{"title":"Ambiguity and self-protection: evidence from social distancing under the COVID-19 pandemic.","authors":"Daiki Kishishita, Hans H Tung, Charlotte Wang","doi":"10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper studies how people make decisions over preventive behaviors under ambiguity (i.e., Knightian uncertainty) where they do not even know the probability of a loss. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, scientific uncertainty makes it hard to evaluate not only whether one will be infected, but also probabilities such as the infection rate. We constructed a simple model and demonstrated how its effect was heterogeneous depending on ambiguity-attitudes. Motivated by the model, we further conducted a survey experiment in Japan where we manipulated the information regarding scientific uncertainty on COVID-19. We found that higher ambiguity induced by scientific uncertainty increased the level of social distancing among ambiguity-loving people, but such evidence was nonexistent for ambiguity-averse counterparts.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3.</p>","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9525947/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper studies how people make decisions over preventive behaviors under ambiguity (i.e., Knightian uncertainty) where they do not even know the probability of a loss. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, scientific uncertainty makes it hard to evaluate not only whether one will be infected, but also probabilities such as the infection rate. We constructed a simple model and demonstrated how its effect was heterogeneous depending on ambiguity-attitudes. Motivated by the model, we further conducted a survey experiment in Japan where we manipulated the information regarding scientific uncertainty on COVID-19. We found that higher ambiguity induced by scientific uncertainty increased the level of social distancing among ambiguity-loving people, but such evidence was nonexistent for ambiguity-averse counterparts.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42973-022-00120-3.
期刊介绍：
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.
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