Heuristics Flashcards
1
Q
Probability Theory
A
- Traced back to the 17th century
- Tells us (assuming fair coins, decks of cards, and the like) the odds of any outcome.
- Gradually statistical knowledge evolved to address different types of problems
2
Q
What did Mid 20th century people use probabilities for?
A
- To determine outcomes of games of chance
- To address more formal problems (predicting who will die from heart disease)
- Much of economic theory is based on the (faulty) idea that people use rational rules when deciding how to spend their money
- Would you drive an extra 7 miles to save $5 on a $13 pizza?
- Would you drive an extra 7 miles to save $5 on a $23,000 car
3
Q
Algorithms
A
- The long way
- “A specific rule or solution procedure that is guaranteed to produce the correct answer”
- Detailed and complex
- Example: Mathematical operations
4
Q
Heuristics - “To invent or discover”
A
- Mental shortcuts
- aka rules of thumb
- “Some method or procedure that comes from practice or experience, without any formal basis”
- No guarantee about correct answers
5
Q
Tversky & Kahneman’s Influence
A
- Examined how people made decisions and how their biases affected this process
- Research influenced:
- Cognitive Psychology (obviously)
- Law
- Medicine
- Business
- Economics (Nobel Prize)
- Unifying title Behavioral Decision Research
- *Unique aspect of their research is that people can usually apply an algorithm, BUT THEY DON’T**
- *If they calculated the odds, they would usually arrive at the correct answer, BUT THEY DON’T**
6
Q
Representativeness Heuristic
A
- HTHTHT looks more random than HHHTTT
- We believe that this is representative of a whole class of outcomes (where most outcomes appear random)
- When we judge the chance of certain events, we do so based on the event’s representativeness
- An estimate of an event is determined by one of two features: how similar the event is to the population of events it came from or whether the event seems similar to the process that produced it
- Because HTHTHT appears MORE RANDOM than HHHTTT, we believe it better represents an entire class of outcomes (even though it doesn’t
- In the other questions people tend to ignore the sample size information and instead use representativeness to select an answer
- People IGNORE (or simply failed to use) useful information
7
Q
Tversky & Kahneman (1983)
A
Which of these two options is more likely?
___ Linda is a bank teller.
___ Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
- Asked statistically naive, intermediate statistical knowledge & statistically sophisticated
- All said she was less likely to be just a bank teller
8
Q
Conjunction Fallacy
A
- These results indicate that people at all levels of statistical knowledge are not making good decisions
- The conjunction rule states that the probability of a conjunction of 2 events cannot be larger than the probability of its constituent events
- Bank teller and feminist cannot be more likely than Bank teller by itself
- Bank tellers that are NOT feminists would eliminate many people from the overall group of Bank tellers
- Conjunction fallacy is the idea that people ignore the conjunction rule
- They judge the probability of the conjunction to be greater than the probability of the constituent events
- In this case, people are enticed by the representativeness of the description and this causes them to ignore basic probability rules
9
Q
Winkielman, Schwarz, & Belli (1998)
A
- People rated their memory as worse after successfully retrieving 12 childhood events than after retrieving 4 events
- Interesting- people in the 12 condition, recalled 3 times as many events.
- Many times, memory judgments are based on the experienced ease or difficulty of recall.
- The effect was reduced when participants were led to attribute the experienced difficulty to the task rather than to the poor quality of their memory.
10
Q
Schwarz et al. (1991)
A
- Asked people to recollect 6 (easy task) or 12 (difficult task) examples of their own assertive behaviors
- People then rated their assertiveness
- 12 condition “I am not very assertive”
- 6 condition “I am very assertive”
11
Q
Kubovy (1977)
A
- Asked people to report the “1st digit that comes to mind“
- 28.4% chose 7 - 2.2% chose 1
- Asked people to report the “1st 1-digit number that comes to mind“
- 18.0% chose 1 - 12.1% chose 7
- Asked people to report the “1st 4-digit number that comes to mind”
- 27.4% said 4 as the first digit
- Asked people to report “the 1st number between 1,000 and 9,999”
- 4.3% used 4 as the first digit
12
Q
Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein’s (1976)
A
- Had people guess which cause of death was greater in the 1970’s
- Very few people guessed correctly
13
Q
Simulation Heuristic
A
- Special case of the Availability Heuristic
- When making judgments, instead of thinking about what happened in the past, we think about future events
- Simulation heuristic refers to the ease with which we can imagine examples or scenarios
- Easy to imagine = Likely
- Hard to imagine = Less likely
14
Q
Gregory et al. (1982)
A
- Door-to-door person from the cable company
- Information group were told concrete information about cable TV
- Simulation group were encouraged to imagine (mentally simulate) how convenient and inexpensive cable TV would be in their homes
- Three months later, researchers people examined who subscribed to cable TV
- More people who had a simulation purchased cable than the people who were just given an explanation
15
Q
Generate & Test Technique
A
- Involves generating alternative courses of action, often in a random fashion, and then determining for each course whether it will solve the problem.
