Showing papers on "Credibility published in 1968"

Distraction Hypothesis in Attitude Change: Effects of Effectiveness

Abstract: A recent study by Festinger and Maccoby (1964) demonstrated that distraction raises the effectiveness of a communication. This effect may obtain because the distraction interferes with (subvocal) counter-arguing or because the distraction requires more effort to listen and thus arouses dissonance. The present experiment was designed to test these alternative hypotheses, Ss were exposed to 4 counter-attitudinal communications. Interference during the communication and credibility of the communicator were orthogonally manipulated. The distraction hypothesis predicted that high interference would increase communication effectiveness most under high credibility of the communicator. The effort hypothesis predicted that the greatest increase due to high interference would obtain when the communicator was low in credibilty. The results supported the distraction hypothesis. In addition, interference reduced communication effectiveness under low credibility. The implication of these results for the distraction hyp...

The Dilemma of Rising Demands and Insufficient Resources

Abstract: Several years ago we reviewed in this journal a collection of books dealing with various aspects of Britain's role in international politics. In the opening paragraph of that review article we observed that “these writings can be viewed simply as discrete accounts of a single nation's unique experience. But one can also view such literature from a broader perspective. Particular cases are always unique in their totality. But they may be exhibits of more widely encountered types of phenomena. It is always possible, and it may be interesting and fruitful, to formulate general comparative questions about particular cases, and to derive hypotheses which could be tried out for credibility in other cases.”

Credibility Forecasts and Their Application to the Economic Assessment of Novel Research and Development Projects

Abstract: The economic assessment of a research and development project is an important factor in planning and carrying out a project but its value depends on the forecasts on which it is based. The reasons why probabilistic methods are considered inappropriate when forecasting for novel projects are discussed and an alternative technique using credibility forecasts is described. Credibility forecasts for stages of a project are transformed into pairs of standardized “focus” forecasts from which are obtained two focus cash flow curves for the complete project. Two derived focus values of any suitable economic criterion are compared with a neutral value of the criterion to evaluate the attractiveness of the project and the degree of risk involved. The use of this technique for the initial assessment of a project and for reassessment at later stages is discussed and the procedure is illustrated by an example.

Communicator credibility and initial attitude as variables in persuasion.

Abstract: : Using a 2x3 factorial design in which two levels of source credibility were combined with three levels of initial attitude, 144 experimental subjects and 78 control subjects were exposed to tape-recorded arguments advocating withdrawal of United States military forces from Vietnam. Dissonance theory predicts an interaction between initial attitude and source credibility in determining attitude change. The results of the experiment revealed that only the highly credible source effectively induced attitude change in the subjects, and that such change was independent of the subjects' initial attitudes. Derogation of both the source and the communication was a direct function of extent of discrepancy between the position advocated and the initial disposition of the subjects. The predictions from dissonance theory were not supported, but the importance of source credibility as a major variable in persuasion was confirmed. (Author)

Experience rating and credibility

Abstract: I hope that you will allow me first of all to congratulate Dr. Buhlmann on the excellent lecture he has given us and I am sure that you can all agree with me that after his general survey on experience rating and credibility, there is no need at all for me to go into the general aspects of the subject. Therefore I can start immediately to report on the contributions delivered, and I am very happy to state that, though the number of papers is rather small, namely six, their contents are qualitatively as high as has become usual at our ASTIN-Colloquia. As regards the number of contributions I just mentioned, I like to draw your attention to the fact that because the present subject was on the programme of our last colloquium in Luzern too, in some cases we had to decide whether a contribution should be considered as relevant to subject I, or as a report on further work done on subjects from previous meetings. If perhaps in some cases our choice is not in accordance with the intention of the contributor I would like to apologize for that in advance. Moreover I wish to remind you that on Friday after the summaries of the discussions, Mr. Jansen will report on those papers submitted, which were not regarded as contributions to subject 1 or 2. I would like to deal first with the papers of a more theoretical nature, afterwards going on to the contributions on special applications. Among the papers of general interest I ask your attention for the paper of Franckx entitled “Le comportement de l'assureur”. I consider this contribution as a very important attempt to compare the method of credibility theory, where as you know credibility is used as a function of the volume, with a method in which decisions are made in advance on the amount of certain levels of significance, in this way fixing what Franckx calls “le comportement a priori”.

Credibility Theory: A Probabilistic Development

Abstract: Credibility theory is the term used by casualty actuaries to encompass procedures for weighting and combining data from different sources into parameter estimates upon which insurance rates are based. Criticism has been leveled at these procedures, frequently as a result of a lack of understanding of the principles underlying their use. This article explains the theory of credibility procedures by developing the concept from such basic theorems of probability as Chebyshev's Theorem, the Central Limit Theorem, and the Law of Large Numbers. Credibility theory is the term used by casualty actuaries to encompass those procedures used for weighting and combining data from different sources into a parameter estimate upon which some insurance rates are based. When defined in this manner, these techniques or procedures and the problems associated with them are neither new nor are they unique to the field of insurance. Nevertheless these procedures have frequently been criticized within the insurance industry either on the grounds that the nature of the problem is such that the best basis for an insurance rate is the informed judgment of an experienced casualty underwriter or on the grounds that there appears to be insufficient mathematical justification for the use of these credibility practices. The determination of whether or not these criticisms are justified would appear to be a worthwhile undertaking. If one can enlarge the definition of the word "source" to include not only the Jerome D. Braverman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Rochester Institute of Technology. Previously he was Senior Staff Engineer at Space Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft Company and Lecturer in Statistics at San Fernando Valley State College. This paper was submitted in June, 1967. physical origin of a set of data, but also the temporal origin as well, one draws closer to the heart of the problem. For, in the process of insurance rate-making, the actuary is frequently faced with data derived from or collected during different time periods. His problem then is not basically different from that of the economic forecaster or the industrial statistician testing or evaluating the parameter of some continuing process. The question of primary interest concerns an explanation of the deviations from some previously accepted value of that parameter. Do these deviations result from a change in the underlying process or are they merely the result of purely random fluctuations in the data? This specific problem is part of a larger problem of parameter estimation and the relationship of prior information, regardless of its source or derivation, to sample or experimental data. Arthur L. Bailey, in 1950, remarked that while casualty underwriters believe that they are not entirely devoid of knowledge before they have acquired any statistical data, standard statistical works make the tacit assumption that no knowledge existed prior