Chapter 11

Question 1

What are frequency estimates?

Answer 1

assessments of how often various events have happened in the past - often crucial for making judgements

Question 2

What is Attribute substitution

Answer 2

A strategy of using easily available information that (you hope) is a plausible substitute for the info you seek
ie. I f you’re seeking the frequency of good grades in a course and you easily remember many friends with high grades you’ll conclude that is probably the most frequent result. but if you struggle to think of any it is probably a rare occurance

Question 3

what is the availability hrueistic

Answer 3

A strategy with attribution substitution at it’s core
–> easily accesible quick to access memories are probably events that occur more often than those memories that are a struggle to recall

Question 4

What is the Representativeness heuristic

Answer 4

How much one thing resembles another is grounds to assume it belongs in the same category
ex. at a job interview if you resemble one of their best employees you may be more likely to get the position

Question 5

Give example of how the availability heuristic can lead to error is regards to frequency of words. Why does this happen?

Answer 5

when asked if there are more words starting with r or with r in 3rd position they say the former because it’s more readily available in memory. However the opposite is true by at least 2 to 1.
- Happens because your brain is organized like a dictionary

Question 6

Why do people overestimate the frequency of rare events? example?

Answer 6

b/c we are more likely to notice and record in memory unusual (especially emotional) events and they are thus readily available in memory
ex. winning the lottery, plane crashes, rare diseases

Question 7

Give an example of How availability heuristic can change how you view yourself?

Answer 7

People asked to recall either 6 or 12 episodes of past assertiveness in their lives
> those in the 6 group didn’t have trouble coming up with examples and thus assumed there are many examples so they must be more assertive
> those who had 12 ex. struggled more and thus assumed such events are infrequent and rated themselves less assertive

Question 8

How can media influences availability heuristics? example.

Answer 8

When estimating the more frequent causes of death people report homocide and car accidents to be more frequent than stomache cancer and diabetes even though the opposite is true.
> happens because the first 2 causes receive more media attention

Question 9

what is the logic behind representativeness heuristic?

Answer 9

Most categories you encounter ARE homogenous
- birds, motels etc.
problem some categories are not!

Question 10

What is the Gambler’s fallacy? How can it be explained using representativeness heuristics?

Answer 10

• that when you toss several heads you’re due for a tail
  > happens because we believe every sequence of tosses is representative of the category “all tosses” which has a 50-50 split. But in reality every toss is independent of what came before it

Question 11

Give example of how people extrapolate from single instances to whole categories based on a single instance even when warned against it

Answer 11

Subjects listening to recorded interviews of prison guards who are either compassionate or inhumane are told that the interviewee is either typical or atypical.
Regardless of this information subjects are equally as influenced by the interview
- when they heard a human guard they said prison guards are decent people, when they heard an inhumane guard they had more negative views

Question 12

why do ‘man who’ and ‘woman who’ arguments seem so persuasive?

Answer 12

due to the representativeness heuristic and our willingness to extrapolate from a tiny sample to the whole cateogry

Question 13

How will we define covariation? example

Answer 13

X covaries with Y if,
- X tends to be present when Y is
- X tends to be absent when Y is
Things can covary positively or negatively
ex. exercise and stamina covary positively while exercise and body fat covary negatively

Question 14

What the illusion of covariance established in the Rorschach test?

Answer 14

students (and clinicians alike) discovered illosory pattern in random data indicating that “buttocks” resposes in ink blots covaried with homosexuality. When actual homo and hetero responses were examined there was equal liklihood of buttocks responses in both groups

Question 15

What is the first cause of illusions in covariations? (bias)

Answer 15

Reason is Biased data/evidence.
the evidence you collect to base your judgments on is guided by confirmation bias. Such that you notice and remember examples that confirm your hypothesis therefor when asked to estimate correlation you overestimate it based on expectations.

Question 16

The second cause of false assessments of covariations caused by the representitiveness heuristic is…? give example

Answer 16

Base-rate neglect
- ex. people w hepatitis take a drug and 70% recover, this means nothing with out the base rate of how many recover in general (ie. if it’s 70% drugs had no effect)

Question 17

What happens when people are given both base rates and descriptive info about individuals and are asked to determine their career

Answer 17

They rely solely on the description of the individual rather than the fact that he has a 70% chance of being a lawyer
- because they rely on the representativeness heuristic say that because he resembles someone in some career he is more likely to be in that profession regardless of the fact that he is actually more likely to be a lawyer

Question 18

does cash incentive increase accuracy of judgements

Answer 18

yes but errors still remain

Question 19

Do people always rely on heuristics to make judgements?

Answer 19

no, people are aware that conclusions drawn from bigger samples are less likely to be accidents
ex. lottery

Question 20

What is the dual process model?

Answer 20

People have two ways of thinking
System 1: fast, easy - heuristic based - thinking that sometimes leads to errors
System 2: slow effortful and more accurate thinking

Question 21

What type of questions lead subjects to be more likely to pay attention to base rates (and thus use system 2)?

