Events

Ms. Emily Prinsloo
Ph.D. Candidate in Marketing
Harvard Business School
Harvard University

Seven preregistered studies (N = 2,890) conducted in the field, lab, and online document opportunity neglect: a tendency to reject opportunities with low probability of success, even when they come with little or no objective cost (e.g., time, money, reputation). In Study 1, participants rejected a low-probability opportunity in an everyday context. Participants also rejected incentive-compatible gambles with positive expected value–for both goods (Study 2), and money (Studies 3-7)–even with no possibility of monetary loss and non-trivial stakes (e.g., a 1% chance at $99). Participants rejected low-probability opportunities more frequently than high-probability opportunities with equal expected value (Study 3). While taking some real-life opportunities comes with costs, we show that people are even willing to incur costs to opt out of low-probability opportunities (Study 4). Opportunity neglect can be mitigated by highlighting that rejecting an opportunity is equivalent to choosing a zero probability of success (Studies 6-7).