Ambiguity as a Source of Temptation: Modeling Unstable Beliefs

The "General-Self-Control-Preference" model introduced by Noor and Takeoka (2010) allows to take into account non linear costs of Self-Control. In this paper we extend this theory to situations in which a decision-maker faces ambiguity. We focus on the fact that lack of information is a potential source of temptation. Indeed lack of information doesn't allow the decision-maker to put a probability measure on uncertain events. Our basic hypothesis is that, in ambiguous situation, individuals are not confident enough about their beliefs and could therefore be tempted to use other beliefs to evaluate the alternatives in the second period. We study a two period model where ex ante dominated choice may tempt the decision-maker in the second period. Individuals have preferences over sets of alternatives that represent second period choices. We provide a Choice-Theoretic model where the ex-ante belief is a probability measure whereas ex post belief is a Choquet-capacity, in order to take into account individual attitudes towards ambiguity in the second period.