Reasoning and decision making

Question 1

Reasoning

Two main inferential processes:

Answer 1

Inductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning

Question 2

Inductive reasoning

Answer 2

Inductive reasoning involves inferring conclusions based on evidence and observation. The conclusion is probably true but not definitely true

Any thought process that uses our knowledge of specific known instances to draw an inference about unknown instances is a case of inductive reasoning.
Conclusions are likely to be true, but not definitely true.

General induction: generalizing from known instances to all instances.

Specific induction: generalizing from some members of a category known to have a given property to other instances of that category.

Question 3

Determining the strength of inductive arguments:

Answer 3

1. Representativeness of observations: How well do the observations about a particular category represent all of the members of that category?
2. Number of observations:
   The conclusion about the sun rising in Leicester in Argument(2) is extremely strong because it is supported by a very large number of observations.
3. Quality of the evidence: Stronger evidence results in stronger conclusions.
   Adding the observation that “scientific measurements of the rotation of the earth indicate that every time the earth rotates the sun will appear to rise” to Argument(2) strengthens the conclusion even further.

Question 4

Deductive reasoning:

Answer 4

Deductive reasoning involves drawing conclusions based on logic. Given the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true.

Using known information to draw conclusions that must be true.
Syllogisms: Arguments consisting of two statements (premises) and a conclusion.

Forms of deductive reasoning:
Categorical
Conditional

Validity: Conclusion follows logically from the premises (validity depends on the form of the syllogism, not its content).
Truth: If the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

Performance in judging syllogisms has been determined using two methods:

Participants were presented with categorical syllogisms that were

(1) logically valid and had a believable conclusion,
(2) logically valid but had an unbelievable conclusion,
(3) logically invalid but had a believable conclusion, and
(4) logically invalid and had an unbelievable conclusion.

Question 5

Wason (1966) examined how people perform using…

Answer 5

conditional syllogism.

Question 6

Confirmation bias:

Answer 6

People tend to see and credit the evidence that confirms their hypothesis/belief rather than the evidence that disconfirms it.

Question 7

Reasoning can be influenced by:

Answer 7

belief bias: relying on whether the conclusion is believable rather than if it follows from the premises.

confirmation bias: looking for confirming rather than falsifying evidence.

Question 8

decision making factors

Answer 8

The primary cognitive activity in decision making is the evaluation of each possible choice and the determination of the one most likely to achieve current goals.

Choosing an option/action among available possibilities.
Not all relevant information is available.
Involves uncertainty about the consequences.
Can involve both inductive and deductive reasoning.

Question 9

Utility:

Answer 9

outcomes that are desirable because they are in the person’s best interest (Manktelow, 1999; Reber, 1995

Question 10

Maximizing:

Answer 10

Choose the best option with the highest expected utility.

Question 11

Bounded rationality (Simon, 1957):

Answer 11

Our rationality is limited by:
The information we have at hand,
Cognitive capacity: Amount and processing of information during decision making,
Time.

Question 12

Satisficing:

Answer 12

Evaluating the alternatives until an acceptable (rather than an optimal) option is found.

Question 13

Heuristics (Swinkels, 2013):

Answer 13

Mental shortcut or strategy that gives a solution.

Question 14

Representativeness heuristic:

Answer 14

People often make judgments based on how much one event resembles another event. 
The representativeness heuristic states that the probability that an event A comes from class B can be determined by how well A resembles the properties of class B.

Question 15

Base rate:

Answer 15

relative proportion of different classes in the population.

Question 16

Conjunction fallacy:

Answer 16

thinking that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event.

Question 17

Conjunction rule

Answer 17

The probability of a conjunction of two events (A and B) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (A alone or B alone).

Question 18

Framing effect:

Answer 18

decisions are influenced by how a choice is stated or framed.

Question 19

Human decision making often relies on bounded rationality:

Answer 19

choice processes that are as rational as they can be, given cognitive limitations on the amount of information we can process.

Question 20

Satisficing vs. maximizing:

Answer 20

a method that finds not necessarily the best of all possibilities, but one that is good enough to meet the desires of the decision maker.

Question 21

Heuristics such as availability and representativeness heuristics are the shortcuts (rules-of-thumb) that are used in…

Answer 21

decision making