The Directionality of Verbal Probability Expressions: Effects on Decisions,Predictions, and Probabilistic Reasoning

Verbal phrases denoting uncertainty are of two kinds: positive, suggesting the occurrence of a target outcome, and negative, drawing attention to its nonoccurrence (Teigen & Brun, 1995). This directionality is correlated with, but not identical to, high and low p values. Choice of phrase will in turn influence predictions and decisions. A treatment described as having “some possibility” of success will be recommended, as opposed to when it is described as “quite uncertain,” even if the probability of cure referred to by these two expressions is judged to be the same (Experiment 1). Individuals who formulate their chances of achieving a successful outcome in positive terms are supposed to make different decisions than individuals who use equivalent, but negatively formulated, phrases (Experiments 2 and 3). Finally, negative phrases lead to fewer conjunction errors in probabilistic reasoning than do positive phrases (Experiment 4). For instance, a combination of 2 “uncertain” outcomes is readily seen to be “very uncertain.” But positive phrases lead to fewer disjunction errors than do negative phrases. Thus verbal probabilistic phrases differ from numerical probabilities not primarily by being more “vague,” but by suggesting more clearly the kind of inferences that should be drawn.