Biases Flashcards
Anchoring effect or anchoring and adjustment heuristic
Assumption that the first information you have is right, use it as a measure to compare future interactions.
A statement or suggestion (anchor) to influence a person’s subsequent decision/action (adjustment).
Caverni and Peris (1990)
48 teachers
Were given sets of students of essays to be graded with different mean fictional grades on them.
The higher the mean fictional grade, influenced the grading to be higher.
Fictional grades were the ‘anchor’. They affected the teacher’s judgement and the distorted grade given was an ‘adjustment’ to the behaviour.
Limitations:
- artificial environment (low ecological validity)
- small sample size (low generalizability)
- doesn’t take into account other biases that may have come into play
Availability heuristic
people judge the likelihood of an event based on how easily an example or instance of the event comes to mind
error of mistaking readily available examples as the typical sample.
Tversky and Kahnemen (1973)
152 participants
Aim - to see whether the ease of recalling information influences judgement about the frequency or likelihood of events.
Methodology - They asked participants if more words started with a letter or if more words had it as the third letter.
Results - Since it is easier to think of words starting with a letter, people tended to say there are more words starting with it than as the third letter in a word.
Conclusion - people judge frequency based on how easily examples come to mind.
Limitations - low ecological validity, student population isn’t representative of entire population
Congruence bias
tendency of people to over-rely on testing their initial hypothesis while neglecting to test other hypotheses.
Wason (1960)
Wason (1960) – 2-4-6 Task and Congruence Bias
Aim:
To investigate how people test hypotheses and whether they seek confirming or disconfirming evidence.
Methodology:
Participants were shown the sequence 2-4-6 and asked to guess the rule behind it by proposing new sequences. The researcher confirmed if the sequences fit the rule (which was simply “ascending numbers”).
Results:
Most participants proposed sequences that confirmed their initial hypothesis (e.g., “increasing by 2”) rather than testing disconfirming ones (e.g., “2-4-5”).
Conclusion:
People tend to seek confirmation rather than falsification, demonstrating congruence bias in hypothesis testing.
Strengths:
Simple, replicable design highlighting a common cognitive bias.
Revealed significant insights into human reasoning processes.
Limitations:
Low ecological validity (artificial task not reflective of real-world reasoning).
Participants may have misunderstood instructions, affecting results.
Cultural or educational background effects were not considered.
Framing effect
people react different to something depending on how it is framed (positively or negatively)
McNeil et al (1982)
Aim:
To examine how the framing of survival versus mortality rates influences medical treatment decisions.
Methodology:
Participants (patients, physicians, and medical students) were presented with scenarios involving cancer treatment options (surgery vs. radiation), framed either in terms of survival rates (positive frame) or mortality rates (negative frame).
Results:
Participants were more likely to choose surgery when outcomes were framed in terms of survival rather than mortality, despite identical statistics.
Conclusion:
Decision-making in medical contexts is highly sensitive to framing, highlighting the importance of how information is presented.
Strengths:
High real-world relevance for medical decision-making.
Included both medical professionals and laypeople for broader applicability.
Limitations:
Hypothetical scenarios may not fully capture real-life emotional stakes.
Cultural factors not considered, potentially affecting generalizability.
Decoy effect (asymmetric dominance)
bias that influences people to choose one option over another when a third, less attractive option is introduced.
Huber, Payne, and Pluto (1982)
153 participants - university students and general consumers
Aim:
To investigate how the presence of an asymmetrically dominated (decoy) option influences consumer choices between two main alternatives.
Methodology:
Participants were asked to choose between two products (e.g., cars, restaurants) differing on two attributes (e.g., price and quality). A third, inferior (decoy) option was added, designed to be worse than one option but not the other.
Results:
The introduction of the decoy increased the likelihood of participants choosing the option that dominated the decoy, shifting preferences away from what was initially an even split.
Conclusion:
Choices are context-dependent; the decoy effect demonstrates that adding an inferior option can systematically alter preferences, challenging the assumption of rational decision-making.
Limitations:
- Laboratory setting may limit ecological validity compared to real-world purchasing environments.
- Limited exploration of long-term decision-making or post-choice satisfaction.
Cognitive dissonance
the tendency to avoid the mental stress of holding inconsistent cognitions
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
Aim:
To investigate how cognitive dissonance influences attitude change when individuals engage in counter-attitudinal behavior.
Methodology:
Participants performed a boring task and were then asked to lie to the next participant, claiming it was enjoyable. They were paid either $1 (low incentive) or $20 (high incentive) for lying. After getting paid and lying, they asked the participant how much they enjoyed the task and their interest and willingness to do it again.
Results:
Participants paid $1 rated the task as more enjoyable than those paid $20. The small reward created dissonance, prompting attitude change, while the larger reward justified the lie without attitude shift.
Conclusion:
When external justification is insufficient (low reward), individuals alter their attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance.
Strengths:
Pioneering study providing strong evidence for cognitive dissonance theory.
Controlled experimental design with clear cause-effect relationship.
Limitations:
Low ecological validity due to an artificial task.
Ethical concerns regarding deception.
Sample limited to college students, reducing generalizability.
Implicit Personality Theory
people’s understanding about which personality characteristics they think co-occur in others.
sets of beliefs you have about the behaviour of others and predict their behaviour based on those beliefs.
Verhulst et al (2010)
Aim - to investigate whether physical attractiveness influences perceptions of political candidates’ positive characteristics
Methodology - Participants were shown images of political candidants and asked to to rate them on various traits (Eg: competence, intelligence, honesty) based solely on appearance.
Results - Physically attractive candidates were rated higher for positive traits despite having no other information about them other than how they look.
Conclusion - It confirmed the halo effect which is when individuals assume someone who is attractive possesses more positive characteristics, affecting perception in a political context.
Illusory Correlations
bias that causes people to perceive a connection between two things when in fact they aren’t actually related
all cats have 4 legs - this animal has 4 legs - this animal is a cat
Peeters (1938)
Aim - to evaluate how people evaluate traits based on their perceived benefits to oneself (self-profitability) or to others (other-profitability) and hwo this influences others.
Methodology:
Participants rated various personality traits based on how beneficial they were to themselves versus others, analyzing patterns in trait evaluation.
Results - traits perceived as self-profitable were evaluated more positively for oneself while other-profitable traits were valued more in social contexts. These evaluations influences how stereotypes are formed.
Conclusion - Stereotypes arise partly from how individuals assess the personal versus social benefits of traits, shaping perceptions of different groups.
Confirmation Bias
when people search for, interpret, favour and recall information in a way that supports or confirms their prior set of beliefs/schemas.
Snyder and Swann (1978)
Aim - To investigate whether people seek information that confirms their preexisting beliefs about others (confirmation bias) during social interactions
Methodology - Participants were told they would interview another person and to test whether that person was an “introvert” or “extrovert”. They chose from a list of prepared questions - some designed to elicit extroverted responses and others to elicit introverted responses.
Results - Participants tended to select questions in relation to the trait they were asked to test. For example, those texting for extroversion might ask “what would you do to liven up a party?”
Conclusion - People tend to seek information that confirms their expectations, leading to confirmation bias, which shapes our social perceptions and enforces stereotypes.
