How Beliefs Influence Perceptions of Choices
Abstract
People bring many beliefs to everyday decisions. Beliefs, such as those about health, can vary in both degree to which people believe them and degree to which they are correct. While prior work has found that it is difficult to correct mistaken beliefs, it has also shown that causal models may be more effective than other types of information for getting people to adopt correct information. However, it is an open question as to whether such information will change beliefs enough to influence decision-making. Through two experiments in the health domain we investigate (1) how degree of belief influences how people assess options, and (2) whether new information changes people's assessment of how reasonable those options are. Our results demonstrate the impact of incorrect beliefs on decision-making, and the difficulty of using causal models to correct these beliefs.