Unit 9 Judgment and Reasoning PDF

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Unit 9: Judgment and Reasoning Attribution Substitution ● Questions about frequencies ➤ assessments of how often various events have happened in the past. ○ Frequency estimates are crucial for our judgment ● Attribution substitution ➤ strategy of using available info that you hope is plausible  substitute for the info you seek. ○ Likely to do a quick scan through memory. ● Availability heuristic ○ A subset of attribution substitution ○ Using this strategy you're basing your judgment on availability (how easily/quickly you can come up with relevant examples) ○ You need to judge frequency but you do not have direct or easy access that info so you rely on availability in memory ■ Examples leap to mind ➤ common experience ■ Struggle to come up with examples ➤ rare event ● Judging probability ○ representativeness heuristic: Employer judges you based on how much you resemble other people they have hired and have worked out well. ○ Relies on resemblance The Availability Heuristic ● Heuristics ➤ efficient but trade-off is have some errors. ● The attribute that is easy to access is a source of efficiency ○ Attribute being relied on is correlated with the target dimension so that it can serve as a proxy for target ○ Events or objects that are frequent are likely to be easily available in memory ○ Many categories are homogenous enough so that members of the category resemble each other. ● Ex. Of error ○ Are there more words that have the letter R in the third position or start with letter R ○ Most people think more words start with letter R, bc they can think of more when in actuality the opposite is true. ■ Availability Wide Range of Availability Effects ● People rely on availability in a wide range of other cases, including ones where they're making judgments of some importance. ● People regularly overestimate the frequencies of rare events ○ Peoples willingness to buy lottery tickets ○ This is because there is little time spent thinking about familiar events (the sky is blue) and more notice on rare events, especially those that are emotional (plane crash).

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Rare events are more likely to be recorded in the memory, therefore are more easily available to you. ○ If you rely on availability heuristic, you'll overestimate the frequency of these distinctive events and the likelihood of similar events happening in the future. ● Study participants were asked to think about episodes in their lives where they'd acted in an assertive fashion. ○ Half were asked to recall 6 and other half recalled 12. ○ All participants were asked to general questions including how assertive they thought they were overall. ○ Result: participants that only had to recall 6 had an easier time because they were more readily available, therefore concluded they were an assertive person. Participants that had to recall 12 had harder time and concluded the opposite. ○ Ironically, the participants who recalled more episodes actually had more evidence to be assertive ○ Shows that it's not the quantity but the availability of the memories. ● How often things are presented in the media can also make people think that they are more common when they are not. Representative Heuristic ● Strategy of relying on resemblance when what you're really after is probability, including the probability that a particular case belongs in a specific category. ● Many categories you encounter are relatively homologous ● We expect each individual to resemble the other individuals in the category and thus expect each individual to be representative of the whole category. ● We can use this resemblance as a basis for judging the likelihood of category membership ○ Usually lead you to sensible judgments ● Can lead to errors like the gamblers fallacy ○ People who presume if a coin has been flipped and landed on heads 6 times in a row it will the 7th  time but the probability is it resets each time. ○ Due to errors in category homogeneity Reasoning From a Single to the Entire Population ● Assumptions of homogeneity can also lead to an expectation that the entire category will have the same properties as individual members. ● Study where researchers shower their participants a videotaped interview in which a prison guard discussed his job. ○ In one condition, the guard was compassionate and kind , in the other he expressed contempt for the prisoners and disbelief in the process of rehabilitation. ○ Before the video some participants were told the guard was a typical representation, other were told he was atypical. ○ When asked to express their views of the criminal justice system, they had been influenced by the video. ○ Result: those who had seen the humane guard had more negative view

