Systems Thinking

Question 1

Bounded Rationality

Answer 1

Limitations of human cognitive processes

Question 2

Hastie and Dawes (2010)

Answer 2

[bounded rationality]
- Chess game between a master chess player and a novice chess player
the master chess player is more likely to win by making better decisions
- It could be because they have a larger working memory capacity than the novice but it is unlikely because since capacity does not widely vary between different people
- It is more likely that the master chess player makes better decisions because they have more chess knowledge stored in long term memory
- Procedural, semantic and episodic memories associated with chess allows for more effective decision making

Question 3

System 1 vs System 2

Answer 3

System 1 - Automatic:
- fast
- unconscious
- automatic
- everyday decisions
- error prone
System 2 - Controlled:
- slow
- conscious
- effortful
- complex decisions
- reliable

Question 4

Atlar and Oppenheimer (2007)

Answer 4

Aim: Investigate how font affects thinking

Procedure:
40 Princeton students completed the Cognitive Reflections Test
(CRT).
Half the students were given the CRT in an easy-to-read font, while
the other half were given the CRT in a difficult-to-read font

Findings:
CRT in easy font - 10% of participants got it correct
CRT in difficult font - 65% of participants were fully correct

Conclusion:
When a question is written in a difficult-to-read font, this causes participants to slow down, and engage in more deliberate, effortful System 2 thinking, resulting in answering the question correctly. On the other hand, when the question is written in an easy-to-read font, participants use quick, unconscious and automatic System 1 thinking to come up with the obvious (but incorrect) answer.

Evaluation:
This study provides strong evidence for dual processing theory,
providing support for Kahneman’s model of fast System 1 and slow System 2 thinking
The study only involved Princeton undergraduate students, which are
clearly not representative of the general population. Therefore, the results may not generalize to other groups of participants
The CRT is made up of “trick”questions, which rarely come up in everyday life. Therefore, the ecological validity of this study is low, as the real-world significance of these findings is unclear.

Question 5

Phillips et al (2016)

Answer 5

Meta-analysis (combines results of many studies to come to a conclusion) to determine whether intuitive or rational thinking is more likely to result in accurate decision making. With a combined sample of 17704 participants from 89 studies, their meta-analysis found no significant difference in the accuracy of decisions made using either intuitive or rational thinking, suggesting that people apply the most appropriate thinking style to decision making situation.