One-shot lotteries in the park

Mordechai Z. Juni, Todd M. Gureckis, Laurence T. Maloney

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

How do people manipulate their environment when balancing trade-offs between probability of success and payoff? Individuals in a city park played a simple lottery using a small set of marbles placed in an urn. Participants had the ability to actively improve their chances of winning but only by reducing the amount of money that they could possibly win. Hence, participants controlled the lottery’s intuitive trade-off between probability of success and potential payout. Across four different lottery structures, participants, on average, behaved systematically safer than the optimal strategy that maximizes expected gain. We explore two different accounts of this suboptimal choice behavior: probability distortion, and intrinsic utility of winning.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationBuilding Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2012
EditorsNaomi Miyake, David Peebles, Richard P. Cooper
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1745-1749
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9780976831884
StatePublished - 2012
Event34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World, CogSci 2012 - Sapporo, Japan
Duration: Aug 1 2012Aug 4 2012

Publication series

NameBuilding Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2012

Conference

Conference34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Building Bridges Across Cognitive Sciences Around the World, CogSci 2012
Country/TerritoryJapan
CitySapporo
Period8/1/128/4/12

Keywords

  • decision making
  • intrinsic utility of winning
  • one-shot lottery
  • probability distortion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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