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Result: those  who were told this was atypical behavior were influenced just as much as those who were told he was typical. ○ This means that participants drew conclusions about the entire category based on specific case. ● "man-who" arguments ➤ I knew a person who ***, therefore you shouldn't ****. Detecting covariation ● People rely on mental shortcuts even when making c onsequential judgments or judgments about familiar domain. ● Errors caused by heuristics can trigger errors in judgment about covariation ● Covariation ➤ X and Y covary, if X tends to be on the scene whenever Y is, and if X tends to be absent whenever Y is. ○ Ex. Exercise and stamina covary ○ Can be sting, weak, negative, or positive. Illusions of Covariation ● Rorschach test ➤ people shown inkblots and asked to describe them ○ Psychologists examine descriptions, looking for patterns and specific types of responses ○ Response that mention humans in motion are said to indicate imagination and rich inner life. ○ Responsive that describe white spaces around inkblots are taken as indicators of rebelliousness. ● Chapman tested the validity of this test by creating fictitious transcriptions of peoples responses to the inkblots and fake descriptions of the people who accompany these ○ Transcriptions and personality descriptions were randomly paired and shown to a group of undergraduate students who had no experience with Rorschach test and did not understand its theory. ○ Students were asked to examine the test and determine which responses covaried with which traits. ○ Done at a time where homosexuality was viewed as a disorder ○ Students claimed that some responses were more commonly offered by gay respondents and therefore served as good indicators of sexual orientation ○ This was an illusion because it was randomly assigned ■ Buttocks = gay What Causes Illusions in Covariation ● One theory is that people only consider the subset of evidence that is skewed by their prior expectations (2) when judging covariation – a  rthritis un sunny or rainy days ● Your selection of evidence is likely to be linked to confirmation bias (1) ○ A tendency to be responsive to evidence that confirms your beliefs rather than evidence that might challenge you beliefs ○ If your data is biased, then your judgment will be too. Base Rates ● Base of rate information ➤ information about how frequently something occurs in general ● People often ignore base-rates

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Study by Kahneman and Tversky (1973) ○ Participants were asked "if someone is chosen at random from a group of 70 lawyers and 30 engineers, what is his profession likely to be?" ■ Here people used the base rates (0.7) correctly ○ Other participants were given brief descriptions of certain individuals and asked if based on these descriptions whether each individual was more likely to be a lawyer or engineer ■ Were influenced ○ Third group of participants were provided with both descriptions and base rates ■ Relied on descriptive information ○ This means that participants are only responsive to base rates if it's the only information they have ● This neglect of base rates is partly due attribution substitution ○ People turn this questions about category membership into a question about resemblance, if the person resembles the idea of a lawyer then they're likely to be a lawyer regardless of the base rates. Dual Process Models More Sophisticated Judgment Strategies ● People often rely on availability in judging frequency but sometimes they seek other more accurate bases for making their judgements ● People sometimes refuse conclusions if the data sample is too small ● However, if something happens over and over it probably not an accident (larger samples) System 1, System 2 ● Proposal that people have two ways of thinking ○ Thinking that's fast and easy i. Heuristic fall into this category ○ Thinking that slow, effortful and more accurate ● Dual-process model ○ System 1 ➤ the fast, easy sort of thinking ○ System 2 ➤ slower more effortful thinking ● Evidence suggests that system 2 only comes into play when triggered by certain cues and circumstances ○ When more time is given to make judgment ○ When person is directing more focus and attention on judgment The Importance of Data Format ● Several features of the judgement being made are crucial, so certain judgments are more likely to be triggered ○ When sensitivity to base-rates increased, relying on heuristics when judging covariation is markedly decreased. ○ Frequency format has a better chance of increasing this sensitivity to base-rates vs. When the base-rates are presented as probabilities or proportions. Codable Data ● Use of system 2 is also more likely if the role of chance is more conspicuous in a problem

