Budescu et al. 2009/2014 — IPCC verbal terms interpreted REGRESSIVELY; numeric pairing fixes

Claim: Budescu, Broomell & Por (2009, Psychological Science 20(3):299-308) found lay readers interpret IPCC verbal terms "regressively" (pulled toward 50%) and far less extremely than intended — "very likely" (IPCC: >90%) was commonly read in the ~65-75% range, with ~25% of subjects reading it below 70%.

Budescu, Por, Broomell & Smithson (2014, Nature Climate Change 4:508-512; 25 samples, 24 countries, 17 languages) showed that supplementing the words with numeric ranges raised guideline-consistency from 27% (verbal-only) to 40% (verbal + numeric).

Source: Budescu et al. 2009 Psych Science; Budescu et al. 2014 Nature Climate Change. Multi-country replication.

Confidence: Verified.

Why this matters for Candid: Strongest behavioral case against word-only tier labels. The widget's "Hard" / "Very Hard" labels MUST be paired with anchors (visual position, defined band, owner-specific drivers) — words alone will be read inconsistently and often wrongly.