Answer 21

When they are presented as frequencies.
ie. 12 out of 1000 people rather than 0.012 probability or 1.2%
> performance is increased when data is presented in this way

Question 22

What type of question leads subjects to be more more likely to acknowledge the considerations of sample size (and thus use system 2)

Answer 22

When the role of chance is more salient in the problem people are more likely to pay attention to the quantity of evidence (sample size) and how it is vulnerable to chance fluctuations
ie. if a critic chose his meal by dropping a pencil on the menu

Question 23

Some data or easily coded in terms of chance. What typical subject lends itself well to being thought of in terms of statistics

Answer 23

> SPORTS are packaged in a way that leads people to think in statistically sophisticated ways and they make better judgments

Question 24

Some data or easily coded in terms of chance. What type of event is less easily coded in terms of statistics?

Answer 24

Job interviews. Employers are less likely to realize ten minutes is a small sample size of who you are, thus they are more likely to use heuristics and make less justifiable decisions

Question 25

What situational variable encourages system 1 (heuristic) thinking?

Answer 25

Time pressure (b/c system 2 is slow and effortful)

Question 26

How can knowledge/ski;;s of participants effect the use of system 2?

Answer 26

• More likely to use base rates if background knowledge provides link b/w base rate and dimension being judged
  (ie. judging if someone will fail a test and the year before only 30% passed)
• More likely to use system 2 if you’re educated on statistics (either in university or through training sessions)

Question 27

In summary, the use of system 2 thinking depends on what factors

Answer 27

SITUATION
- time pressure
EVIDENCE
- Whether it's presented in terms of frequencies
- Whether it's "codable" or not
KNOWLEDGE
- background on the topic
- Background in statistics

Question 28

Can people chose to use system 2?

Answer 28

No - it’s not a matter of choice

- its only used when circumstances allow for it or when the system is appropriately triggered

Question 29

So why do people make errors in judgement? What can improve them?

Answer 29

Largely because system 2 abilities were not properly triggered
- education (can’t eliminate judgement errors, but can decrease them)

Question 30

Define induction

Answer 30

Making forecasts about new cases based on cases you’ve observed so far

Question 31

Define deduction

Answer 31

Start with a claim that you take as a “given” (solidly established belief” and ask what follows from these premises - implications, predictions

Question 32

Define confirmation bias

Answer 32

A greater sensitivity to confirming evidence and a tendency to neglect disconfirming evidence

Question 33

What did Wason’s experiment with patterns of numbers tell us about confirmation bias

Answer 33

Participants had to suggest trios of numbers and were told if they fit the experimenters pattern (#s must ascend)
- Most subjects sought confirming rather than disconfirming evidence - and this poorly impacted their performance

Question 34

When people encounter confirming evidence they take it at _______, when they encounter disconfirming evidence they are _________

Answer 34

at face value, skeptical and scrutinize looking for flaws/ambiguities

Question 35

What does the additional mental activity spent on disconfirming evidence lead to?

Answer 35

Better memory for disconfirming evidence but it is distorted in a way that robs it of it’s force, leaving beliefs untouched

Question 36

How did a study on football gamblers reveal the distorted memory people have for disconfirming evidence?

Answer 36

They remember winning bets as wins and losing bets as ‘near wins’ ie. “I would have won if it weren’t for that freak injury”

Question 37

Define Belief perseverance

Answer 37

The tendency to endorsing some assertion or claim even when clearly available evidence completely undermines that claim

Question 38

How did a study about suicide notes display belief perseverance? Why did this happen?

Answer 38

• subjects had to determine if suicide notes were fake or real
• they were given predetermined feedback on their performance (either bellow or above average)
• When later told the feedback was bogus they still answered a questionnaire about their abilities that were in line with feedback they received
  WHY - b/c when given feedback they did a selective memory search to confirm it and when the feedback is taken away the evidence from their search remains

Question 39

What is a categorical Syllogism

Answer 39

Logical argument beginning with two assertions (premises) followed by a conclusion that may Valid syllogism) or may not (invalid syllogism) follow from these premises

Question 40

how do participants perform on categorical syllogisms?

Answer 40

remarkably poorly! 70-90% error rates!

- do slightly better when spelled out in concrete terms

Question 41

What are the 2 sources of logical errors on the categorical syllogisms?

Answer 41

1. belief bias: if the categorical syllogism’s conclusion is something they believe anyway they judge it to be logical even if the argument before it is illogical and vice versa (conclusions they don’t believe are rejected)
2. low-level “matching strategy”: endorsing conclusions if the wording and structure match the premises

Question 42

What are conditional statements?

Answer 42

begin with condition under which the second statement is guaranteed to be true.
Ex. If A is true, B is true
B is true
Therefor A is true
= FALSE

Question 43

how do people do one conditional statements?

