Are medical treatments for individuals and groups like single-play and multiple-play gambles?
Author InfoMichael L. DeKay John C. Hershey Mark D. Spranca, Peter A. Ubel David A. Asch Abstract People are often more likely to accept risky monetary gambles with positive expected values when the gambles will be played more than once. We investigated whether this distinction between single-play and multiple-play gambles extends to medical treatments for individual patients and groups of patients. Resident physicians and medical students (\textit{n} = 69) and undergraduates (\textit{n} = 99) ranked 9 different flu shots and a no-flu-shot option in 1 of 4 combinations of perspective (individual patient vs.\ group of 1000 patients) and uncertainty frame (probability vs.\ frequency). The rank of the no-flu-shot option (a measure of preference for treatment vs.\ no treatment) was not significantly related to perspective or participant population. The main effect of uncertainty frame and the interaction between perspective and uncertainty frame approached significance (0.1 {\textgreater}
