Decision Making and Reasoning Flashcards
Decision Making and Reasoning
Reasoning throught process that brings an individual to a conclusion
-Guides decision making
-People make 35,000 decisions a day
Neuroeconomics
The study of how we make (value-based) decisions
-Formalizing psychology theories, evaluations and linking it to the brain
*Amygdala
*Prefrontal Cortex
Decision Processes are Dynamic
Our decisions change across CONTEXT
-E.g. people gamble more on sunny days than cloudy days due to positive mood
-E.g. hunger makes people choose smaller, immediate rewards over large, delayed rewards
Inductive Reasoning
-Concrete form of reasoning
-Making general conclusions from specific observations
-The conclusions can be false; this is a ‘‘probably but not definitely true’’- type of reasoning
-E.g. a detective enters a crime scene. They notice glass from a broken window; strewn books; spilled milk. They use these observations to make a conclusion about what happened
-Specific –> General
it can become a heuristic and stereotyping
When we are unaware of inductive reasoning…
Learning from Experience
Applying learned rules to new situations (helpful)
Language Learning
Learning the meaning of balloon when you see ‘‘the purple balloon dog’’ and already know ‘purple’ and ‘dog’
Deductive Reasoning
-Abstract form of reasoning
-Using general theories to reason about specific observations
-E.g. my genera belief is that ‘‘the cog dog loves cognition’’. The cog dog is a dog. Thus, I assume all dogs love cognition
-General –> Specific
-Induction (age 7-11)
-Deduction (teenage years)
These forms of reasoning develop at different rates…
frontal cortex
Different brain recruitment for deductive vs. inductive reasoning, especially in the…
System 1
Automatically, and with little effort (inductive)
System 2
Slower and requires more effort (deductive)
deductive; from
If someone went to a park everyday and saw dogs wearing top-hats. They conclude that all dogs tha visit this park wear top-hats. This is an example of _____ reasoning because you are reasoning _____ information
Syllogisms measure deductive reasoning
-Formal systems for generating statements
-These statements will be true if the formal rules are followed
Syllogisms
-Premises are presumed to be true
-Determine if the premise statements support the conclusion based on the logical structure NOT CONTENT
–Major premise (general)
–Minor premise (specific)
–Conclusion (test)
Validity of syllogisms
Is the conclusion true given the premises’ logical form?
-Not necessarily true in real life, but conclusion made is valid
Types of Syllogisms
-All statements
-Negative statements
-Some statements
All statements
All A are B
-All men are mortal
-Socrates is a man
-Therefor, Socrates is mortal
Negative Statements
No A is B
No B is A
-All psychology professors have PhDs
-No PhD holders are human
-Therefor, psychology professors are not human
Some Statements
Some A are B (at least one, possibly all)
-No provinces with coastlines are provinces that are landlocked
-Some provinces are landlocked
-Therefor, some provinces are not states with coastlines
Atmosphere Effect
People rate a conclusion as valid when the qualifying word (e.g. ‘all’, ‘some’) in the premise match those in the conclusion
Can’t imagine negative statements
Problem with Negative statements
Mental Model Theory
People construct mental representations of the world based on statements (e.g. syllogisms) to judge logic and validity
Omission Bias
Biased thought that ‘‘withholding is not as bad as doing’’
-Inaction is harder to classify as wrong than action
-Not doing something is not as immoral as doing something
-Not engaging = not as bad
-People tend to react more strongly to harmful actions than to harmful inactions
The Trolley Problem
-Neither option is good, BUT: which decision is more ‘immoral’?
-Although C is a utilitarian response, many do not choose C due to adverse emotion
Ventromedial Prefrontal Lesions
Less emotion response leads to more utilitarian response
High-Functioning Autism
Differences in emotional processing leads to more utilitarian response
Positive Emotion Induction
Healthy individuals with heightened positive mood (shown positive film prior to problem) more likely to say they would push the man (utilitarian response) than control group in prior exampe
The Belief Bias
People have problems reasoning with syllogisms in which logical validity conflicts with truth
-Show us we use mental shortcuts + prior knowledge
-E.g. all flowers need light. roses need light. therefor, roses are flowers. INVALID.
