Erik Løhre is an associate professor in the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School. His research focuses on judgment and decision making, with several publications on topics like project estimation, uncertainty communication, and risk perception.
It is generally assumed that decision-makers appear more competent and trustworthy when exuding confidence in their choices. However, many decisions are by their nature uncertain. Is it possible for a decision-maker to admit uncertainty and still be trusted? We propose that the communicated type of uncertainty may matter. Internal uncertainty, which signals lack of knowledge or a low degree of belief, may be viewed more negatively than external uncertainty, which is associated with randomness and complexity. The results of a series of experiments suggested that people viewed leaders as more competent when they expressed uncertainty about a decision in external (“It is uncertain”) rather than internal terms (“I am uncertain”), overall effect size d = 0.45 [0.16, 0.74]. Paradoxically, when asked directly, participants expressed that leaders should be open about uncertainty rather than exuding confidence and downplaying uncertainty. A final study suggested that decision makers were more willing to reveal uncertainty about a choice to others when they perceived the uncertainty as more external and less internal and expected more positive and fewer negative consequences from expressing external rather than internal uncertainty.
Mayiwar, Lewend & Løhre, Erik (2022)
Speakers’ Choice of Frame Reveals Little About Their Trait Emotions but More About Their Preferences and Risk Perception
Recent research has shown that when people combine verbal probabilistic forecasts from two sources, they are not simply averaged but can reinforce each other; so when two advisors both said an event was “rather likely,” some listeners concluded that the event was “quite likely”. Conversely, when both said the event was “rather unlikely,” people concluded that it was “quite unlikely.” The present studies demonstrate that the direction of this effect is not evoked by high versus low probabilities, but by the directionality of verbal probability expressions. Some phrases are affirmative, directed towards occurrences (“there is a chance”), whereas others are negations, pointing to the possibility that the event might not occur (“it is not certain”). Two positive phrases are perceived to reinforce each other, even when they convey low probabilities, resulting in a higher combined probability estimate, whereas two negative phrases do the opposite, regardless of the probabilities they convey. We show that this effect occurs both for equal and unequal verbal phrases, regardless of the probability equivalents of the expressions. We also found a positive, but weaker, reinforcement effect of numerical probabilities
Teigen, Karl-Halvor; Juanchich, Marie & Løhre, Erik (2022)
What is a “likely” amount? Representative (modal) values are considered likely even when their probabilities are low
Research on verbal probabilities and standard scales issued by national and international authorities suggest that only events with probabilities above 60% should be labelled “likely”. We find, however, that when people apply this term to continuous variables, like expected costs, it describes the most likely (modal) outcome or interval, regardless of actual probabilities, which may be quite small. This was demonstrated in six studies in which lay participants (N = 2,228) were shown probability distributions from various domains and asked to generate or to select “likely” outcome intervals. Despite having numeric and graphically displayed information available, participants judged central, low-probability segments as “likely” (as opposed to equal or larger segments in the tails) and subsequently overestimated the chances of these outcomes. We conclude that high-probability interpretations of “likely” are only valid for binary outcomes but not for distributions of graded variables or multiple outcomes.
Løhre, Erik; Juanchich, Marie, Sirota, Miroslav, Teigen, Karl Halvor & Shepherd, Theodore G. (2019)
Climate scientists' wide prediction intervals may be more likely but are perceived to be less certain
Framing experts' (dis)agreements about uncertain environmental events
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 32, s. 564- 578. Doi: 10.1002/bdm.2132
Agreements and disagreements between expert statements influence lay people's beliefs. But few studies have examined what is perceived as a disagreement. We report six experiments where people rated agreement between pairs of probabilistic statements about environmental events, attributed to two different experts or to the same expert at two different points in time. The statements differed in frame, by focusing on complementary outcomes (45% probability that smog will have negative health effects vs. 55% probability that it will not have such effects), in probability level (45% vs. 55% probability of negative effects), or in both respects. Opposite frames strengthened disagreement when combined with different probability levels. Approximate probabilities can be “framed” in yet another way by indicating reference values they are “over” or “under”. Statements that use different directional verbal terms (over vs. under 50%) indicated greater disagreement than statements with the same directional term but different probability levels (over 50% vs. over 70%). Framing and directional terms similarly affected consistency judgments when both statements were issued by the same expert at different occasions. The effect of framing on perceived agreement was significant for medium (10 and 20 percentage points) differences between probabilities, whereas the effect of directional term was stable for numerical differences up to 40 percentage points. To emphasize agreement between different estimates, they should be framed in the same way. To accentuate disagreements or changes of opinion, opposite framings should be used.
Teigen, Karl Halvor & Løhre, Erik (2017)
Expressing (un)certainty in no uncertain terms: Reply to Fox and Ülkümen
Forecasts of future outcomes, such as the consequences of climate change, are given with different degrees of precision. Logically, more precise forecasts (e.g., a temperature increase of 3–4°) have a smaller probability of capturing the actual outcome than less precise forecasts (e.g., a temperature increase of 2–6°). Nevertheless, people often trust precise forecasts more than vague forecasts, perhaps because precision is associated with knowledge and expertise. In five experiments, we ask whether people expect highly confident forecasts to be associated with wider or narrower outcome ranges than less confident forecasts (Experiments 1, 2, and 5), and, conversely, whether they expect precise forecasts to be issued with higher or lower confidence than vague forecasts (Experiments 3 and 4). The results revealed two distinct ways of thinking about confidence intervals, labeled distributional (wide intervals seen as more probable than narrow intervals) and associative (wide intervals seen as more uncertain than narrow intervals). Distributional responses occurred somewhat more often in within-subjects designs, where wide and narrow prediction intervals and high and low probability estimates can be directly compared, whereas separate evaluations (in between-subjects design) suggested associative responses to be slightly more frequent. These findings are relevant for experts communicating forecasts through confidence intervals.
