Doctoral Dissertation Research in Decision, Risk, and Management Science

本博士论文进修奖旨在支持研究，其目的是了解个人如何制定和做出关于保险的决策，作为一种针对低概率但高后果事件的财务保护形式。成年人将就三种不同的保险决定接受采访。该研究被设计为著名的Kunreuther（1978）关于人们如何做出灾害（洪水和地震）保险决策的研究的概念复制。这包括基于主观预期效用（SEU）和信息扩散理论的测试模型，后者被假设在描述上更准确。研究的目的是：(1)检验信息扩散理论是否可以推广到其他类型的保险；(2)确定SEU在使用改进的反应启发方法时是否能更好地预测；(3)确定人们在考虑不同类型的保险时是否使用一致的策略。此外，该项目将检查消费者对保险（及其目的）的直观定义、对保险制度的信念和预算约束是否能预测消费者的决定。

This Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award is to support research whose objective is to understand how individuals formulate and make decisions about insurance as a form of financial protection against low probability but high consequence events. Adults will be interviewed regarding three different insurance decisions. The study is designed as a conceptual replication of the well-known Kunreuther (1978) study of how people make hazard (flood and earthquake) insurance decisions. This involves testing models based upon Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) and information diffusion theories, that latter of which has been hypothesized to be descriptively more accurate. The research objectives are to (1) test whether the information diffusion theory generalizes to other types of insurance, (2) determine whether SEU predicts better when improved response elicitation methods are used, and (3) determine whether people use consistent strategies when considering different kinds of insurance. In addition, the project will examine whether consumers' intuitive definitions of insurance (and its purposes), beliefs about the insurance system, and budget constraints predict consumers' decisions.