Chapter 11 Flashcards
Motivated reasoning
Biased evaluation of evidence, in accordance with one’s prior views and beliefs.
Reasoning
A thought process that yields a conclusion from premises.
Syllogism
A syllogism consists of two premises and a conclusion. Each of the premises specifies a relationship between two categories. Sometimes a syllogism is invalid but believable and is accepted by a majority of people.
Premise
Thoughts, percepts, or assumptions that lead to conclusions.
Four Forms of Syllogistic Reasoning
Universal affirmative: All A are B (All cows are animals). Universal negative: No A are B (No tomatoes are animals). Particular affirmative: Some A are B (Some animals are dangerous). Particular negative: Some A are not B(Some animals are not cows). Some means at least one, and possibly all
Logicism
The belief that logical reasoning is an essential part of human nature.
Practical syllogism
One in which two premises point to a conclusion that calls for an action (I need to understand Psych, and to do that I must understand cognition. Therefore I must study cognition).
“Some”
Some means at least one, and possibly all. We usually think of it to mean less than the whole amount, and less than the majority.
Mental models
We construct mental models or a mental structure of a situation to which a set of premises refers and then draw conclusions that are consistent with the model.
Relational reasoning
Reasoning involving premises that express the relations between items (e.g. A is taller than B). That is a transitive relation.
Transitive relation
Expressed by comparative sentences such as “taller than”. “Taller than” is transitive because if A is taller than B and B is taller than C than A is also taller than C. Usually come in pairs, in which one is the opposite of the other.
Three-term series problem
Linear syllogisms consisting of two comparative sentences from which a conclusion must be drawn.
Iconic
A characteristic of mental models, according to Johnson-Laird’s theory; the reactions between the parts of the model correspond to the relations between the parts of the situation it represents.
Emergent consequences
A principle of Johnson-Laird’s theory: you can get more out of a mental model than you put into it.
Parsimony
A principle of Johnson-Laird’s theory: people tend to construct the simplest mental model possible.
Natural deduction system
A reasoning system made up of propositions and deduction rules that are used to draw conclusions from these propositions.
Generative problem (Wason)
Participants are told that the three numbers 2, 4, and 6 conform to a simple relational rule that the experimenter has in mind, and that their task is to discover the rule by generating sequences of three numbers. The experimenter tells them each time whether the rule has been followed.
Eliminative strategy
A strategy based on attempting to falsify your hypothesis, in order to eliminate incorrect beliefs.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to seek confirmatory evidence for a hypothesis.
Selection task (Wason)
A four-card problem based on conditional reasoning. (Choosing which two cards will disprove the rule and show it to be false, aka falsify it and either prove it right or wrong).
Conditional reasoning
Reasoning that uses conditional (“if…then”) statements.
Truth tables
A way of presenting the various combinations of the constituents of logical statements.
Social contract theory
The theory that inference procedures have evolved to deal with social contracts in which people give something up in order to gain something else. We are very good at detecting cheaters of this social contract. We would choose the cards in the selection task that would detect cheaters in that circumstance, regardless of whether it was the logical choice or not.
Bias
A predisposition to see a particular type of situation in a particular way. We have a bias that what is beautiful is good…not true… look at political candidates.
Law of large numbers
The larger the sample, the closer a statistic will be to the true value.
Law of averages
A fallacy based on the assumption that events of one kind are always balanced by events of another kind.
Gambler’s fallacy
The mistaken belief that an event that has not occurred on several independent trials is more likely to happen on future trials.
Law of small numbers
The mistaken belief that a small sample should be representative of the population from which it is drawn.
Representative heuristic
Making inferences on the assumption that small samples resemble one another and the population from which they are drawn.
Hot-hand belief
The belief that a player who has just made two or three shots is on a streak and will likely make the next shot.
Hot-hand behaviour
A bias that leads the teammates of a player who has just scored a basket to let him take the next shot.
Adjustment and anchoring
People’s judgments of magnitude are biased (i.e. adjusted) by the initial value to which they are exposed (i.e. the anchor).
Availability
The ease with which something can be brought to mind (R being the third letter in words more often although easier to think of words that start with R). People are much more scared of flying even though flying is much safer than
driving.
Peak-end rule
Retrospective judgments of the total painfulness of an event are formed by averaging the pain experienced during the most painful moment of the event and that felt at the end of the event.
Duration neglect
The finding that retrospective judgments of the total painfulness of an event are unrelated to the event’s duration.
Illusory correlation
The mistaken belief that events go together when in fact they do not.
Intuitive concept
A type of concept that is easily acquired and used by almost all adults.
Regression to the mean
For purely mathematical reasons, whenever two variables are not perfectly correlated, extreme values on one variable tend to be related to values on the other variable that are closer to (i.e. regressed to) the mean of that variable.
Recognition heuristic
When choosing between two objects (according to some criterion), if one is recognized and the other is not, then select the former.
Ecological rationality
A heuristic is ecologically rational if it produces useful inferences by exploiting the structure of information in the environment.
Less-is-more effect
Sometimes the person who knows less is able to make a better judgment than the person who knows more but is unable to use that knowledge in the situation at hand.
Problem space reasoning procedures
- Clarity of the problem space (being aware of the alternatives). 2. Recognition of the operation of chance (recognizing where chance is at work instead of order. We are more likely to use reason when we know there is chance involved). 3. Cultural prescription (cultures that value statistical reasoning).
Tversky & Kahneman
Tversky and Kahneman’s close and intimate
working relationship. Tversky was the eternal
optimist and Kahneman was ever the
pessimist. They made groundbreaking work in
behavioural economics and have become experts
in error. He is studying how to improve decisions
at the margin. He says you should delay intuition
until you have all the right information… premature
intuition can hurt you. Intuition only works in
regular situations, so it doesn’t work for the stock market.
We form global impressions based on intuition
far too quickly (in interviews, etc.) and it is wrong more
often than not.
Optimism drives capitalism… and for those who take
high risks, most fail but a few achieve great success
and that drives us to keep taking risks.
