Decision-making Flashcards
Stages of decision making
- At least 2 choices known
- Expectations of potential outcomes
- Values of potential outcomes
Prospect Theory: 3 Perspectives
- Psychological perspective: decisions should be examined on individual needs, preferences, values
- Cognitive Perspective - decision making as integrated in interaction with environment.
- Normative - logic and rationality leads to choice
Normative vs Descriptive theories
Normative - how we should make decisions
Descriptive - how we do
Behavior can deviate from normative in systematic ways
Multiple systems model
System 1 (Rational, cold, controlled, reflective) vs System 2 (emotional, automatic, hot, reflective) Integrate the two in mPFC to get behavior.
Analytic cognition
Uses rational/cognitive systems. Prefrontal and parietal cortex. Remember that frontoparietal also involved in high-g.
Affective cognition
Uses value system (mesolimbic dopamine: striatum, vmPFC) and emotional systems (amygdala, insula)
5-HT system
Avoids danger - the aversive system.
Marshmallow experiment
Predicts a number of things. As teenagers, higher scores on tests, popularity, confidence. As adults, job success, criminal convictions, credit score…Hot and cold go nogo test showed they were still impulsive 40 years later. Dopamine activity increase with those who could not resist
Asking questions
Important how we ask questions as status quo bias. We prefer staying where we are. Aversive processes in insula underlie the default bias.
Shopping
Product preference - nucleus accumbens/striatum
Excessive prices activated insula (aversion) and deactivated the mPFC prior to the purchase decision. These regions predicted even better than self-report.
Dieting
Self-control: high self-controllers made decisions on basis of both health and taste; low self controllers on basis of taste alone.
Self Control
Goal-directed decisions are based on value signal in vmPFC. This signal is modulated by dlPFC to produce self-control.
Framing effect
Cognitive bias - people choose differently depending on whether it is presented as a loss or gain.
Ultimatum game
Divide up 100 dollars, the first decides which way to do it. If other person feels the offer is unfair they can reject it and make the other person lose too. Teaches person sharing that it is not acceptable. When you accept unfair offers, decreased anterior insula. Fairness is in the vmPFC, ventral striatum, and amygdala.
Trusting others
We trust depending on reputation - the trust experiment. Caudate nucleus differentiated between positive and negative feedback only from neutral partner. That is to say, preconceptions can diminish reliance on feedback mechanisms in trial-and-error learning.
