Making 1989;9:116-124)

Suggested Citation

  • Shawn P. Curley & Mark J. Young & J. Frank Yates, 1989. "Characterizing Physicians' Perceptions of Ambiguity," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 9(2), pages 116-124, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:9:y:1989:i:2:p:116-124
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X8900900206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X8900900206
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X8900900206?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shawn P. Curley & Stephen A. Eraker & J. Frank Yates, 1984. "An Investigation of Patient's Reactions to Therapeutic Uncertainty," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 4(4), pages 501-511, December.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Einhorn, Hillel J & Hogarth, Robin M, 1986. "Decision Making under Ambiguity," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 225-250, October.
    4. Kenneth R. Maccrimmon, 1968. "Descriptive and Normative Implications of the Decision-Theory Postulates," International Economic Association Series, in: Karl Borch & Jan Mossin (ed.), Risk and Uncertainty, chapter 0, pages 3-32, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Curley, Shawn P. & Yates, J. Frank & Abrams, Richard A., 1986. "Psychological sources of ambiguity avoidance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 230-256, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mercè Roca & Robin Hogarth & A. Maule, 2006. "Ambiguity seeking as a result of the status quo bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 175-194, May.
    2. Charles-Cadogan, G., 2021. "Incoherent Preferences," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 69, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    3. Keck, Steffen & Diecidue, Enrico & Budescu, David V., 2014. "Group decisions under ambiguity: Convergence to neutrality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 60-71.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:390-397 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Oechssler, Jörg & Roomets, Alex, 2014. "Unintended hedging in ambiguity experiments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 243-246.
    6. Jean Desrochers & J. Francois Outreville, 2013. "Uncertainty, Ambiguity and Risk Taking: an experimental investigation of consumer behavior and demand for insurance," ICER Working Papers 10-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    7. Carmela Di Mauro & Anna Maffioletti, 2004. "Attitudes to risk and attitudes to uncertainty: experimental evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 357-372.
    8. L. Robin Keller & Rakesh K. Sarin & Jayavel Sounderpandian, 2007. "An examination of ambiguity aversion: Are two heads better than one?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 2, pages 390-397, December.
    9. Shawn P. Curley, 2007. "The application of Dempster-Shafer theory demonstrated with justification provided by legal evidence," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 2, pages 257-276, October.
    10. Koch, Christopher & Schunk, Daniel, 2007. "The Case for Limited Auditor Liability - The Effects of Liability Size on Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 07-04, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    11. Charles-Cadogan, G., 2018. "Probability interference in expected utility theory," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 163-175.
    12. Lauriola, Marco & Levin, Irwin P. & Hart, Stephanie S., 2007. "Common and distinct factors in decision making under ambiguity and risk: A psychometric study of individual differences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 130-149, November.
    13. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:257-276 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Steffen Huck & Wieland Müller, 2012. "Allais for all: Revisiting the paradox in a large representative sample," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 261-293, June.
    15. Yehuda Izhakian, 2012. "Ambiguity Measurement," Working Papers 12-01, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    16. Richard J. Arend, 2020. "Strategic decision-making under ambiguity: a new problem space and a proposed optimization approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 1231-1251, November.
    17. Kuhberger, Anton, 1998. "The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 23-55, July.
    18. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    19. Chandrashekaran, Rajesh & Grewal, Dhruv, 2006. "Anchoring effects of advertised reference price and sale price: The moderating role of saving presentation format," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(10-11), pages 1063-1071, October.
    20. Stephen G Dimmock & Roy Kouwenberg & Olivia S Mitchell & Kim Peijnenburg, 2021. "Household Portfolio Underdiversification and Probability Weighting: Evidence from the Field," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(9), pages 4524-4563.
    21. Yitong Wang & Tianjun Feng & L. Keller, 2013. "A further exploration of the uncertainty effect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 291-310, December.
    22. Peter, Richard & Ying, Jie, 2020. "Do you trust your insurer? Ambiguity about contract nonperformance and optimal insurance demand," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 938-954.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:9:y:1989:i:2:p:116-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.