Week 3

Question 1

3 Assumptions of normative models

Answer 1

1. All information that is available is used;
2. All information is used optimally (bayes’ theorem);
3. Decision makers have a perfect understanding of the decision at hand and choose the best alternative;

Traditionally assumed this is how people actually make decisions

Question 2

What does the reality of decision making look like?

Answer 2

• Human awareness and rationality are “bounded”
• Only a subset of available information is used
• This information is often used insufficiently, incorrectly or biased;
• We solve a simplified version of the problem at hand;
• We don’t optimize but “satisfice”

Question 3

What are 4 characteristics of Awareness and attention

Answer 3

• Information enters our brain through senses;
• Brain’s capacity to process information is limited;
• Many things reach our senses but never make it into the brain’s working memory;
• To reach the working memory, information needs to be attended to

Question 4

When is information used in our decision making process?

Answer 4

Information is only used in our decision-making process when we spend our attention on it.

Question 5

What 4 characteristics describe memory?

Answer 5

• Some information that reached working memory makes it into long-term memory;
• Information that is stored in our long-term memory can later be called upon when needed;
• Some things are easier to recall than others;
• We only use a subset of information stored in our memory, it may be used incorrectly.

Question 6

What things are you more likely based to use in your decision-making process (based on memory)

Answer 6

You will use things that you remember easily more quickly in your decision-making process than things that you have trouble recalling.

Question 7

What describes heuristics?

Answer 7

When faced with difficult tasks, the brain uses shortcuts, simplifications, rules of thumb etc.
It’s a hasty reaction aimed at quickly finding a satisfactory answer, rather than complex optimizations given all available information.

Question 8

What has a disproportionate weight in system 1 versus system 2?

Answer 8

Easily accessible perceptions, impressions, intuitions, etc. from system 1 have a disproportionate weight on our judgments and choices.

Question 9

What is difficult to deal with for the brain?

Answer 9

Doubt and uncertainty are difficult, our brain takes immediate action to avoid ‘cognitive dissonance’.

Question 10

What is the result of bottom-up and top-down processes?

Answer 10

People take suboptimal decisions both because of the characteristics of the information and what is inside our brain during the decision making process.

Question 11

What are bottom-up processes?

Answer 11

What happens to catch our attention (characteristic of information).

Question 12

What are top-down processes?

Answer 12

What we expect and hope to see (bias due to existing ideas)

Question 13

What is selective attention?

Answer 13

People have limited attention, we can’t notice everything there is to see.

Question 14

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 14

When we focus on one thing, we fail to notice other things (gorilla).

Question 15

What is change blindness?

Answer 15

Failure to notice a change.

Question 16

What describes presentation formats?

Answer 16

Because we have bounded awareness, how information is presented affects what we pay attention to.

Question 17

What are examples of presentation formats?

Answer 17

• Positioning;
• Font types/sizes
• Color versus monochrome
• Tables versus graphs
• Use of markers and color codes
• Use of pictures

Question 18

What are the results of the paper Cardinaels et al. (2024) about color codes?

Answer 18

When a lot of noise is present in performance measures, color codes improve decision making. Color codes can help to make better decisions and facilitate learning.

Question 19

What is serial positioning?

Answer 19

The order in which items are presented affects how much attention/weight they receive.

Question 20

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 20

First item weighs heavier, and acts like an anchor

Question 21

What is the Recency effect?

Answer 21

Most recent items get more weight, occupy working memory when a judgment or decision is made.

Question 22

What is anchoring?

Answer 22

When estimating numbers, we start out from something that we know (anchor) and adjust upward or downward. The anchor can be completely arbitrary.

Question 23

What are menu effects?

Answer 23

Choices depend on available alternatives. Even clearly sup-optimal alternatives can affect choices. It is the options that you don’t choose, which affect our decisions.

Question 24

What are joint versus separate evaluations and what can it lead to?

Answer 24

This can lead to different choices. Difficult to value attributes get little weight unless values can be compared among alternatives.

Question 25

What weighs heavily in menu effects and how can decisions be influenced?

Answer 25

the default option weighs heavily. You can affect decisions since people can be hesitant to deviate from the default (snack option).

Question 26

What is choice architecture?

Answer 26

Using knowledge about presentation formats, menu effects, etc. to structure decision processes. ‘Nudge’ people to make better decisions.

Question 27

What are language effects?

Answer 27

Closely related to choice architecture. Attributes (readability) of language such as jargon and sentiment.

Question 28

What are halo effects?

Answer 28

A salient positive characteristic overwhelms other characteristics and has a disproportionately large effect on beliefs / judgments.

Question 29

What is the warm glow effect?

Answer 29

judge things more positive, because these things give you a good feeling.

Question 30

What is the horn effect?

Answer 30

Opposite of halo effect - disproportionate effect of a salient negative characteristic on judgment.

Question 31

What is the spillover effect?

Answer 31

More general effect, when a judgment about one characteristic spills over to another, unrelated characteristics.

Question 32

What is availability?

Answer 32

Things than come to mind easier are more accessible, these weigh heavier in the decision making process (recent airplane crash).