A model of subjective probabilities from small groups

Abstract

Methods for aggregating the opinions of individual forecasters in order to improve the quality of probabilistic forecasts are presented. Experimental results obtained by Seaver in his study of probability judgments by groups of four people are considered. The decision variable partition model of subjective probability and a simple model of the effects of interaction on judgments were used to simulate the group judgment of discrete probabilities investigated by Seaver. The initial results of the simulation are very promising in that (1) they show the principal effects Seaver observed and (2) these effects can, for the most part, be traced to specific characteristics of the models.