Conceptual and direct replications fail to support the stake-likelihood hypothesis as an explanation for the interdependence of utility and likelihood judgments.

Abstract

Previous research suggests that people systematically overestimate the occurrence of both positive and negative events, compared with neutral future events, and that these biases are due to a misattribution of arousal elicited by utility (stake-likelihood hypothesis; SLH; Vosgerau, 2010). However, extant research has provided only indirect support for these arousal misattribution processes. In the present research, we initially aimed to provide a direct test of the SLH by measuring arousal with galvanic skin responses to examine the mediating role of arousal. We observed no evidence that measured arousal mediated the impact of utility on probability estimates. Given the lack of direct support for the SLH in Experiment 1, Experiments 2-5 aimed to assess the SLH by replicating some of the original findings that provided support for arousal misattribution as a mechanism. Despite our best efforts to create experimental conditions under which we would be able to demonstrate the stake-likelihood effect, we were unable to replicate previous results, with a Bayesian meta-analysis demonstrating support for the null hypothesis. We propose that accounts based on imaginability and loss function asymmetry are currently better candidate explanations for the influence of outcome utility on probability estimates.

Unrealistic comparative optimism: An unsuccessful search for evidence of a genuinely motivational bias

“…They are quite correct that the scale artifacts posited in [28] only directly challenge results obtained via the comparative method and thus the phenomenon of unrealistic comparative optimism at the group level (in the terminology of [34]). Our own review of the literature suggests that the evidence for other types of optimism (e.g., absolute optimism or, relatedly, the wishful thinking effect, whereby the desirability of an outcome causes an inflated probability estimate) is likewise overstated (see also, [21,28,41,61,63,69,70]). The current paper is not, however, the appropriate outlet for this debate.…”

“…Vosgerau [20] demonstrated that people overestimate the likelihood of positive and negative outcomes, relative to the likelihood of neutral ones (see [21] for a failure to replicate Vosgerau’s results with positive outcomes). Other researchers (e.g., [22–24]; see also, [25]) have also demonstrated that the likelihood of negative events is overestimated relative to neutral events.…”

Flexible Yet Fair: Blinding Analyses in Experimental Psychology

“…For instance, the Open Science Collaboration (2015) showed that out of 100 replication studies, only 39 supported the conclusions that were drawn in the original article (but see Etz & Vandekerckhove, 2016; see also Camerer et al, 2018). Similarly disappointing results were obtained for specific subfields (e.g., R. Klein et al, 2018;Marsman et al, 2017;Nosek & Lakens, 2014), and for particular effects (e.g., de Molière & Harris, 2016;Eerland, Sherrill, Magliano, & Zwaan, 2016;Harris, Coburn, Rohrer, & Pashler, 2013;Matzke et al, 2015;Meyer et al, 2015;Shanks et al, 2013;Unsworth et al, 2015;Wagenmakers et al, 2016, among many others).…”

[PhD Dissertation] Good Research Practices

“…For instance, the Open Science Collaboration (2015) showed that out of 100 replication studies, only 39 supported the conclusions that were drawn in the original article (but see Etz & Vandekerckhove, 2016; see also Camerer et al, 2018). Similarly disappointing results were obtained for specific subfields (e.g., R. Klein et al, 2018;Marsman et al, 2017;Nosek & Lakens, 2014), and for particular effects (e.g., de Molière & Harris, 2016;Eerland, Sherrill, Magliano, & Zwaan, 2016;C. R. Harris, Coburn, Rohrer, & Pashler, 2013;Matzke, Nieuwenhuis, et al, 2015;Meyer et al, 2015;Shanks et al, 2013;Unsworth et al, 2015;Wagenmakers et al, 2016, among many others).…”