Answer 43

poorly, error rates 80-90%

Question 44

What is the selection task/ four card task? What is the correct answer if the statement is every card with a vowel on one side must have a even number on the back A 6 J 7?
What is the most common answer?

Answer 44

4 card test - study conditional reasoning by asking participants “what cards must be turned over to put this rule to the test”
Correct answer - A and 7
most common answer - A and 6

Question 45

What variation on the 4 card task has lead to better performance?

Answer 45

Changing the content of the question/ rule

“if a person is drinking a beer they must be 21” to confirm 73% knew to turn over drinking a beer and 16 years old

Question 46

What does varying performance on these two 4 card tasks tell us about how people reason?

Answer 46

It’s easy to document errors in inductive and deductive reasoning but in both it’s also possible to show higher-quality thinking under the right circumstances/ right triggers

Question 47

What is subjective utility?

Answer 47

The value of a factor to you

Is the value of good whether is florida more important than the extra 90$ to that location vs. Miami

Question 48

What is Neumann and Morgenstern’s model of expected value?

Answer 48

Expected Utility = (probability of a particular outcome) X (Utility of the outcome)
You can compare the utility expectancy with the cost of say the lottery ticket

Question 49

How would you calculate the expected utility of a potentially interesting course with a heavy workload?

Answer 49

First find the subjective value of each (Z and Y)
second factor in the probability of each outcome (70% interesting, 90% chance of workload)
then minus the costs from the benefits to find the overall utility
ex. (.70 X Z) - (.90 X Y)

Question 50

How can framing effects affect people’s decisions on which program to choose for combating a disease?

Answer 50

-if the program is phrased as “will save” 72% choose the option that guarantees a smaller survival rather than risk it
- However if the program is phrased in terms of “will die”
78% choose the gamble that could have no one die or everyone.
* when in reality these problems are the same! 400 die out of 600 is the same as 200 saved out of 600
* the same outcomes are true of financial loses

Question 51

Is there a right decision in which program to choose to save us from the disease? whts the problem

Answer 51

No - if you are a risk taker and choose the gamble thats fine, and if you are risk-adverse and want to choose the for sure option that also fine
- the problem arises in that peoples opinions change based on the way the options are framed, because it leaves people open to manipulation, inconsistency and self-contradiction

Question 52

What is the reliable pattern in the data about choosing a gamble over a sure thing?

Answer 52

1- if the frame casts a choice in terms of losses people are risk-seeking and choose to gamble so they can presumably avoid loss all together
2 - if the frame is set in terms of gains people tend to be more risk-averse and want to stick with what they have

Question 53

How can the way you frame a question determine your answer (ex. in custody battles, basketball bets, medical decisions)

Answer 53

Custody

• Subjects asked who they would ‘award custody to choose the part with the very close relationship despite work related travel
• Subjects asked who they would ‘deny’ custody to say that same parent and by default award custody to the parent average on all counts

Basketbal
- rate someone whose made 75% of free shots vs. someone whose missed 25%

Medical treatment
- choose 50% success over one with 50% failure

> doesn’t make sense according to utility theory

Question 54

What is a possible reason for these illogical decisions that technically are the same!

Answer 54

they are making decisions based on the -
reason -based choice = The choice for which they can justify an answer
ex. when asked which parent to award they look for positive reasons to do so and fine them in parent B
When asked to deny thy look for negative reasons and find them also in parent B

Question 55

What are 3 ways emotions can influence decisions?

Answer 55

1. People are strongly motivated to avoid REGRET and select options that minimize the chance of feeling this emotion
2. People assess risk in emotional terms - specifically how much dread they feel when they think about the possible negative outcome and use this amount of dread as an indicator of risk
3. Somatic markers - bodily reactions to anticipated events - literally rely on a gut feeling which pulls you to options with positive emotions and way from negative ones

Question 56

Which of the 3 ways emotion can influence decision is an example of attribute substitution?

Answer 56

Assessing risk by the amount of dread they feel

- b/c instead of asking the hard question “ how risky is this?” instead they ask “ how does this make me feel?”

Question 57

What part of the brain is associated with use of somatic markers. How has this been shown?

Answer 57

• Orbitofrontal cortex ( base of frontal lobe) - b/c it’s the brain region that allows you to interpret your own emotions
• evidence from those with damaged orbitofrontal cortexes who are unable to sense a gut feeling not to continue selecting cards from the risky pile

Question 58

What is affective forecasting?

Answer 58

The ability to predict your own emotions - people are surprisingly poor at this

Question 59

Is what ways are people inaccurate at affective forecasting?

Answer 59

• overestimate the regret they’ll feel
• underestimate how quickly they’ll adapt and how easily they’ll find excuses for their choices
• They over-predict the length of both positive and negative reactions (ie. how long a break up will make them sad, how long an ipad will make them happy = in both cases they are underpredicting their ability to adapt