Cognitive Biases

Question 1

Cognitive Biases

Answer 1

1. Tversky and Khaneman

2. Englich and Mussweller

Question 2

Tversky and Khaneman - judgement under uncertainty

Answer 2

To test the influence of the anchoring bias on decision-making

Question 3

Procedure

Answer 3

High school students were given different scenarios to test the mental shortcuts taken when making decisions. In one scenario, they were told that ‘a town is served by two hospitals. The larger hospital has about 45 babies born a day, in the smaller, only 15. About 50% of babies born are boys. Each hospital recorded how many days more than 60% of the babies were boys over a year.” They were then asked which hospital they think recorded more days. The correct answer is the smaller hospital because statistical probabilities suggest that the the larger the sample (babies born) the closer it will get to the average.

Question 4

Results

Answer 4

However, 78% of participants got this wrong and 56% chose option three “about the same”.

Question 5

Conclusion

Answer 5

As birth rate is 50/59, they assumed the probability in the scenarios would also be 50/50. This is intuition, system 1, instead system 2, logic and reasoning should have been used.

Question 6

Evaluation

Answer 6

Representative heuristics cause us to judge the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to match, leading us to ignore other relevant information.

Question 7

Englich and Mussweiler

Answer 7

To determine the effect of a prosecutor’s suggestion for sentencing on the decision-making of a judge.

Question 8

Procedure

Answer 8

Independent samples design was used. The sample was 19 young trial judges (15 male, 4 female). They were given an alleged case rape, in condition 1 the prosecutor demanded a sentence of 12 months, in condition 2 it was 34 months. They then completed a questionnaire. A pilot study was completed with 24 senior law students where the average term suggested was 17 months. This number was used as a basis for determining anchors.

Question 9

Results

Answer 9

When presented with the low anchor of 12 months, the average sentence was 18, in the high anchor of 34 months, the average sentence was 28.

Question 10

Evaluation

Answer 10

+ True experiment, researchers can infer a cause and effect relationship between the anchor value and the sentence.
- Sample size is small meaning it is difficult to generalise findings.

Question 11

Conclusion

Answer 11

The pilot group demonstrates system 2 thinking (logic and reasoning), whilst this study demonstrated system 1 thinking (intuition).