UBC-DIBS Behavioural Insights Seminar
Friday, Oct. 14, 10-11am PT
Register to attend on Zoom at https://bit.ly/DIBS-seminar
Numeracy and the Motivational Mind:
How Confidence in Numeric Ability Affects Decision Making
Ellen Peters
Philip H. Knight Chair and Professor
University of Oregon, School of Journalism and Communication
Numeracy, the ability to understand and use basic numerical concepts, is associated with diverse positive outcomes. In particular, people who are better at solving numeric problems also make better decisions and enjoy better life outcomes. Recent evidence points to the additional importance of numeric self-efficacy (i.e., confidence in one’s numeric ability), which appears to be a major driver of behavior and willingness to engage with numeric tasks. People who lack numeric confidence have more negative emotional reactions to doing numeric operations, and use these negative emotions to infer that mathematically-more-difficult options have low value.
The UBC-DIBS Behavioural Insights Seminar series features researchers and practitioners sharing their field and lab projects using the behavioural and decision sciences to “nudge for good”. To subscribe or unsubscribe, email dibs@sauder.ubc.ca.