Cognitive Biases

Question 1

What are Cognitive Biases?

Answer 1

Human cognition that is systematically distorted in comparison to objective reality

Question 2

What are core elements of an adaptation?

Answer 2

1. Efficient
2. Economic
3. Precise
4. Reliable

Question 3

What are Heuristics?

Answer 3

Necessary shortcuts or rules of thumb that humans use due to constraints imposed on information processing

Question 4

When are Heuristics favored?

Answer 4

When the cost of additional effort required to implement a more sophisticated strategy outweighs the potential benefits

Question 5

What is the Conjecture Fallacy?

Answer 5

The mathematical probability of a conjoined hypothesis cannot exceed the probability of either constituent

Question 6

Why do people perform poorly on Wason Selection Tasks that are purely logical?

Answer 6

The human mind has an evolved psychological mechanism specifically designed to detect cheaters, not to detect logical rule violation

Question 7

What is the Signal Detection Theory?

Answer 7

For any receiving or perceiving system, information processing performance is a two-stage performance
1. Discrimination
2. Decision

Question 8

Details of Discrimination in Signal Detection Theory

Answer 8

The system must be able to determine if relevant information (Signal) is present in a stimulus, culling out irrelevant information (Noises)

Question 9

Details of Decision in Signal Detection Theory

Answer 9

The decision must be made either with a liberal threshold or a conservative threshold
-> Liberal threshold: More false alarms, fewer misses
-> Conservative threshold: Fewer false alarms, more misses

Question 10

What is the Error Management Theory?

Answer 10

Derived from Signal Detection Theory, it states that biases are not tuned to fit a model of expected payoffs but a model of expected fitness in survival and reproductive odds

Question 11

What kind of evolved psychological mechanisms would natural selection favor?

Answer 11

Evolved psychological mechanisms that are biased towards generating outputs that are least costly when errors are committed

Question 12

When would biases evolve?

Answer 12

1. Inputs are noisy or uncertain
2. Biases have fitness consequences
3. Biases are consistently associated with asymmetrical in cost and benefit

Question 13

What does the phrase Biases without Cognition imply?

Answer 13

Biased cognition/belief is not necessary to manage error costs; an accurate cognitive evaluation + biased behavioral response would suffice

Question 14

Definition of Conspiracy Beliefs

Answer 14

Refers to the belief in one or more conspiracy theories

Question 15

What is a Conspiracy Theory?

Answer 15

A lay theory that seeks to provide causal explanation to global or societal events

Question 16

How does Conspiracy Theory attempt to explain events?

Answer 16

1. Making assumptions of how events are causally interconnected
2. Stipulating a deliberate plan regarding alleged conspirators
3. Involving a coalition
4. Identify an alleged threat of harm
5. Shrouded in secrecy

Question 17

What evolved psychological mechanisms are the Conspiracy Beliefs the byproduct of?

Answer 17

1. Associative learning
2. Agency detection
3. Self-protection system
4. Coalition/alliance detection

Question 18

More on Associative Learning in creating Conspiracy Belief as a byproduct

Answer 18

Pattern perception by drawing conclusions from coincidence

Question 19

More on Agency Detection in creating Conspiracy Belief as a byproduct

Answer 19

Attribution of motive and intention from the actions of social others

Question 20

More on Self-protection System in creating Conspiracy Belief as a byproduct

Answer 20

Recognizing threatening stimuli in the environment to elicit protective self-protective responses

Question 21

More on Coalition in creating Conspiracy Belief as a byproduct

Answer 21

Social categorization by cues of group memberships to facilitate appropriate intergroup responses

Question 22

The problem of disregarding Conspiracy as non-functional byproducts

Answer 22

Dismisses a plausible adaptive problem faced by ancient humans

Question 23

What is Adaptive Conspiracy Hypothesis?

Answer 23

Belief in conspiracy theories is likely an adaptive solution that helped ancestral humans to anticipate coalition violence

Question 24

Should Conspiracy Theories stay from an error management perspective?

Answer 24

Yes. Fitness cost of Type 2 error (Failure to anticipate conspiracy) can lead to death, while the fitness cost of Type 1 error (Missattribution) result in reputational damage.