Belief and Shock: Exploring Confidence in Decisions

Ever thought about how we decide to believe something? This theory breaks it down. See, when we believe an event will happen, we either go all in or not at all. No halfway beliefs here! If we decide to believe it, we get a confidence level, let's call it 'c', between 0 and 1. The higher 'c', the more confident we are. So, if we believe something will happen with a confidence of 'c', and it doesn't, we're shocked to the extent of 'c'. The bigger the confidence, the bigger the surprise when it doesn't happen. Cool, huh?Think about it this way: imagine you're sure (c=1) your favorite team will win the big game. If they lose, you're shocked, right? Now, if you only thought they had a chance (c=0. 5), and they lose, you're not as surprised. It's all about how much you believed in the first place. This theory helps us understand how we react when something we believe in doesn't happen. It's not just about the event, but how much we believed in it. Pretty neat, isn't it?