ERIC Number: EJ688652
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Mar
Pages: 17
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1076-898X
EISSN: N/A
You Say "Probable" and I Say "Likely": Improving Interpersonal Communication With Verbal Probability Phrases
Karelitz, Tzur M.; Budescu, David V.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied, v10 n1 p25-41 Mar 2004
When forecasters and decision makers describe uncertain events using verbal probability terms, there is a risk of miscommunication because people use different probability phrases and interpret them in different ways. In an effort to facilitate the communication process, the authors investigated various ways of converting the forecasters' verbal probabilities to the decision maker's terms. The authors present 3 studies in which participants judged the probabilities of distinct events using both numerical and verbal probabilities. They define several indexes of interindividual coassignment of phrases to the same events and evaluate the conversion methods by comparing the values of these indexes for the converted and the unconverted judgments. In all the cases studied, the conversion methods significantly reduced the error rates in communicating uncertainties.
Descriptors: Probability, Interpersonal Communication, Value Judgment, Communication Skills, Phrase Structure, Prediction
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Publication Type: Journal Articles
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A