Chapter 13: Judgements, Decisions, and Reasoning Flashcards
Making a decision or drawing a conclusion
Judgement
The process of drawing conclusions
Reasoning
The process of choosing between alternatives
Decision
Drawing general conclusions based on specific observations and evidence.
Inductive reasoning
With inductive reasoning (blank) observations lead to (blank) conclusions
Specific, general
What are the three factors contributing to the strength of an inductive argument?
Representativeness of observations: How well observations about a particular category represent all members of that category
Number of observations: More observations = greater strength
Quality of the evidence: Stronger evidence = stronger conclusions
“Rules of thumb” or shortcuts that are likely to provide a correct answer (but can lead to mistakes)
Heuristics
What are the purposes of heuristics?
Used to help reach conclusions rapidly
Help us generalize from specific experiences to broader judgements and conclusions
Events that more easily come to mind are judged as being more probable than events that are less easily recalled
Availability heuristic
When a relationship between two events appears to exist but in reality there is no such relationship or it’s much weaker than it’s assumed to be
Illusory correlations
An oversimplified generalization about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative
Stereotypes
The likelihood that an instance is a member of a larger category depends on how well the instance resembles properties we typically associate with that category
Representativeness heuristic
The relative proportion of different classes in a population
Base-rate
Explain the farmer-librarian problem
Participants given the following description: Randomly picked one male from US population. Robert wears glasses, speaks quietly, and reads a lot.
More people guessed Robert was a librarian as opposed to a farmer
More male farmers than librarians in the US (base rate), therefore Robert is actually more likely to be a farmer
What is the relationship between base-rate and the availability of information?
When only base rate information is available, people use that information to make predictions, but when any descriptive information is also available, people tend to disregard available base rate information
The probability of a conjunction of two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents
Conjunction rule
Describe the description of a person/conjunction rule experiment
Participants given the following description: Linda is 31, single, outspoken, bright, philosophy degree, interested in issues of discrimination and social justice
Most participants said Linda was more likely to be a feminist bank teller (which her characteristics represent) instead of just a bank teller
It’s actually more probable that Linda is just a bank teller based on the conjunction rule (more bank tellers than bank tellers who are also feminists)
The larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting sample will be of the entire population
Law of large numbers
Explain the hospital problem
Participants given the following information: Two hospitals (one large and one small) recorded the days on which more than 60% of babies were born boys
More babies in general born in the large hospital than the small
When asked which hospital likely recorded the most days, most participants said there would be no difference
In reality, the small hospital would have recorded the most days because of the small sample size
The tendency for people to evaluate evidence in a way that is biased towards their own opinions and attitudes
Myside bias
When people look for information that conforms to their hypothesis/beliefs and ignore information that refutes it
Confirmation bias
Explain Wason’s problem-solving/confirmation bias experiment
Wason presented participants with 3 numbers that conformed to a rule he had in mind
Participants were asked to determine the rule by writing down other sets of three numbers they think conformed to it, which Wason would identify as either conforming to the rule or not
Participants were asked to guess the rule once they were confident in their answers
Most participants guess the wrong rule because they were only seeking evidence that confirmed their hypothesis instead of evidence that refuted it
An individual’s support for a particular viewpoint could actually become stronger when faced with corrective facts opposing their viewpoint
Backfire effect
Explain Nyhan and Reifler’s study on the backfire effect
Participants given a mock news story suggesting that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) prior to the US invasion in 2003
One group presented with a correction falsifying this, then were asked to what extent they agreed that Iraq was hiding WMDs
Found that the extent to which participants who had received the correction agreed with the statement was associated with their political views, with conservative participants more likely to believe the misperception
List the nine potential sources of errors in judgement
Availability heuristic
Illusory correlation
Representativeness heuristic
Base rate
Conjunction rule
Law of large numbers
Myside bias
Confirmation bias
Backfire effect
Determining when a conclusion logically follows from statements
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning uses (blank) principles to draw (blank) conclusions
General, specific
Syllogisms in which the premises and conclusion are statements that begin with all, no, or sum.
Categorical syllogisms
Consists of two broad statements (premises) followed by a third statement (conclusion)
Syllogism
When is a syllogism valid?
When the form of the syllogism indicates that its conclusion follows logically from its two premises
When is a conclusion true?
When the syllogism is valid and the premises are true
The tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable
Belief bias
A specific situation represented in a person’s mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning
Mental model
Explain the process of the mental model
People create imagined representations of reasoning problems
Generate a tentative conclusion based on this model and then look for exceptions that might falsify it
If an exception is found, the model is modified
If no more exceptions are found, they conclude that the syllogism is valid
Two premises and a conclusion, where the first premise has the form “if…then”
Conditional syllogisms
What are the four forms of conditional syllogisms?
