Learning Gaps? Attitudes and Beliefs Under Described and Experienced Signals
Type
working paper
Date Issued
2026-03-25
Author(s)
Abstract
We show that ambiguity attitudes vary systematically with the informativeness of signals. In an experiment varying the strength of signal-event associations, we separate ambiguity attitudes from beliefs within the same choices. When associations must be inferred from sampling (experience), aversion decreases as signals become informative; when associations are fully known (description), aversion shows no response. Insensitivity declines under the strongest signal in both settings, though the evidence is weaker when the association is known. For the analysis of beliefs, the separation proves consequential: raw measures indicate underreaction to information of similar size in both settings, whereas corrected beliefs, unless the assumed priors favor extreme distributions, respond more strongly to the signal under experience than under description. In contrast with the common finding of conservatism in the belief-updating literature, evidence for underreaction is weak and confined to description.
Language
English
Keywords
Ambiguity Attitude
Signal Informativeness
Decision from Experience
Description-Experience Gap
Belief Updating
Learning C91, D81, D83
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
No
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Learning_gaps_paper - 2026-10-27T100004.403.pdf
Size
898.9 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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