Løhre, Erik & Jørgensen, Magne (2016)
Numerical anchors and their strong effects on software development effort estimates
Current theories of probability recognize a distinction between external (un)certainty (frequentistic probabilities) and internal (un)certainty (degrees of belief). The present studies investigated this distinction in lay people’s judgments of probability statements formulated to suggest either an internal (“I am X% certain”) or an external (“It is X% certain” or “There is a X% probability”) interpretation. These subtle differences in wording influenced participants’ perceptions and endorsements of such statements, and their impressions of the speaker. External expressions were seen to signal more reliable task duration estimates, and a lower degree of external than internal certainty was deemed necessary to advise a course of action. In conversations about football, internal expressions were perceived as signaling more personal interest, and were expected to be on the average 10% higher than corresponding external probabilities. Finally, people who reported their outcome expectations for two major sports events let their degree of interest in these events influence their internal but not their external certainty. These results have implications for the communication of uncertainty and probability.
Teigen, Karl Halvor; Løhre, Erik & Hohle, Sigrid Møyner (2015)
Det (u)sikre og det (u)sannsynlige: Hva forskerne sier og hva de (kanskje) mener
Impuls : Tidsskrift for psykologi, 68(1), s. 33- 42.
Løhre, Erik & Teigen, Karl Halvor (2014)
How fast can you (possibly) do it, or how long will it (certainly) take? Communicating uncertain estimates of performance time
First Impressions in Software Development Effort Estimation: Easy to Create and Difficult to Neutralize
Baldassarre, Teresa; Genreo, Marcela, Mendes, Emilia & Piattini, Mario (red.). Evaluation & Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE 2012), 16th International Conference on
Serres, Nora Rose; Toelch, Ulf & Løhre, Erik (2023)
How to adopt Open Science in the Academic Curriculum?
Panel Discussion (recording on YouTube) [Internett]
Løhre, Erik (2020)
Hvordan uttrykke usikkerhet med pondus?
På en benk med Einar Øverenget [Radio]
Løhre, Erik (2020)
Hvordan tar man gode valg?
Praktisk info med Jon Almaas [TV]
Løhre, Erik (2023)
Kan en leder være usikker?
[Popular scientific article]. Dagens næringsliv
Løhre, Erik & Halkjelsvik, Torleif Bjordal (2023)
Weight on advice in a high-stakes setting: Evidence from a game show
[Academic lecture]. SPDUM - Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making.
Teigen, Karl Halvor; Juanchich, Marie & Løhre, Erik (2023)
The probability of “likely”. Do standards of verbal probabilities make sense for graded or multiple outcomes?
[Academic lecture]. SPUDM 2023.
Mayiwar, Lewend & Løhre, Erik (2021)
Fearful speakers use negative frames to describe outcomes.
[Academic lecture]. Social and Community Psychology Conference 2021.
It is well-established that listeners’ decisions depend on how outcomes are described to them, or framed. But how do speakers frame outcomes? For instance, will a manager frame an investment decision in terms of chances of failure (negative frame) or success (positive frame)? Drawing on the Appraisal Tendency Framework, we propose that emotions associated with uncertainty (e.g., fear) increase speakers' preference for negative framing, whereas emotions associated with certainty (e.g., anger) increase speakers' preference for positive framing. In our preregistered experiment (N = 700; Prolific), participants responded to measures of dispositional worry and anger and completed two framing tasks in different contexts (recruitment and medical treatment). In these tasks, we told participants that a medical treatment/job applicant had an estimated 40% (vs. 20%) chance of failure and a 60% (vs. 80%) chance of success. Next, we asked them whether they would describe the estimated outcome to their manager in terms of chances of failure or chances of success. Supporting our preregistered predictions, dispositionally worried people were more likely to choose negative frames (e.g., medical treatment has a 40% chance of failure), whereas dispositionally angry people were more likely to choose positive frames (e.g., medical treatment has a 60% chance of success). These associations were quite weak, and only emerged in the condition that presented participants with more balanced chances (i.e., 40% chance failure/60% chance success), suggesting that fear and anger may only influence frame selection when an outcome is ambiguous.
Teigen, Karl Halvor; Juanchich, Marie & Løhre, Erik (2021)
A “likely” quantity is a “most likely” quantity, but not as likely as we like to think
[Academic lecture]. Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science: Annual Meeting.
Research on verbal probabilities and standard scales issued by IPCC, NATO and other authorities indicate that only probabilities above 60% should be described as “likely”. We find, in contrast, that when people apply this term to continuous quantities, like expected costs, it describes the most likely (modal) outcome or a central range, regardless of actual probabilities, which may be quite small. This was demonstrated in five studies in which lay participants were shown bell-shaped probability distributions from various domains and were asked to provide or to select “likely” outcome intervals. They also gave numeric estimates of probabilities of these intervals. Participants neglected numeric and graphically displayed information, and considered central, narrow but representative outcomes as “likely” (as opposed to much larger intervals in the tails) We conclude that the p > .6-interpretation of “likely” is only valid for binary outcomes but not for continuous quantities
Løhre, Erik & Kanten, Alf Børre (2020)
Communicated and perceived public consensus about climate change
[Academic lecture]. Conference on Environmental Psychology.
Løhre, Erik (2020)
Understanding intuitive interpretations of uncertain climate change predictions