The certainty effect describes how reducing the probability of a certain outcome has a greater psychological impact than the same reduction applied to an already probable outcome. This stems from our preference for certainty and our difficulty in accurately assessing probabilities, leading us to prefer eliminating risk over merely reducing it.
Dieses Phänomen beschreibt, wie eine Verringerung der Wahrscheinlichkeit eines sicheren Ergebnisses eine größere psychologische Auswirkung hat als die gleiche Verringerung der Wahrscheinlichkeit eines bereits unsicheren Ergebnisses. Es beruht auf unserer Vorliebe für Gewissheit und unserer Schwierigkeit, Wahrscheinlichkeiten korrekt einzuschätzen, was dazu führt, dass wir Risiken lieber eliminieren als nur reduzieren.
| Fallacy | certainty effect |
|---|---|
| Definition and Examples | When an outcome is certain and it becomes less probable, this has a greater impact than when the outcome was merely probable before the probability was reduced by the same amount. Thus 100% - 10% = 90% has more psychological impact than 50% - 10% = 40%. Overall, this works because of our preference for absolutes and our inability to really understand the meaning of the difference between different probabilities. To most people, 70%, 80% and 90% all mean the same: not certain, but fairly likely. Thus we would rather eliminate risk rather than reduce it. Humans prefer certainty over uncertainty |
Tags: fallacies
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