All begin with if p, then q
Modus ponens: p, theerfore q (valid)
Modus tollen: Not q, therefore not p (valid)
q, therefore p (not valid)
Not p, therefore not q (not valid)
What is the relationship between syllogisms and real-world examples?
People are often better at judging the validity of syllogisms when real-world examples are substituted for abstract symbols
Describe the Wason four-card problem
Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other, and participants are tasked with indicating which card would need to be turned over to test a rule
For example: If there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side, a card with a vowel would need to be turned over to see if there is an even number (true) or an odd number (not true) - 53% of participants identified this
An odd number would also need to be turned over, as finding a vowel on the other side would falsify the rule (falsification principle)-Only 4% of participants identified this
To test a rule, it’s necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule
Falsification principle
How is performance on the Wason four-card problem impacted by real-world terms, and why could this be the case?
Performance is improved
Could be due to permission schemas or that people are on the lookout for cheaters
If a person satisfies a specific condition, then they get to carry out an action
Permission schema
If people have all the relevant information, they’ll make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility
Expected utility theory
Outcomes that achieve a person’s goals
Utility
Specifies procedures that make it possible to determine which choice would result in the highest value
Advantage
What is the shortcoming of the utility approach to decisions?
People regularly behave in ways that ignore the optimum way of responding based on probabilities
What are the two main ways in which emotions affect decisions?
People inaccurately predict their emotions
Incidental emotions affect decisions
Emotions that people predict they will feel for a particular outcome
Expected emotions
Explain the C-section example with respect to context and decision making
In a hypothetical test case involving a possible C-section candidate, physicians were more likely to recommend a C-section if they were presented with some nonserious cases first, but less likely to recommend a C-section if they were presented with some serious cases first
Contrast opt-in vs opt-out conditions
Opt-in requires an active step (most people will not)
Opt-out is inactive (most people will not)
The tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision
Status quo bias
Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated/framed
Framing effect
Explain Tversky and Kahneman’s “600 people” problem
Outbreak expected to kill 600 people, participants split into two groups and given the same program options worded differently
Group 1: Program A = 200 people saved, program B = ⅓ probability 600 people will be saved and ⅔ probability no one will be saved
72% picked program A
Group 2: Program A = 400 people will die, program B = ⅓ probability that nobody will die, ⅔ probability that 600 people will die
78% picked program B
Used when a choice is framed in gains
Risk-aversion strategy
Used when a choice is framed in losses
Risk-taking strategy
Combines research from psychology, neuroscience, and economics to study how brain activation is related to decisions that involve potential gains or losses
Neuroeconomics
Explain the structure of the ultimatum game
One player is the proposer and the other is the responder
Proposer is given a sum of money ($10) and makes an offer to the responder as to how they should split the money
If the responder accepts the money is split accordingly, but if the responder rejects neither player receives anything
According to the utility theory, how should one respond to the ultimatum game?
The responder should always accept the proposer’s offer as long as it’s greater than zero
What results did Sanfey et al. on their study of the ultimatum game?
All respondents accept $5, most accept $3, and half or more reject the $1 and $2 offers - When asked why they rejected low offers, participants cited anger at unfairness
When same offers were presented by a computer, more participants accepted the unfair offers- Less likely to be angry at a computer
Describe the results of the fMRI extension of the ultimatum game study
Showed that the right anterior insula (connected to negative emotional states) responded three times more strongly when responders rejected an offer, and those with higher activation to unfair offers rejected more offers overall
PFC activity was the same for rejected and accepted offers -Suggests the function of the PFC is to deal with the cognitive demands of the task and implement the best decision based on one’s goals
Participants played the ultimatum game but one group had their PFC temporarily deactivated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)- Participants in both groups rated low offers unfair, but those with deactivated PFCs were more likely to accept unfair offers
- Shows PFC plays an important role in implementing the decision to reject unfair offers
Describe system 1/type 1 thinking according to the dual systems approach to thinking
Intuitive, fast, nonconscious, automatic
Involved in belief bias
May be using the availability and representative heuristics
Might not consider the law of large numbers
Does not perform well with abstract Wason four-card task, but is equipped for real-world version
Most things we do day-to-day are controlled by system 1
Provides information to system 2
Describe system 2/type 2 thinking according to the dual systems approach to thinking
Reflective, slow, conscious, controlled
Allows one to focus on logic behind a syllogism
Monitors in the background until use is required
