Islanders and hostages: Deep and surface structures of decision problems

Abstract

Decision problems can be characterized by their surface structure (the story as presented) and their deep structure (the representation of the problem used by a respondent or as specified by a psychological theory). We started with a story problem about an island with a life-threatening epidemic. The authors of this problem (Hammerton, Jones-Lee and Abbott 1982) assumed a deep structure based on subjectively expected utility (SEU) theory and concluded that a large majority of their respondents were risk averse. We developed eleven variations of the surface structure, all of which could be represented by the same deep structure. The responses of 1,366 Dutch, American, and Israeli subjects varied widely as a function of some of these surface changes, indicating that underlying deep structure was not at all like the simple SEU representation. The translation from surface structure to deep structure can be quite complex; researches should not make untested assumptions about this translation when using story problems to test their theories.