Cognitive Thought - Thinking, Judgement, Decision Making Flashcards
Midterm 2
Dual Processing Theory
People have two types of thinking they can use to make judgements
-Automatic and Control
Dual Processing Theory
Automatic
-fast
-effortless
-involuntary (get feeling)
-unconscious (subcortical brain regions)
-unlimited (multiple tasks at once, e.g. driving is automatic so you do not need to think about how to drive when driving and you can be thinking about something else)
-brain can respond quick and automatically without conscious processing
-quick decisions
-we evolve first (what is a threat and what is safe)
-this is our default mode of processing
-most of our mental processes are automatic
-system 1 (use frequently)
Dual Processing Theory
Controlled
-slow
-effortful
-voluntary (within our control)
-conscious (thinking and focused)
-limited (hard to multitask)
-e.g. daydreaming, planning a wedding, solving math problems
-system 2 (less frequently used and secondary mode of thinking)
Stroop Effect
-Tendency to experience difficulty naming a physical color when it is used to spell the name of a different color (Stroop, 1935)
-reading words is an automatic process, identifying colors is a more controlled process (it takes time and resources to fight reading (instinct) and instead name the color, which can feel like an internal struggle)
-automatic processing of the word interferes with attempts to identify color
Ironic Processes of Mental Control
“Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear; and tou will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” - Dostovsky, 1863
-trying not to think about soemthing involves two processes:
-Intentional (controlled) search for distractors (trying to not think about it by thinking of something else)
-Automatic monitoring for occurence of thought (at the same time we are monitioring for if the thought occurs again so we can push it out of our mind)
-controlled processes are more prone to disruption - the thought occurs more frequently (ironic effect)
-if these two processes are equal then it will be okay, the problem is is of any other processing is required (e.g. try to listen to instructor or get distracted by something)
-cognitive road is too much for both processes to continue
-it is the controlled process that fails, while automatic is effortless
-more likely to fail, need to focus again
-when we try not to think, 1 part of our mind does avoid it, but other parts check in to take sure the thought is not coming up
Moral Judgements
Moral Intuitionist Model
-Julie and Mark are brother and sister and they tried making love. She has birth control pills and Mark uses a condom. They enjoy it but decide not to do it again. They kept it a secret an this made them closer to each other.
-What do you think about that? Was it okay for them to make love?
-Everyone will say NO!
Moral Intuitionist Model: Moral judgement is the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions), not a deliberated outcome of some reasoning process (Haidt, 2001)
-this can be based on stereotypes
-we get a quick feeling that is is wrong
-we have a strong capacity for automatic and intuitive thinking
-efficient, quick, and we need to react quickly for survival
-once decision is made, we have to work backwards to explain it consciously or rationally
-in life, we quickly decide what is right or wrong or beautiful or ugly or friend or foe and our conscious mind have to explain why
Judgement and Decision Making
Automatic processing allows us to use mental shortcuts to make decisions about the world (by ignoring available information and not weighing information carefully)
Heuristics: useful for living an a complex world, but can lead to errors
-representativeness Heuristic
-Availability Heuristic
-Anchoring Effects
-Framing Effects
Representativeness Heuristic
-Judging the probability that an object of event belongs to a group or class based on how similar it is to a prototype we hold in our mind
-often involves base rate neglect
-(we neglect information about the general probability of anything falling into that catagory)
-(#NFL players has a small base rate)
e.g. John is an extremely athletic-looking young man who drives a fast car and has an attractive girlfriend. Which is more likely (he is a professional football playor or he is a nurse)
-most people think he is a professional football player
-when steryotypes are strong we ignore base rates
-we made the decision by stereotyping him as a football player, without taking into account that there are many many more nurses in the world than there are professional football players
-representativeness does not fall into that catagory 100% of the time
Representativeness Heuristic
Conjunction Fallacy
e.g. Linda ia 31 years old and majors in philosophy. She is deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Is she more likely to be a bank teller or is she both a bank teller and active in the feminist movement)
-most people would choose that she is both
-the conjunction fallacy means that we assume the occurence of 2 events more likely than the occurance of either event separately
-but realistically, the chances of her being both are low (the probability of two events are much lower than 1 event)
Anchoring Effects
The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias where people rely too much on the first piece of information they receive (the anchor) when making decisions. Once an anchor is set, people adjust their judgments based on it, even if it is arbitrary or unrelated. For example, if a car is initially priced at $50,000, any discount will seem like a good deal, even if the car’s actual value is much lower.
Anchoring Effects
Tversky and Khaneman (1974)
Tversky and Khaneman (1974)
-What percentage of UN members are african countries?
-before guessing, participants asked to spin wheel of fortune
-asked to judge if we think the percentage is high or lower than the value spun
-those who got 10, guesses the average of UN members was 25%
-those who got 65 spun guessed the average UN members was 45%
-
Availability Heuristic and Probability Neglect
Judgement the frequency of an event based on how easily examples of it come to mind
Probability Neglect
-ex. thinking you do more chores in the house more than is possible because the memory of it is more vivid
-why people are scared of flying than driving, plane crashes are covered in the media as more striking and vivid so our emotional response is stronger
-striking, vivid, emotional, meaningfull events come to mind more, even if it is not common
e.g. Which is more frequent in the English language? Words that start with R or words that have R as the third letter?
-it is a lot easier to think of words that start with R so the other option feels less common to us
Framing Effects
The way we present or frame an issue can significantly affect our decisions and judgement
-we present the exact same information, but frame it slightly differently and it will change people’s perceptions and decisions
-we are particularly averse to loss (failure rate is a more powerful cue than success rate)
-makes condoms sound less effective even if rates are identical
-e.g. (90% of college students rate a condom as effective if told it has a 95% success rate)
-40% of students rate as effective if told it has a 5% failure rate
-the information given was identical but attention was focused on words
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to search for, evaluate, and recall information in a way that supports our preexisting beliefs or hypothesis
-tendency to process information in the world in a way that confirms what we always believe or want to believe
-searching for information, interpreting information, remembering information
-e.g you research diets and click the line that confirms your own hypothesis about the diet first
Confirmation Bias
Cognitive Explanation
We prioritize information that aligns with our pre-existing beliefs as a mental shortcut
-it is faster and more efficient to confirm what we think
e.g. Each card has a letter one one side and a number on the other side
-what cards would you check to test of this rule is true (if a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side)
-most people choose the A card because they want to confirm the preduction rather than look for evidience that it is not true
-if A was an even number, it would confirm the prediction
-we could also look for evidence that disconfirms the rule (check 7 card if it has an even number)
Confirmation Bias
Motivational Explanation
We seek information that supports what we believe (or want to believe) to protect our self esteem
-it makes us feel better and reduces tension because we want to be right
-we can test this by manipulating desired conclusions and then seeing if it affects perceptions or memory about the world
-Santioso et al, (1990)
-IV: Participants led to believe extraversion or introversion is better
-DV: Recall times in their life when they were introverted or extraverted
-Ps in the extraversion-good condition remembered an extraverted memory first, fewer introverted memories overall
-half participants read passage about extroverts being more successful and others half read a passage saying introverts were more successful
-would people’s actual memory be affected by presumed motivation to view themselves as more extroverted or introverted
-People in the extroverted conditioned more likely to have 1st memory an extrovert and vice versa
