Theme 6 Flashcards
judgement
deciding on the likelihood of events given incomplete information
decision making
involves selecting one option from several possibilities, the process is much more complex and time consuming
problem solving
differs from decision making in that people must generate their own solutions rather than choosing from presented options
Bayesian inference
.
base-rate information
the relative frequency of an event within a given population, ignoring based rate information means that people conclude that there is a 85% chance that the lady identifying the cab was correct, not taking into account the fact that she is wrong 20% of the time
engineer vs lawyer problem - ignoring the base-rate information
heruistics
strategies that ignore part of the information, with the goal of making decisions more quickly, frugally or accurately rather than ore complex methods
representativeness heruistics
deciding an object belongs to a certain category because it appears to be typical or representative of that category
conjunction fallacy
the mistaken belief that a combination of two events (A and B) is more likely than the event occurring on its own
double conjunction fallacy
a stronger form of the conjunction fallacy in which the combination of the statements is judged more likely than each of the statements judged separately
availability heuristics
the frequencies of events can be estimated by how hard or easy it is to subjectively retrieve them from the long-term memory
based on what are availability heuristics used
the more likely based on direct previous experience, then on affect heurisitcs - using one’s emotions to influence rapid judgements, and the least likely based on media coverage plus their own experience
affect heuristics
using one’s emotions to influence rapid judgements
anchoring and adjustment heuristic
when someone makes an initial estimate (an anchor) and then adjusts it to make a final estimate, the adjustment is generally insufficient
limitations within heuristics
- heuristics are often defined vaguely
- theorising based on a heuristic approach has been limited
- inaccurate judgements are not necessarily due to biased processing, instead, they can occur because people have been exposed to a small and biased sample of information
- emotional and motivational factors influence our judgements in the real world but were rarely studied in the laboratory until relatively recently
recency and availability
satisficing
a heuristic, where we consider the options one by one and then we select an option as soon as we find one that is satisfactory or just good enough to meet our minimum level of acceptability, a great to use when we are in a hurry and want to buy a pack of gum but a poor choice when we need to diagnose a disease
elimination by aspects
We sometimes use a different strategy when faced with far more alternatives than we feel that we reasonably can consider in the time we have available, eliminating the options looking at different aspects, eg choosing what college to go to
representativeness heuristics
the tendency to evaluate the likelihood of an event based on how much it seems to represent or reflect typical examples or randomness
small sample fallacy
People incorrectly assume that small samples represent the whole population accurately. For example, thinking personal anecdotes or experiences (e.g., knowing one person who defies statistics) reflect larger trends.
base rates
anchoring
A heuristic related to availability is the anchoring-and-adjustment heuris- tic, by which people adjust their evaluations of things by means of certain reference points called end-anchors. For example, when the price of a TV set is given as $3,000, people adjust their estimate of its production costs more than when the price is given as $2,991
framing
heuristics in which the way that the options are presented influences the selection of an option, eg A message about the Ku Klux Klan, for example, can be framed either as a free-speech issue or as a public-safety issue.
illusory correlation
We are predisposed to see particular events or attributes and categories as going together, even when they do not. For example, suppose we expect people of a given political party to show particular intellectual or moral characteristics.
overconfidence
an individual’s overevaluation of her or his own skills, knowledge, or judgment. People sometimes make poor decisions as a result of overconfidence. These de- cisions are based on inadequate information and ineffective decision-making strate- gies. Why we tend to be overconfident in our judgments is not clear. One simple explanation is that we prefer not to think about being wrong
hindsight bias
when we look at a situation retrospectively, we believe we easily can see all the signs and events leading up to a particular outcome. For example, suppose people are asked to predict the outcomes of psychological experiments in advance of the experiments. People rarely are able to predict the outcomes at better-than-chance levels. However, when people are told of the outcomes of psychological experiments, they frequently comment that these out- comes were obvious and could easily have been predicted in advance.
gambler’s Fallacy
is a mistaken belief that the probability of a given random event, such as winning or losing at a game of chance, is influenced by previous random events. For example, a gambler who loses five successive bets may believe that a win is therefore more likely the sixth time. One believes that the pattern representative of past events is now likely to change.
the Hot Hand fallacy
A tendency opposite to that of gambler’s fallacy is called the “hot hand” effect. It refers to a belief that a certain course of events will continue. For example people believe that a player’s chances of making a basket are greater after making a previous shot than after missing one.
sunk-cost policy
This fallacy represents the decision to continue to invest in something simply because one has invested in it before and one hopes to recover one’s investment. For example, suppose you have bought a car. It is a lemon. You already have invested thousands of dollars in getting it fixed.
familiarity and availability
the recognition heuristics
the recognition heuristics typically operates when you must compare the relative frequency of two categories, if you recognize one category and not the other, you conclude that the category recognized has higher frequency
illusory correlation and availability
