Abstract

Risk communicators often need to communicate probabilistic predictions. On occasion, an event with 10% likelihood will occur, or one with 90% likelihood will not – a probabilistically unexpected outcome. Previous research manipulating communication format has found that communicators lose more credibility and are perceived as less correct if an “unlikely” event occurs than if a “10–30% likelihood” event occurs. We suggest “directionality–outcome congruence” underlies the perception of predictions as “erroneous”. For example, the negatively directional term “unlikely” led to harsher ratings because the outcome was counter to the original focus of the prediction (on the event’s non-occurrence). In the context of both probabilistically unexpected (Experiment 1) and expected (Experiment 2) outcomes, we find that communicators are perceived as less credible and less correct given “directionality–outcome incongruence”. Communicators should thus carefully consider the directionality implicit in their risk communications to maximise communication effectiveness.

摘要

风险沟通者经常需要传达概率预测。有时，将发生可能性为10％的事件，或者不会发生可能性为90％的事件–概率上出乎意料的结果。先前的研究交流形式的研究发现，与“ 10-30％可能性”事件相比，如果发生“不太可能”事件，则传播者失去更多的信誉，并且被认为不那么正确。我们建议将“方向性-结果一致”作为对“错误”的预测的基础。例如，负向术语“不太可能”导致评分更高，因为结果与预测的原始重点（事件未发生）背道而驰。在概率出乎意料的（实验1）和预期的结果（实验2）的情况下，我们发现，在“方向性-结果不协调”的情况下，沟通者被认为不那么可信，也不那么正确。因此，沟通者应仔细考虑风险沟通中隐含的方向性，以最大程度地提高沟通效率。