Measurement Errors in Probability Judgments

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

9-1996

Abstract

This paper investigates the psychometric properties of three measures of subjective uncertainty-a zero-to-hundred subjective probability scale and two seven point rating scales. Individual level analysis applied to data obtained from two separate studies suggests that the scales produce fairly similar results: The inter-response mode correlations were high, and individual plots comparing various methods were quite similar. Covariance structure models based on multitrait-multimethod matrices are utilized to assess the reliability and method variance of the scales. The cumulative evidence suggests that rating scales are consistently just as reliable as the subjective probability scale. The probability scale contained significant method error. In fact, the two rating scales were found to have lower systematic method variance and lower random error variance than the subjective probability scale. The paper concludes with a discussion regarding possible explanations of these results and directions for future research.

Keywords

subjective uncertainty, subjective probability, rating scales, covariance structure models, reliability, method variance

Discipline

Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods

Research Areas

Marketing

Publication

Management Science

Volume

42

Issue

9

First Page

1308

Last Page

1325

ISSN

0025-1909

Identifier

10.1287/mnsc.42.9.1308

Publisher

INFORMS

Additional URL

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2634439

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS