Abstract
A theory of how opinions are formed and revised on the basis of probabilistic evidence is presented. The decision maker is viewed as a limited information processor who attends to the dimensions of a sample of equivocal information in a sequential fashion, beginning with the most salient dimension and continuing in decreasing order of salience. The contribution of each dimension level to the final opinion depends on the strength of association between that level and each of the two hypotheses under consideration. This theory is represented formally as an additive-difference model, various special cases of which correspond to other algebraic models in the literature. Two of the special cases were empirically investigated under varying levels of experience and payoffs, using the techniques of conjoint-measurement theory and ordinal data from individual subjects. The data provided reasonably good support for the models under all conditions investigated, and in addition showed interesting effects on salience and on processing of the independent variables.
Published Version
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