Cognition, 8e

Chapter 12

Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Chapter Introduction

dual-process theory Type 1 processing —fast and automatic Type 2 processing —slow and controlled Applies to both deductive reasoning and decision making.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Deductive Reasoning

The Confirmation Bias

Are human beings rational?

The Standard Wason Selection Task

Demonstration 12.2: The Confirmation Bias — Wason's Selection Task

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Deductive Reasoning

The Confirmation Bias

The Standard Wason Selection Task

confirmation bias

• People tend to try to confirm or support a hypothesis rather than try to disprove it.

• In other words, people are eager to affirm the antecedent, but reluctant to deny the consequent by searching for counterexamples.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Deductive Reasoning

The Confirmation Bias

Concrete Versions of the Wason Selection Task

replace numbers and letters with concrete situations from everyday life People perform much better when the task is concrete, familiar, and realistic.

Griggs and Cox (1982) —drinking age example Performance improved when task implies a social contract.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Deductive Reasoning

The Confirmation Bias

Applications in Medicine

People seek confirming evidence when self diagnosing disorders (e.g., insomnia).

Both medical students and psychiatrists tend to select information consistent with their original diagnosis rather than investigate information that might be consistent with another diagnosis.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Kahneman and Tversky • proposed that a small number of heuristics guide human decision making • The same strategies that normally guide us toward the correct decision may sometimes lead us astray.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Representativeness Heuristic

representativeness heuristic • People judge that a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which the sample was selected.

• People believe that random-looking outcomes are more likely than orderly outcomes.

• This heuristic is so persuasive that people often ignore important statistical information that they

should

consider.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Representativeness Heuristic

Sample Size and Representativeness

hospital babies example A large sample is statistically more likely than a small sample to reflect the true proportions in a population.

small-sample fallacy —assume a small sample will be representative of the population from which it was selected

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Representativeness Heuristic

Base Rate and Representativeness

Demonstration 12.3: Base Rates and Representativeness —Tom W

base rate

—how often an item occurs in the population

base-rate fallacy

—emphasize representativeness and underemphasize important information about base rates

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Representativeness Heuristic

The Conjunction Fallacy and Representativeness

Demonstration 12.4: Tversky and Kahneman • "Linda is a bank teller and a feminist." • students with different levels of statistical sophistication • rank statements in terms of probability

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Representativeness Heuristic

The Conjunction Fallacy and Representativeness

conjunction rule

events.

—The probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be larger than the probability of either of its constituent

conjunction fallacy

event —when people judge the probability of the conjunction of two events to be greater than the probability of a constituent

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Availability Heuristic availability heuristic

—estimate frequency or probability in terms of how easy it is to think of relevant examples only accurate when availability is correlated with true, objective frequency can be distorted by recency and familiarity

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Availability Heuristic

Recency and Availability

• Memory is better for more recent items.

• Recent items are more available.

• People judge recent items to be more likely than they really are.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Availability Heuristic

Recency and Availability

MacLeod and Campbell (1992) • When people were encouraged to recall pleasant events from their past, they later judge pleasant events to be more likely in their future.

• When people were encouraged to recall unpleasant events, they later judged unpleasant events to be more likely.

• implications for psychotherapy

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Availability Heuristic

Familiarity and Availability

Brown and colleagues population estimates for various countries points of view shown by the media People need to use critical thinking and shift to Type 2 processing.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Availability Heuristic

The Recognition Heuristic

When comparing the relative frequency of two categories, if people recognize one category and not the other, they conclude that the recognized category has the higher frequency.

This strategy generally leads to an accurate decision.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Demonstration 12.5

When making an estimate, people begin with a first approximation (

anchor

) and then make

adjustments

to that number on the basis of additional information.

People rely too heavily on the anchor, and their adjustments are too small; over-influence of current hypotheses or beliefs, top-down processing

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Research on the Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Demonstration 12.5: Multiplication If the first number was large, the estimates were higher than if the first number was small.

single-digit numbers anchored the estimates far too low

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

Research on the Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

• operates even when anchor is obviously arbitrary or impossibly extreme • operates for both novices and experts • anchor may restrict the search for relevant information in memory • applications in everyday life: courtroom sentences

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Framing Effect framing effect

—the outcome of a decision can be influenced by: 1) the background context of the choice 2) the way in which a question is worded

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Framing Effect

The Wording of a Question and the Framing Effect

People are distracted by surface structure of the questions.

