S. Highhouse et El. Hause, MISSING INFORMATION IN SELECTION - AN APPLICATION OF THE EINHORN-HOGARTH AMBIGUITY MODEL, Journal of applied psychology, 80(1), 1995, pp. 86-93
This article argues that the devaluation of options with missing infor
mation, found in previous research, is a specific example of ambiguity
avoidance in choice. H. J. Einhorn and R. M. Hogarth's(1985) ambiguit
y model was used to make predictions concerning responses to missing i
nformation in an employee-selection context. A within-subjects design
was used to test the hypothesis that decision makers would avoid optio
ns with missing information when they were anticipating gain, but they
would prefer such options when they were anticipating loss. Degree of
ambiguity was expected to interact with this effect. The results supp
orted the hypothesized effect of decision-maker perspective on choice.
However, although there was a significant interaction between decisio
n-maker perspective and degree of ambiguity, it was not of the nature
that was predicted by the Einhorn-Hogarth model. Generalized pessimism
was negatively correlated with preferences for missing-information op
tions.