Motivating Base-Rate Sensitivity (Sometimes): Testing Predictions of the RCCL Framework

In choice situations, people are usually (but not always) sensitive to the base-rates of success of the options, and this base-rate sensitivity usually (but not always) goes up when motivation levels are increased. The RCCL frame-work, which emphasizes what information is represented by the individual and what strategies are used, provides an explanatory framework for these types of effects. In par-ticular, RCCL predicts that manipulations of motivation levels should produce changes in the strategies being used, which will not produce a change in base-rate sensi-tivity for dimensions not represented in the strategies. This paper reports an empirical test of these predictions; changes in strategy use and a lack of change in base-rate sensitivity are found, as predicted by RCCL