De l'aversion à l'ambiguïté aux attitudes face à l'ambiguïté. Les apports d'une perspective psychologique en économie

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the contribution that taking a psychological perspective can bring to the study of decision-making in economics. The article pursues the idea that it can be useful to combine a psychological analysis of judgment and decision-making with an economic analysis of choice (traditionally focused on outcomes). Indeed, such an analysis gives a better understanding of decision making, and can improve our ability to predict choices observed in experimental tasks. The review of the experimental literature about decision making under ambiguity is used to illustrate these ideas. This literature is particularly interesting because it is at the interface between economics and psychology. This double perspective enables us to go beyond the idea that decision-makers are systematically averse to ambiguity. The experimental research leads to the conclusion that attitudes towards ambiguity, contrary to what is usually assumed, are complex: depending on the context, the decision makers can indeed show ambiguity averse or ambiguity seeking behaviour.Classification JEL : C91, D81