Precise Performance: Do Citizens Rely on Numerical Precision as a Cue of Confidence?

TY - UNPB

T1 - Precise Performance

T2 - Do Citizens Rely on Numerical Precision as a Cue of Confidence?

AU - Olsen, Asmus Leth

PY - 2018/1/1

Y1 - 2018/1/1

N2 - Recent research suggest that precise numbers signal confidence and are more potent anchors.Political-administrative systems are often dominated by numerical information in order to evaluateperformance or set future goals. We conduct a set of experiments testing how well theprecision effect translates in political-administrative setting (n=1,505). The findings provide noclear convincing evidence of a precision effect. Citizens evaluation of performance goal numbersseem to be largely unaffected by the roundness or precision of a number. This is the caseeven if the numerical information is presented without any explicit political cues or are framedas non-manipulative expert judgments

AB - Recent research suggest that precise numbers signal confidence and are more potent anchors.Political-administrative systems are often dominated by numerical information in order to evaluateperformance or set future goals. We conduct a set of experiments testing how well theprecision effect translates in political-administrative setting (n=1,505). The findings provide noclear convincing evidence of a precision effect. Citizens evaluation of performance goal numbersseem to be largely unaffected by the roundness or precision of a number. This is the caseeven if the numerical information is presented without any explicit political cues or are framedas non-manipulative expert judgments

M3 - Working paper

BT - Precise Performance

PB - Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

ER -