The exact wording of a question can have a major effect on the answers.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Framing Effect

The Wording of a Question and the Framing Effect

Tversky and Kahneman (1981) —lives saved/lives lost study (Demonstration 12.8) • "lives saved" question led to more "risk averse" choices • "lives lost" question led to more "risk taking" choices

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Framing Effect

The Wording of a Question and the Framing Effect

prospect theory

1. When dealing with possible

gains

(for example, lives saved), people tend to

avoid

risks.

2. When dealing with possible

losses

(for example, lives lost), people tend to

seek

risks.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

General Studies on Overconfidence

• occurs in a variety of situations • own decisions vs. statistically observable measurements • variety of personal skills • individual differences • cross-cultural differences

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Overconfidence in Political Decision Making

sexual scandals international conflict failure to think systematically about the risks involved Each side tends to overestimate its own chances of success.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Overconfidence in Political Decision Making

Politicians are often overconfident that their data are accurate.

crystal-ball technique

—imagine a completely accurate crystal ball indicates that your hypothesis is incorrect

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Overconfidence About Completing Projects on Time

planning fallacy • underestimate the amount of time (or money) required to complete a project • estimate the task will be relatively easy to complete

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Overconfidence About Completing Projects on Time

Possible Explanations • optimistic scenario • failure to consider potential problems • memory for similar tasks • over-estimate future free time

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Reasons for Overconfidence

1. People are often unaware that their knowledge is based on very tenuous and uncertain assumptions and on information from unreliable or inappropriate sources.

2. Examples that

confirm

our hypotheses are readily available, whereas we resist searching for counterexamples.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Reasons for Overconfidence

3. People have difficulty recalling the other possible hypotheses, and decision making depends on memory. If you cannot recall the competing hypotheses, you will be overly confident about the hypothesis you have endorsed.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions

Reasons for Overconfidence

4. Even if people manage to recall the other possible hypotheses, they do not treat them seriously.

5. Researchers do not educate the public about the overconfidence problem. As a result, we typically do not pause and ask ourselves, ‘‘Am I relying only on Type 1 thinking? I need to switch over to Type 2 thinking!’’

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

In Depth: Overconfidence About Decisions my-side bias

—overconfidence that one's own view is correct in a confrontational situation; often results in conflict; cannot even consider the possibility that their opponent's position may be at least partially correct

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Hindsight Bias hindsight

—judgments about events that already happened in the past

hindsight bias

—judging an event as inevitable, after the event has already happened; overconfidence that we could have predicted the outcome in advance

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Hindsight Bias

Research About the Hindsight Bias

Carli (1999) —judgments about people; Barbara/Jack study happy vs. tragic ending Both groups are confident that they could have predicted the ending.

Memory errors are consistent with the outcome.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

The Hindsight Bias

Research About the Hindsight Bias

(continued)

political events business decisions

Explanations for the Hindsight Bias

anchoring and adjustment misremembering past events

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Current Status of Heuristics and Decision Making

Kahneman's heuristic approach may be too pessimistic Harris and colleagues —People make fairly realistic judgments about future events.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Current Status of Heuristics and Decision Making

Girgerenzer and colleagues • • People are not perfectly rational decision makers, however people can do relatively well when they are given a fair chance.

ecological rationality

—People create a wide variety of heuristics to help them make useful, adaptive decisions in the real world.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Current Status of Heuristics and Decision Making

Girgerenzer and colleagues •

default heuristic

—If there is a default option, then people will choose it.

• People bring world knowledge into the research laboratory.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Current Status of Heuristics and Decision Making

Both Kahneman's and Gigerenzer's approaches suggest that decision-making heuristics generally serve us well in the real world.

We can become more effective decision makers by realizing the limitations of these important strategies.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Individual Differences: Decision Making Style and Psychological Well Being Maximizers

—tend to examine as many options as possible (

maximizing decision-making style

); may lead to "choice overload"

Satisficers

—tend to settle for something that is satisfactory (

satisficing decision-making style

)

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Individual Differences: Decision Making Style and Psychological Well Being

Schwartz and coauthors (2002) — Demonstration 12.9

• maximizer/satisficer scale and several other measures • students, healthcare professionals, people waiting in a train station

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12

Decision Making

Individual Differences: Decision Making Style and Psychological Well Being

Schwartz and coauthors (2002)

(continued)

• Maximizers tended to experience more regret following a choice than satisficers.

• Maximizers tended to experience more depressive symptoms than satisficers.

• More choices don't necessarily make a person happier.

Cognition, 8e by Margaret W. Matlin Chapter 12