Two Systems Flashcards
What is the kouros?
An Ancient Greek statue of a nude male youth standing with the left leg forward and the arms at the sides
What was the debate about the Getty kouros?
There was a greek statue of it, some people weren’t sure if it was real or a forgery. The supporting documents were shown to be poor forgeries, people made quick reasoning about this. Scientific evidence is inconclusive
How many types of thinking are there?
Two types of thinking, some circumstances where quick thinking is better than slow thinking
Poster experiment
Choose 5 posters in 3 conditions:
deliberate consideration
make quick decision
look at posters, solve anagrams, make quick decisions
immediately after, the deliberation group were most satisfied with the posters, a month later, the third group were more satisfied
Decisions about if relationships will last or if doctors should be sued
People only thought that relationships would last if the talk was about relationships
Decisions about whether doctors should be sued for malpractice - based on conversations between doctors and patients, info about training was not useful
Evidence that good decisions are the best
When do fast decisions go wrong?
Thinking tall people will make good presidents (the halo effect, quick but inaccurate)
Judgements made about unfamiliar items - will be wrong
Judgements made out of contexts
Judgements made under stress
Why are judgements made out of context bad?
The pepsi challenge and coke, most people prefer pepsi so coke came up with a new recipe that was a disaster. Coke sells more than pepsi
Why are judgements made under stress bad?
Police gunmen not reading information from faces correctly, they make mistakes here as under stress
Versions of the two systems theory
Associative thought and reasoning
Distinction between heuristic and algorithmic methods
Intuition and reasoning
Two types of rationality
Stanvich and West
These were the first people to set out a lot of detail about both of these systems
What is system 1?
Fast, automatic, little or no effort, no voluntary control
highly active
What is system 2?
Slow allocation of effort, complex computations, feeling of agency, might be identified with the self, runs in low effort mode
when it has to be switched to high effort, attention becomes focused
Example of switching system 2 on
Invisible gorilla - high number of people don’t see it when other things are going on
Wason selection task
Participants have to come up with a fast answer to the question, distinguishing between fast and slow - different brain regions are involved
Unconscious influences on system 1
There are a lot of influences that we are not aware of, that may influence our thinking in ways that system 2 might not approve of
Unconscious influences on system 1 - unscramble words to make sentences
If words are associated with the elderly, when they walk down the corridor, they walk slower
Unconscious influences on system 1 - waking slowly
Walking slowly primes words associated with old age
Unconscious influences on system 1 - holding pencil
Asked to hold a pencil in-between your lips (causes you to frown) or teeth (smile)
then asked to look at cartoons
rated cartoon less or more abusing - more when in teeth
weren’t aware of this effect
Unconscious influences on system 1 - voting
More likely to vote for increased funding for schools if voting station is in school
Unconscious influences on system 1 - lying on the phone
Lying on the phone leads to a preference for mouthwash over soap
Lying over email leads to a preference for soap over mouthwash
Unconscious influences on system 1 - subtle money
Subtle money primes make people more individualistic and selfish
Unconscious influences on system 1 not caught by system 2
Picture of face (eyes watching you) vs flowers, significantly increased money put into honesty box for coffee in academic kitchen
most of these effects are not noticed - system 2 is unaware of this influence
Cognitive ease - when thinking seems easy, what happens?
Rely on system 1
lead to illusions of truth, accepts things as face value, doesn’t need evidence
Trick maths questions - cognitive strain
Slightly difficult, trick maths questions were solved more successfully in difficult to rad font
Mere exposure effect
Take things as face value more when in a good mood
What does a good mood do?
Increase the likelihood of guessing in 2 seconds whether there is a solution to a remote associations problem - but doesn’t work if good mood is due to external stimulus - music playing
What does system 1 do?
It is biased to believe- hence confirmation bias
seems causal patterns, even if they don’t exist
uses prototypes, good with averages, poor with sums
halo effect
primacy effect
Primacy effects - Asch
Description of 2 people
same list of features, but in first case, the good features were listed first (primacy effect). in second case, bad features were first, Rate Alan nicer than ben
What can the behaviour of system 1 be described as?
What you see is all there is
explains: overconfidence, base rate neglect and framing
What does system 1 not care about?
Quantity and quality of information - doesn’t care if there is research to support it
jumps to conclusions
What is system 2?
Lazy and easily fatigued
System 2 - remembering digits
Giving someone a hard task, when they get to end decision, tend to want cake
More likely to chose chocolate cake over fruit salad - even though they know salad is better
System 2 - parole judges
Parole judges grant 65% of applications following a food break, has a serious consequences. As tired and hungry, they fall back on easy option and grant more parole
System 2 being lazy and missing mistakes
A bat and ball cost 1.10 - the bat costs 1 pound more than the ball, 50% of students say the ball costs 10p - people who don’t check (system 2), the plausible (system 1) answer are more likely to be impulsive, impatient and in trouble
The big picture
System 1 is mostly accurate but sometimes makes errors (virtual illusions, cognitive illusions, errors of judgement about people)
System 2 may not recognise that such errors have been made
What is substitution?
Substituting of a simpler question for a harder one, sometimes we need to make more complicated decisions
What can substitution lead too?
Incorrect judgements - people can form an evaluation of dominance and trustworthiness from a face rapidly - thinking that taller candidates are more confident and aspects of chin and smile lead to trustworthiness
Election winners 70% of time score higher on these but there is no evidence that these measures correlate with how well people do in an office
A consequence of substitution - order of questions
How happy are you these days
How many dates have you had in the last month?
in this order, no correlation
in other order, high correlation between dates and happiness
What is the affect heuristic?
Our likes and dislikes determine our beliefs
What happens with emotions in the systems?
System 2 is more likely to agree with system 1, less likely to come interplay, doesn’t want to correct its conclusions
perceived benefits of technologies correlate highly with perceived risks
impaired affect associated with impaired decision making
A consequence of the affect heuristic?
would you were hitlers sweater? if you found it belonged to an unpleasant person, less likely to wear it - example of contagion - feeling like you will be affected by something
liklihood of contracting flu from nursing a friend vs a stranger vs an enemy or how badly ill you think you would get nursing these:
degree of illness dependent on relationship
