Decision-making and metacognition

Question 1

What does a heuristic refer to?

Answer 1

• useful but inexact method for forming judgments. They can be thought of as mental shortcuts.
• can enable living organisms to make smart choices, adaptive decision-making.

Question 2

What are some examples of heuristics?

Answer 2

• Representative bias (when ppl judge a given object belonging to a certain category based on terms of stereotypes)
• Conjunction fallacy ( assuming that people cannot be the conjunction of two properties is more probable than either one alone- in this case how well ppl fit this stereotype is how ppl are judged.)
• Confirmation bias (look for information that confirms our hypothesis, and unlikely to engage in active search for disconfirming) e.g. Wason’s card selection
• Miscalibration (when the subjective probability does not match the objective probability. overconfidence: SP>OP; Underconfidence: SP

Question 3

What is the additive model?

Answer 3

• the concept of adding all possible alternative options to solve a problem
• evaluate all possible options

Question 4

What are the two types of rationality?

Answer 4

• personal: when laypeople argue that personal rationality is an obvious trait of human beings
• impersonal: claims of irrationality in psychological experiements.

Question 5

What are possible reasons for people deviating from the normative model?

Answer 5

• ppl commit biases –> heuristics

Question 6

What are dynamic systems?

Answer 6

• microworlds –> have to learn the rules through discovery of trial and error
• have to maximise whatever it is that is the purpose of the game is

Question 7

What did Stanovich and West say about individual differences in normative reasoning?

Answer 7

• that there may be a positive manifold in some decision-making error factor.

Question 8

What did Jackson, Kleitman et al find about differences in decision- making?

Answer 8

• intelligence predicted competent and optimal decision-making tendencies.
• confidence predicted reckless and hesitant tendencies.
• extreme conditions (boredom and sleep-deprivation) leads to Reckless decision-making
• you only learn if you’re given stimulating tasks, not learning if you’re bored.

Question 9

What appears to be the most important individual difference in decision- making capabilities over and above other important variables?

Answer 9

• self-confidence

Question 10

What are the normative models? Provide examples.

Answer 10

• the normative theory is based on reasoning in terms of formal logical –> they are used to come up with the best possible solutions for our goals i.e. maximise gains and minimise losses
• for a large majority of both reasoning and decision-making problems, the normative models are based on the theory of probability
• the earliest normative model was the EUT (Expected Utility Model):
• Expected refers to the probability that a particular option will lead to a particular outcome; it is typically measured in probabilities.
• Utility refers to decision outcomes that are desirable.
• the EUT proposed that the value of an outcome should be weighted by it’s probability.
• Decision trees can also be used as part of rational decision-making
  Additive features model:
• this is not often used by people in order to carry out decision-making
• it involves taking into account all important features of the possible choices and then systematically evaluating each option.
• it does not have a consistent association with bias scores.