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Forecasting Trial Outcomes: Lawyers Assign Higher Probability to Possibilities That Are Described in Greater Detail

Forecasting Trial Outcomes: Lawyers Assign Higher Probability to Possibilities That Are Described... The study of judgment under uncertainty has revealed that people judge the probability of an event to be higher when the event is described as a disjunction of constituent events or when they judge constituent events separately. These observations have motivated the development of support theory (Y. Rottenstreich & A. Tversky, 1997; A. Tversky & D. J. Koehler, 1994), a descriptive model of judgment under uncertainty. The major predictions of support theory are that (1) the judged probabilities of complementary events sum to 1; (2) the judged probabilities of n > 2 exclusive and exhaustive events generally sum to more than 1; and (3) the judged probability of an event generally increases when it is described as a disjunction of specific possibilities. We test these predictions in 6 studies of experienced attorneys who judged the likelihood of particular trial outcomes or were asked to offer advice on whether or not to accept a settlement offer. The results demonstrate that attorneys are indeed susceptible to bias in forecasting trial outcomes, consistent with support theory. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Law and Human Behavior American Psychological Association

Forecasting Trial Outcomes: Lawyers Assign Higher Probability to Possibilities That Are Described in Greater Detail

Law and Human Behavior , Volume 26 (2): 15 – Apr 1, 2002

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References (21)

Publisher
American Psychological Association
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 American Psychological Association
ISSN
0147-7307
eISSN
1573-661X
DOI
10.1023/A:1014687809032
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The study of judgment under uncertainty has revealed that people judge the probability of an event to be higher when the event is described as a disjunction of constituent events or when they judge constituent events separately. These observations have motivated the development of support theory (Y. Rottenstreich & A. Tversky, 1997; A. Tversky & D. J. Koehler, 1994), a descriptive model of judgment under uncertainty. The major predictions of support theory are that (1) the judged probabilities of complementary events sum to 1; (2) the judged probabilities of n > 2 exclusive and exhaustive events generally sum to more than 1; and (3) the judged probability of an event generally increases when it is described as a disjunction of specific possibilities. We test these predictions in 6 studies of experienced attorneys who judged the likelihood of particular trial outcomes or were asked to offer advice on whether or not to accept a settlement offer. The results demonstrate that attorneys are indeed susceptible to bias in forecasting trial outcomes, consistent with support theory.

Journal

Law and Human BehaviorAmerican Psychological Association

Published: Apr 1, 2002

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