# The Ups and Downs of the Hope Function In a Fruitless Search

On Bayesian updating of beliefs in sequentially searching a set of possibilities where failure is possible, such as waiting for a bus; the psychologically counterintuitive implication is that success on the next search increases even as the total probability of success decreases. (psychology, statistics, survey, Bayes)
created: 01 Jul 2012; modified: 15 Jan 2019; status: finished; confidence: log;

This transcript has been prepared from a scan of chapter 15, pages 353-377 in Subjective Probability 1994, edited by G. Wright & P. Ayton. All links are my own insertion; references have been inserted as footnotes at the first citation.

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