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Cognitive Uncertainty

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  • Benjamin Enke
  • Thomas Graeber

Abstract

This paper introduces a formal definition and an experimental measurement of the concept of cognitive uncertainty: people’s subjective uncertainty about what the optimal action is. This concept allows us to bring together and partially explain a set of behavioral anomalies identified across four distinct domains of decision-making: choice under risk, choice under ambiguity, belief updating, and survey expectations about economic variables. In each of these domains, behavior in experiments and surveys tends to be insensitive to variation in probabilities, as in the classical probability weighting function. Building on existing models of noisy Bayesian cognition, we formally propose that cognitive uncertainty generates these patterns by inducing people to compress probabilities towards a mental default of 50:50. We document experimentally that the responses of individuals with higher cognitive uncertainty indeed exhibit stronger compression of probabilities in choice under risk and ambiguity, belief updating, and survey expectations. Our framework makes predictions that we test using exogenous manipulations of both cognitive uncertainty and the location of the mental default. The results provide causal evidence for the role of cognitive uncertainty in belief formation and choice, which we quantify through structural estimations.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Enke & Thomas Graeber, 2019. "Cognitive Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 7971, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7971
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Kai Barron & Christina Gravert, 2022. "Confidence and Career Choices: An Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 35-68, January.
    3. Guo, Liang, 2021. "Contextual deliberation and the choice-valuation preference reversal," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    4. Chopra, Felix & Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher, 2022. "Do people demand fact-checked news? Evidence from U.S. Democrats," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    6. Mauersberger, Felix, 2021. "Monetary policy rules in a non-rational world: A macroeconomic experiment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    7. Quentin Cavalan & Vincent De Gardelle & Jean-Christophe Vergnaud, 2020. "Overestimate yourself or underestimate others? Two sources of bias in bargaining with joint production," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 20003, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    8. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "Identifying self-image concerns from motivated beliefs: Does it matter how and whom you ask?," Monash Economics Working Papers 2021-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    9. Antonio Filippin & Marco Mantovani, 2023. "Risk aversion and information aggregation in binary‐asset markets," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(2), pages 753-798, May.
    10. Little, Andrew T., 2022. "Information Theory and Biased Beliefs," OSF Preprints vfqy2, Center for Open Science.
    11. von Gaudecker, Hans-Martin & Wogrolly, Axel, 2022. "Heterogeneity in households’ stock market beliefs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 232-247.
    12. Chew, Soo Hong & Miao, Bin & Shen, Qiang & Zhong, Songfa, 2022. "Multiple-switching behavior in choice-list elicitation of risk preference," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    cognitive uncertainty; beliefs; bounded rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

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