Ambiguity Attitudes Elicited from Choices and Texts

Last registered on April 13, 2026

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Ambiguity Attitudes Elicited from Choices and Texts

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0018297

Initial registration date

April 07, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

April 13, 2026, 9:16 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

China

Region

Guangdong

Primary Investigator

Name

Yufei Liu

Affiliation

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Zhihua Li

PI Affiliation

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Rui Shen

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2026-04-20

End date

2026-12-01

Keywords

Behavior, Lab

Additional Keywords

ambiguity attitude, uncertainty, laboratory experiment, belief elicitation, decision making, subjective probabilities

JEL code(s)

C91, D81, D90

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This project aims to systematically investigate individuals' ambiguity attitudes under uncertainty by integrating evidence from choice behavior and natural language explanations. While existing studies primarily infer ambiguity attitudes from choices alone, this project proposes a complementary approach that combines traditional experimental elicitation with text-based measures.

The project employs a set of well-established and frontier ambiguity elicitation tasks and social and strategic ambiguity. In each decision context, participants are asked not only t o make choices that reveal ambiguity attitudes, but also to report subjective likelihood assessments and provide written explanations describing how they arrive at these judgments, including their confidence, optimism, and sensitivity to probabilities.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Li, Zhihua, Yufei Liu and Rui Shen. 2026. "Ambiguity Attitudes Elicited from Choices and Texts." AEA RCT Registry. April 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18297-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Participants complete two types of tasks about decision-making under uncertainty. In one type of task, they evaluate uncertain situations, estimate the likelihood of different possible outcomes, and explain their reasoning in writing. In the other type of task, they make a series of choices between outcomes linked to an uncertain event and outcomes linked to lotteries with known probabilities. The study may vary the order and presentation of tasks across participants.

Intervention Start Date

2026-04-20

Intervention End Date

2026-05-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The primary outcomes are measures of ambiguity attitudes constructed from both choices and language responses. Specifically, the main outcome variables are:
(1) a choice-based ambiguity attitude measure derived from participants’ switching behavior in the binary choice lists between ambiguous events and risky lotteries;
(2) subjective probability judgments assigned to ambiguous events in the analysis tasks;
(3) self-reported confidence in those judgments; and
(4) language-based measures of ambiguity attitudes constructed from participants’ written explanations of how they formed their judgments under uncertainty.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

This study uses an individual-level experimental design to measure responses to ambiguity using both choices and written explanations. Participants complete two types of tasks: (i) tasks in which they evaluate uncertain situations, report likelihood judgments, and explain their reasoning in writing, and (ii) tasks in which they choose between outcomes linked to ambiguity events and lotteries with known probabilities. The study uses a within-subject structure in which the same participant provides both behavioral and language responses. Certain aspects of task order and presentation may vary across participants.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization is conducted at the individual level by computer within the experimental software. The program randomly assigns participants to different task-order and presentation conditions using a pre-specified randomization routine.

Randomization Unit

The unit of randomization is the individual participant. Participants are randomly assigned at the individual level to task-order and presentation conditions through the experimental program.

Was the treatment clustered?