-The content of syllogisms can lead to errors due to belief bias
-The tendency to think a syllogism is valid if the conclusions are believable
less likely to question its logic
When a conclusion IS BELIEVABLE people are much…
harder for people to accept, even when logic is sound
When the conclusion IS UNBELIEVABLE it is much…
Conditional Reasoning
-‘‘If P then Q’’ statement where P is the antecedent and Q is the consequence
-How to test if the conditional statement ‘‘If it is raining, I will get wet’’ is valid?
-What happens if Q is true? If I am wet, is it raining?
-What happens if P is false? If it isn’t raining, am I wet?
-What happens if Q is false? If I am not wet, is it raining?
Walson’s Task: Conditional Reasoning
-If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side, which cards should you flip?
-Conditional statement: if ‘vowel’ then ‘even’
-Many do not test this statement correctly
-Very few turn over card ‘E’ and ‘5’ to test if a vowel = even number and if not even then not a vowel
-We often fall prey to confirmation bias
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek confirmatory evidence for a hypothesis
Conditional Reasoning and Falsification
-The falsification principle
-General logical rule to solve: ‘‘If P then Q’’
-Choose the P card (is there not-Q on the back?) and the not-Q card (is there a P on the back?).
-Eliminate false statements
The Falsification Effect
You need to look for situation that would falsify a rule
Familiarity Effects
-People are better at this task when it’s context they are familiar with
-Using prior knowledge
-If a person is drinking a beer (P), then the person is over 21 years old (Q)
-Cards have age on one side and beverage on the other side
-Which card(s) do you need to flip to verify this statement?
The Return Trip Effect
Time judged returning on a route (which is now familiar) is rated as shorter than initial route)
-E.g. this is why time seems to fly when you’re older…more common + repetitive activities. routines.
Heuristics
Generalizations that we apply when reasoning
Biases
Systematically innaccurate choices that don’t reflect a current situation, come from overuse of heurisics
Representativeness Bias
Probability that an item (person, object, event) is a member of a category based on resemblance
-Over-use of these schemas and pre-existing knowledge can lead to
-stereotyping
-base-rate neglect
-conjunction fallacy
Base-Raye Neglect
Ignore important rate of information when reasoning
-You randomly select one male from the Canadian population and that male, Adam, wears glasses, speaks quietly and reads a lot. It is more likely Adam is a farmer or a librarian? Most people say librarian.
-There are more farmers than librarians in Canada
The Conjuction Fallacy
False assumption that a greater number of specific facts are more likely than a single fact
The Availability Bias
The easier it is to remember something, the more likely you’ll think it is to happen in the future (memory-based bias)
-Based on the ease of memory retrieval
-E.g. are there more words in english that begin with the letter R or with the letter R in the third language?
-run, rather, rock are easier to recall than arrange, park, word.
Frequency
We confuse this with availability of memory
-The more likely you are to think of something, the more you assume it happens more frequently
-Problem with sensational news that is available!
Judging our Life
Our memories (challenges) are recalled easier than other people’s memories experiences
-Academics think that they have a harder time with grant panels than other members
-Siblings think parents were harder on them than their sister/brother
Anchoring
-Participants given a random number between 0 and 100
-‘‘is this number higher or lower than the percentage of African nations in the United Nations?’’
-Those who were given a HIGH random number gave greater percent estimates than those given a LOW random number
-We even anchor estimates to unrelated information
Adjustment Heuristic
- Pre-shopping. ‘‘puffy jacket budget’’. $300.
- Store A. $500. too much!
-Store B. $400. i’ll buy it!
-Still above your budget… but compared to $500 it seems better
Gambler’s Fallacy
The false belief that a predicted outcome of an independent event depends on past outcomes
-We assume outcomes are linked when they are random
-E.g. thinking one is due for a ‘win’ after a run of ‘losses’
Illusory Correlations
Linking 2 co-occuring events and assuming a relationship
-E.g. wearing a ‘‘lucky’’ jersey when your sports team plays because they won last time you wore it
The Hot-Hand Belief
Thinking that a person who experiences success will keep having success
-E.g. ‘a winning streak’
-E.g. 91% fans thought that a player is more likely to make a shot after making 2 shots than after missing a shot
-Just because something feels true, doesn’t mean it is true
Pre-Mortem Technique
To anticipate and prevent our mistakes before they result in catastrophe. Learning from failures.
-You are on the verge of making a decisiom
-Look ahead at challenges that could cause failure
-Create a plan to navigate those challenges
