Judgement, Decisions, Reasoning Flashcards
Inductive reasoning
One of the primary mechanisms in making judgements by drawing general conclusions based on specific observations and evidence.
The conclusions are probably but not definitely true
Factors that contribute to how strong (more likely) an inductive argument is:
1) Representativeness of observations: How well do your observations represent all members of that category?
2) Number of observations: more observations = more support
3) Quality of evidence
Heuristics
Used in reasoning because they provide shortcuts to help us generalize from specific experiences to more general conclusions.
Availability heuristic
Events that are more easily remembered are judged to be more probable
Availability heuristic errors
Illusory correlation: when a relationship between two events seems to appear but in reality there is no relationship or it is much weaker
How do illusory correlations result in stereotypes and maintain them?
A stereotype about the characteristics of a particular group may lead people to pay particular attention to behaviours associated with that stereotype, and this attention creates an illusory correlation that reinforces the stereotype.
Selective attention to the stereotypical behaviours makes these behaviours more “available”
Representativeness heuristic
Making judgements based on how much an event resembles other events
Ex; Robert wears glasses, speaks quietly, and reads a lot. Is he a librarian or farmer?
▪ Most people chose librarians
▪ However, they were ignoring the base rate that there are more farmers than librarians in Robert’s town
Representativeness heuristic errors
Ignoring the base rate: relative proportions of different classes in a population
Ignoring the conjunction rule: the probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be higher than the probability of a single event occurring alone
Ignoring law of large numbers: The larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from the entire population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population
Myside bias
Explains how attitudes can affect judgement.
Type of confirmation bias where people’s prior beliefs may cause them to attend to information that corresponds with their beliefs and to disregard information that does not
Generate and test hypotheses in a way that is bias to own opinions and attitudes
Confirmation bias
Explains how attitudes can affect judgement
Tendency to selectively look for information that conforms to our hypothesis and to overlook information that argues against it
Broader than myside bias because it holds for any information, not just attitudes and opinions.
Backfire effect
Occurs when individuals’ support for a particular viewpoint becomes stronger when faced with facts opposing their viewpoint
What can the backfire effect explain?
It can explain why conversations between people with strong opposing views, such as politicians, seems counterproductive. With each new opposing fact presented, the other clings to their own beliefs.
Deductive reasoning
Drawing logical predictions about specific cases based on broad principles.
The conclusion can be definitely true but only if both premises are definitely true and if the form of the syllogism is valid
Syllogism
Two premises followed by a conclusion. The conclusion can follow from the premises based on the rules of logic
Categorical syllogism
A syllogism in which the premises and conclusion describe the relationship between two categories by using statements that being with All, No, or Some
Example of a categorical syllogism
Premise 1: All ‘A’ are ‘B’
Premise 2: All ‘B’ are ‘C’
Conclusions: Therefore, all ‘A’ are ‘C’
When a syllogism is valid…
the form of the syllogism indicates that its conclusions follows logically from its two premises
If the syllogism is valid that does not mean it is _______
true
Syllogism can have truth but no validity and…
validity but no truth.
Belief bias
tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable OR that it is invalid if the conclusion is not believable
Deductive reasoning states that “good reasoning” and “truth” are…
not the same thing
Mental model approach
Determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises
The mental model approach is effective because
1) you can assess validity without training in logic
2) makes predictions that can be tested
Conditional syllogism
Contain two premises and a conclusion but the first premise is stated as “if…then”
This type of deductive reasoning is common in daily life
Example of first type of conditional syllogism
If I study I will get a good grade (if p then q)
I studied (p)
Therefore I will get a good grade (q)
This is VALID
Example of second type of conditional syllogism
If I study I will get a good grade (if p then q)
I didn’t get a good grade (not q)
Therefore I didn’t study (not p)
This is VALID
Example of third type of conditional syllogism
If I study I will get a good grade (if p then q)
I got a good grade (q)
Therefore I studied (p)
This is NOT VALID
Example of fourth type of conditional syllogism
If I study I will get a good grade (if p then q)
I didn’t study (not p)
Therefore, I didn’t get a good grade (not q)
This is NOT VALID
Wason Four-card problem
A way to study the mechanisms that determine the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks.
Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other. You must indicate which cards you would need to turn over to test the following rule:
If there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side
Research shows that people are better at judging the validity of syllogisms when…
real world examples are substituted for abstract symbols
Why are real world versions of the Wason task easier? (beer/drinking age version)
1) It involves regulations that people are familiar with
2) permission schema (people have the permission schema that if you are 19 you can drink)
Expected utility theory
Idea that people are rational so if they have all of the relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the most beneficial result (results in the maximum expected utility)
There are many instances where people’s decisions do not maximize the probability of a good outcome:
Choosing to travel by car instead of plane. Cars result in more crashes than planes. But, this could be due to the fact that people use the availability heuristic - plane crashes more easily come to mind because they are always in the news, unlike car crashes.
Provide an example that illustrates “people tend to avoid risk when they are presented with sure gain”
if things are going well for a contestant, and the bank keeps offering more money, the contestant is likely to be cautious and accept a deal from the bank early
(Post)
Provide and example that illustrates “people tend to be risk-seeking when they are presented with sure loss”
if the contestant is doing poorly and the bank’s offers go down, they are more likely to take more risks and keep playing
(Post)
Risk aversion
Make decisions that avoid risk. Tendency to predict that a loss will have a greater impact than a gain of the same size, increases the chance of risk aversion
One of the detriments of risk aversion
Expected emotions. People predict how they will feel for a particular outcome of a decision
Why do people overestimate what their negative feelings will be?
They don’t take into account the various coping mechanisms they can use to deal with it
The inability to correctly predict the emotional outcome of a decision can lead to…
ineffective decision making
“Clouds Make Nerds Look Good” is empirical evidence for…
Decisions can be influenced by incidental emotions
Dual systems approach to thinking
There are two mental systems (system 1 and system 2) they have different capabilities and serve different functions
System 1 (aka type 1)
fast, automatic, intuitive, non-conscious
- fast response results in more errors
- uses heuristics and intuition prompt fast response
- involved when we accept false information because we are not thinking critically
System 2 (aka type 2)
slower, deliberative, thoughtful, conscious
- instructions make people focus and slow down
- less errors
In daily life system ____ is more prevalent because we don’t need to think about every move and thought
1
Briefly describe the experiment that illustrated that being provided with more alternatives can influence decision making
When physicians were given more alternative medications that they could choose from to prescribe, less made an actual decision than if they had one medication or no medication as their only options
Contrast opt-in and opt-out procedures
Opt-in: a person must take an active step to engage in a course of action
Opt-out: a person must take an active step to disengage in a course of action
Status-quo bias
Tendency to do nothing when faced with a difficult decision and stick to the default choice… even when other choices might be better
Neuroeconomics
approach to studying decision making that combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience
Ultimatum game
Rational response: according to utility theory, the responder should always accept the proposer’s offer as long as it is greater than zero
But people tended to reject low offers
Why did people reject low offers?
Felt angry because the offer was deemed as unfair
The prefrontal cortex and anterior insula are involved in…
decision making processes
