To maximize or randomize? An experimental study of probability matching in financial decision making

Andrew W. Lo; Katherine P. Marlowe; Ruixun Zhang

PLOS ONE · 2021-08-26
Research article · Version of record · CC BY 4.0 · 8,738 words

Original source: Volume 16 · Issue 8 · e0252540

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Title: To maximize or randomize? An experimental study of probability matching in financial decision making
Human authorship: Andrew W. Lo; Katherine P. Marlowe; Ruixun Zhang
Source: Complete manuscript edition 2026-10-29
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Original authors / creators: Andrew W. Lo; Katherine P. Marlowe; Ruixun Zhang
Original publication: PLOS ONE · Public Library of Science · 2021-08-26
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doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252540
License & retained notices: CC BY 4.0
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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Article-specific license href: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Evidence limits: Laboratory binary-choice experiment with 82 recruited volunteers and 75 retained after a comprehension control, modest monetary payoffs and repeated image predictions. Not family offices or actual portfolio allocation. Small-sample demographic associations and an evolutionary interpretation do not establish universal mechanisms or investment advice. Some design-number and theoretical-frequency labels conflict across the source’s initial-learning, probability-matching and discussion passages; this companion does not rely on the inconsistent labels.
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