eprintid: 3146 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 1050 dir: disk0/00/00/31/46 datestamp: 2007-05-09 lastmod: 2019-09-28 20:12:51 status_changed: 2007-11-07 02:00:29 type: paper metadata_visibility: show abstract: Research in psychology suggests that some individuals are more sensitive to positive than to negative information while others are more sensitive to negative rather than positive information. I take these cognitive positive-negative asymmetries in information processing to a Bayesian decision-theory model and explore its consequences in terms of decisions and payoffs. I show that in monotone decision problems economic agents with more positive-responsive information structures are always better off, ex-ante, when they face problems where payoffs are relatively more sensitive to the action chosen when the state of nature is favorable. creators_name: Santos-Pinto, Luís creators_id: lspinto@fe.unl.pt date: 2003-01-08 date_issue: 2003-01-08 date_revision: 2007-04-27 file_format: pdf file_url: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3146/01/MPRA_paper_3146.pdf full_text_status: public identifierabstract: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3146/ institutions: Universidade Nova de Lisboa institution: Universidade Nova de Lisboa ispublished: unpub keywords: Information Processing; Decision Theory language: en pages: 20 referencetext: Athey, S. and Levin J. (2001). “The Value of Information in Monotone Decision Problems,” MIT Working Paper 98-24. Blackwell, D. (1951). “Comparison of Experiments,” Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics, 93-102. Blackwell, D. (1953). “Equivalent Comparison of Experiments,” Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 24, 265-272. Blackwell, D. and Girshick, M. (1954). Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions, Dover. Borch, K. (1968). The Economics of Uncertainty, Princeton University Press. Fiedler, K., Fladung, U., and U. Hemmeter (1987). “A Positivity Bias in Person Memory,” European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 17, 243-246. Hadar, J. and Russel W. (1969). “Rules for Ordering Uncertain Prospects,” American Economic Review, 59, 25-34. Hirshleifer, J. and Riley, J. (1992). The Analytics of Uncertainty and Information, Cambridge University Press. Laffont, J. (1989). The Economics of Uncertainty and Information, MIT Press. Landsberger, M. and Meilijson, I. (1990). “A Tale of Two Tails: An Alternative Characterization of Comparative Risk,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 3, 65-82. Lewicka, M., Czapinski, J., and G. Peeters (1992). “Positive-Negative Asymmetry or ‘When the Heart Needs a Reason,”’ European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 22, 425-434. Marschak, J. (1963). “The Payoff-Relevant Description of States and Acts,” Econometrica, Vol. 31, No. 4, 719-725. Marschak, J. and Radner, R. (1972). Economic Theory of Teams, New Haven and London, Yale University Press. Matlin, M. and Gawron, V. (1979). “Individual Differences in Pollyannaism,” Journal of Personality Assessment, 43, 411-412. Menezes, C., Geiss, C., and Tressler (1980). “Increasing Downside Risk,” American Economic Review, 70, No. 5, 921-932. Milgrom, P. and C. Shannon (1994). “Monotone Comparative Statics,” Econometrica, Vol. 62, No. 1, 157-180. Ormiston, M. (1992). “Deterministic Transformations: Some Comparative Statistics Results,” Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty: New Models and Empirical Findings, Geweke, J. Ed, 43-51. Rasmusen, E. and Petrakis, E. (1992). “Defining The Mean-Preserving Spread: 3-PT Versus 4-PT,” Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty: New Models and Empirical Findings, Geweke, J. Ed., 53-58. Rostchild, M. and Stiglitz, J. (1970). “Increasing Risk: I. A Definition,” Journal of Economic Theoy, 2, 225-243. Scholz, R. (1987). Cognitive Strategies in Stochastic Thinking, Theory and Decision Library, D. Reidel Publishing Company. Shaked, M. and Shanthikumar, G. (1994). Stochastic Orders and their Applications, Academic Press. Shannon, C. (1995). “Weak and Strong Monotone Comparative Statics,” Economic Theory, 5(2), 209-227. Whitmore, G. (1970). “Third Degree Stochastic Dominance,” American Economic Review, 60, 457-459. Whitmore, G. and Findlay, M. (1978). Stochastic Dominance, Lexington Books. subjects: D81 subjects: A12 title: Asymmetries in information processing in a decision theory framework citation: Santos-Pinto, Luís (2003): Asymmetries in information processing in a decision theory framework. document_url: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3146/1/MPRA_paper_3146.pdf