Quantum Mechanical and Human Violations of Compound Probability Principles: Toward a Generalized Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

A key central tenet of decision theory is that decomposing an uncertain event into sub-events should not change the overall probability assigned to that uncertain event. As we show, both quantum physics and behavioral decision theory appear to systematically violate this principle in very similar ways. These results suggest that the structuring phase of decision analysis—which specifies how various events are decomposed—helps shape the subjective probabilities which will ultimately be assigned to those events.