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If the role is salient, people are more likely to realize that the evidence they're considering may just be an accident and not an indication of reliable pattern ○ This results in more people paying attention to the quality of evidence on the idea that a larger set of observations is less susceptible to chance fluctuations ● Study where participants were asked about someone who assessed a restaurant based on one meal ○ Participants were more alert to consideration of sample size if the diner chose their entrée by blindly dropping a pencil on the menu ● People are often accurate in their judgments and less prone to heuristic use when confronting evidence that is easily understood in statistical terms. ○ People often do have a basic understanding of statistical concepts but do not realize they are applicable to a judgment they make ○ Don't understand that the evidence they're contemplating can be understood as a sample of data drawn from a larger set of potential observations ○ If they realize this their judgment will be improved. Background Knowledge and Skills ● Use of system 2 also depends on the knowledge and skills possessed ● People are more sensitive to base rates if their background knowledge leads them to see a meaningful linkage between the base and the dimension being judged. ○ Study where participants were asked to predict whether a particular student would pass or fail an exam ○ They were told facts about students base rate ( in the last few years on 30% pass exam) ○ Participants perceived base rate as meaningful ● Your likely to use the system 2 if you've been educated in the right way ○ Study where researchers provided participants with 30 mins of training, focusing on the importance of sample size. ○ P were reminded that a small sample size may result in fluke, but large sample size are more trustworthy ○ Once trained P were more likely to appl considerations of sample size to novel case. ● Students reasoning about evidence can be improved and the improvement applies problems in new domains and context. Thinking About Evidence: Some Conclusions ● We can identify steps that promote system 2's use ● Errors arise largely because the situation does not trigger our system 2 abilities for making sensible, defensible judgments Confirmation and Disconfirmation ● Induction ➤ process through which you make inferences about new cases based on the cases you've observed. ● Deduction ➤ cases in which you start with claims or assertions that you count as "given" and ask what follows these premises ○ Helps keep you beliefs in touch with reality

Confirmation Bias ● Evidence that challenges you opinion can be more informative than that which supports it ● Can take many forms ○ When people are assessing a belief or hypotheses they're more likely to seek evidence that might confirm the belief than evidence that might disconfirm it ○ When disconfirming evidence is made available to them, people will often fail to use it in adjusting their beliefs ○ When people encounter confirming evidence, they take it face value, when they encounter disconfirming evidence they reinterpret the evidence to diminish its impact ○ People often show better memory for confirming evidence than for disconfirming evidence, and if they do recall the latter, they remember it in a distorted form that robs the evidence of its force. ○ People often fail to consider alternative hypotheses that might explain the available data just as well as their current hypothesis does. ● Watson card trick ○ P have difficulty discovering the rule ○ This is because they sought to confirm the rules they had proposed, and requests for disconfirmation were rare ○ Those who did request disconfirmation were more likely to find the rule Reinterpreting Disconfirming Evidence ● When people encounter confirming evidence they're likely to take it at face and when they encounter disconfirming evidence they're skeptical about it and seek flaws or ambiguities ○ Rob the evidences force and leave their beliefs unchallenged ● Study examined gamblers who bet on professional football games ○ People who believed they had good strategies for picking winning teams were not fazed by series of losses ○ They remember losses as flukes or coincidences ○ Near wins Belief Perseverance ● Belief perseverance ➤ when disconfirming evidence is undeniable so people choose not to use it ● Participants in study were asked to read series of suicide notes to figure out which notes were authentic and which were fake ○ As they provided their judgments they were given feedback on how well they were doing ○ Feedback was predetermined and had nothing to do with their actual judgments ○ Those who had received the above average feedback continued to think of their social sensitivity as being above average and those below average showed the opposite pattern ○ P preserved in their belief of abilities even when the basis of that belief had been totally discredited

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Confirmation bias makes the chances that you'll check on the researchers information by seeking other facts or other episodes in your memory that might confirm your lack of social perception ○ You then have more than one source of evidence for your social sensitivity therefore even when the researcher discredits you, you choose to rely on the information you yourself provided.

