Chapter 12: judgement and reasoning Flashcards
Attribute substitution
when not having access to desired piece of information, if there is a piece of related information use that, for this heuristics are used. Ex. You don’t know exact travel times to campus.
Induction
the process through which you make forecasts about new cases (Heuristics & dual processing model)
Deduction
process in which you start with claims or assertions that you count as ‘given’ and ask what follow from these premises ((dis)confirmation)
Availability heuristic
needs to judge the frequency of a certain type of object or the likelihood of a certain type of event done by assess the ease with which examples of the object or event come to mind
Why is the availability heuristic often incorrect?
Often wrong because rare events in memory draw more attention -> bias in memory. Caused by stronger memory traces.
Representativeness heuristic
Resemblance to known cases, but can lead to stereotypes
Representativeness error 1:
Error 1: expecting instances of the category to resemble the prototype for the category
Gambler’s fallacy: expecting something that goes against change (ex. 6x coins, now it must be tails)
Representativeness error 2:
“One object is not representative but we think it to be”
we expect the prototype to resemble each instance
Induction: What is true for one object does not necessarily need to apply to everything in the category (ex. Law students). It does not matter if you tell people about it.
Gambler’s fallacy
expecting something that goes against change
Anchoring
(influencing) estimation. Questions can influence your estimation both ways.
Confirmation bias
you are more alert to evidence that confirms your beliefs than evidence that challenges your beliefs
covary
if A then B and if not X than not B (ex. University and high salary)
Covariance errors
Incorrect Cause and effect errors, assuming covariance. Random pairing.
Why do covariance error happen?
Happens because people consider only a subset of the true facts, and that subset is biased.
Professionals are just as also subject to the illusion of covariance than normal people.
Professionals are just as also subject to the illusion of covariance than normal people.
Base-rate information
information about how frequently something occurs in general. When also given diagnostic information this overrides base-rate information. Can also influence covariation. Ex. flu medicine.
Diagnostic information
information about the particular case, overrides base-rate information when it is given
What causes the neglect of base-rates when diagnostic information is given?
This neglect is caused by attribute substitution, membership question is turned into resemblance, which uses the representativeness heuristic, which does not take base-rates into account.
System 1
refers to thinking that is fast, automatic => uses heuristics
System 2
refers to thinking that is slower, effortful, more likely to be correct and has almost no errors
What determines which system will be used?
Contact of decision (time, attention and working memory availability) and presentation of the problem
Training can influence the likelihood of using system 2, but normally system 1 us used (even when incentives/need for accuracy is clear)
Training can influence the likelihood of using system 2, but normally system 1 us used (even when incentives/need for accuracy is clear)
Cognitive Reflection Test
shows that almost all people rely on system 1 thinking, and that it is (harder) to force to system 2. People who do well on the CRT use more system 2, and have a lower risk of error in judgement.
Reintrepreting disconfirming evidenc
shown by Gamblers experiment on football team, people don’t see something as disconfirming their hypothesis
Belief perseverance
tendency to continue endorsing a belief even when completely undermined (shown by suicide notes experiment)
belief bias (logic)
if a syllogism is believed by someone to be true anyhow, the conclude it to be from the premises. The same goes the other way around
principle of utility maximisation
you want to maximise the value that you place on a particular outcome. Many decisions follow this principle.
If framing is in choice in terms of losses, decision makers tend to be
risk seeking: they to gamble presumably with the attracted idea that they’ll avoid the loss
If framing is in terms of gains, decision makers tend to show
risk aversion: they refuse to gamble, choosing to hold tight what they already have. (ex. Patients and basket ball player)
What can explain the in-out effect?
Framing in terms of losses/gains
somatic markers
The orbitofrontal cortex is crucial for somatic markers. States of the body used in decision making. For example, a tight stomach and an accelerated heart rate when a person is thinking about a particular option can signal to the person that the option has risk associated with it.
Affective forecasting
predicting your emotions, is often inaccurate. People can predict if they will feel positive of negative, but overestimate how long the emotions will las
Affective force
we choose certain options, because these options make us feel better than other options. People try to prevent regretting their choice, people are very bad at it.