Logic Reasoning and Syllogisms ● Errors in logic are ubiquitous ○ If people are careless and misread problems, they do so with great frequency ● Categorical syllogisms ➤ a type of logical argument that begins with two assertions (the problems premises) each containing a statement about a category ○ Syllogism can then be completed with conclusion that may or may not follow these premises ● Valid syllogism ➤ does follow premises stated ● Invalid syllogism ➤ does NOT follow premises stated Sources of Logical Errors ● Errors in logical reasoning are also systematic ● People show a pattern of Dubbed belief bias ➤ if a syllogisms conclusion happens to be something people believe to be true anyhow, they're likely to judge the conclusion as following logically from the premises. ○ If the conclusion happens to be something they believe to be false, they're likely to reject the conclusion as invalid ● When people show belief-bias pattern, they're failing to distinguish between good arguments and bad ones. ○ This means they'll endorse an illogical argument if it happens to leads to a conclusion they like, and reject a logical arguments is the leads to a conclusion they have doubts about. ● Other logical errors are the result of low-level matching strategy ○ Strategy of endorsing conclusion if words match premise ○ Match in wording structure The Four Card Task ● Conditional statements ➤ if X, then Y format, with the first statement providing a condition under which the second is guaranteed to be true ● Errors rates as high as 80-90% ● People endorse a conclusion if they believe it's true even if the conclusion doesn't follow the stated premise and vice versa ● Selection task (four card task) ○ P shown four playing cards told that each card has a number on one side and a letter on the other ○ Evaluate rule "If a card has a vowel on one side, it must have an even number on the other side. Which cards must be turned over to test this rule?" ○ 33% turn over the A card. 46% turn over the A and 6

○ Correct answer only by 4% which turned over the A and 7 card Performance is much better with variations to the task ○ Ask about real world situations instead of letter and numbers ○ 73% answered correctly here ● How well you think depends on what you're thinking about ○ Problems content can trigger more accurate reasoning ● In both inductive and deductive reasoning, its easy to documents errors in people's thinking and we can also document higher-quality thinking too. Decision Making Utility Theory ● Each decision has certain cost and benefits attached to it ● In deciding you weigh cost against benefits and seek a path that will minimize the former and maximize the latter ● Often the costs and benefits you're considering are highly desperate ○ Not objective procedure for asking how much you pleasures worth ○ Only opinion is to compare factors subjectively asking how important each factor is to you ● Subjective utility ➤ the value of a factor to you ● Degree of uncertainty adds compilation ○ What if weather in Tuscany isn't' always nice? ● Model that calculated the expected value each option ○ Ex. Value = (probability of a particular outcome) X (utility of the outcome) Framing outcomes ● We are powerful influenced by factors that have nothing to do with utilities ● How a problem is phrased (the frame of the decision) has an enormous impact ● If the frame casts a choice in terms of gains, decision-makers tend to be risk seeking ○ They prefer to gamble, choosing to hold on to what they have ● Going back and forth between these strategies leaves a person open to manipulation, inconsistency and self-contradiction Framing of Question and Evidence ● Related effects emerge with changes in how the question or evidence is framed ○ Award over deny ○ Success rate over failure rate ○ Even though outcomes are exactly the same Maximizing Utility vs Seeking Reasons ● People tend to use utility calculations when making decision but they aren't good at it and as a result are pulled off track by various distractions including how the decision is framed ● Other possibility is that were not guided by utilities at all ○ Reason-based choice ➤ our goal is simply to make decisions that we feel about, decision that we think are reasonable and justified ○ In the award/deny custody example P rely on justification when making their decision but the shift in framing caused a change in factors relevant to that justification and this is why the shift in framing reversed the pattern of decisions ●

Emotion ● ●

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Decisions are also influenced by emotions Decision making is influenced by regret ○ People are strongly motivated to avoid regret and this guides their decision making (select the option that will minimize regret if it happens? ○ Dread is an indicator by risk Certain memories can trigger a strong bodily response ○ Scary movies, romantic encounters ○ Anticipated events can also produce bodily arousal ■ Use sensations called somatic markers as a guide to decision making ■ "gut feelings" The orbitofrontal cortex of the brain is crucial in your use of somatic markers because the brain region allows you to interpret emotions ○ Study where participants were required to choose cards from one stack or another each card when turned over showed the amount of money the person had won or lost in the trial ○ One stack had large payoffs and large losses and other had smaller ○ Participants wi...