Ch 13: judgement, decisions, and reasoning

heuristics

"rules of thumb" that are likely to provide the correct answer to a problem

heuristics

"rules of thumb" that are likely to provide the correct answer to a problem but are not foolproof

watson four card problem

A conditional reasoning task developed by Wason that involves four cards. Various versions of this problem have been used to study the mechanisms that determine the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks

risk aversion strategy

A decision-making strategy that is governed by the idea of avoiding risk. Often used when a problem is stated in terms of gains

ultimatum game

A game in which a proposer is given a sum of money and makes an offer to a responder as to how this money should be split between them. The responder must choose to accept the offer or reject it. This game has been used to study people's decision-making strategies

syllogism

A series of three statements: two premises followed by a conclusion. The conclusion can follow from the premises based on the rules of logic

categorical syllogisms

A syllogism in which the premises and conclusion describe the relationship between two categories by using statements that begin with All, No, or Some.

neuroeconomics

An approach to studying decision making that combines research from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and economics

mental model appraoch

In deductive reasoning, determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises of the syllogism

Lydia is 48 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy as an undergraduate. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and she participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which of the following alternatives is most probable?

Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman.

utility

Outcomes that achieve a person's goals; in economic terms, the maximum monetary payoff

backfire effect

Person's support for a particular viewpoint becomes stronger when presented with facts opposing their viewpoint.

opt-in procedure

Procedure in which a person must take an active step to choose a course of action—for example, choosing to be an organ donor

validity

Quality of a syllogism whose conclusion follows logically from its premises

deductive reasoning

Reasoning that involves syllogisms in which a conclusion logically follows from premises

conditional syllogism

Syllogism with two premises and a conclusion, like a categorical syllogism, but whose first premise is an "If ... then" statement

premises

The first two statements in a syllogism. The third statement is the conclusion

expected utility theory

The idea that people are basically rational, so if they have all of the relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the most beneficial result

dual systems approach

The idea that there are two mental systems, one fast and the other slower, that have different capabilities and serve different functions

falsification principle

The reasoning principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule

incident emotions can be related to

a persons general disposition

mental model

a specific situation represented in a person's mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning

modus ponens

affirming the antecedent

Tuan bought a new leather jacket after saving for many months for the luxury purchase. On the first day he went out wearing the new garment, he found a $50 bill on the sidewalk outside of his office. He now refers to the jacket as his "lucky jacket" and believes that it has some magical power to give him good fortune. Tuan's belief in the jacket's cosmic ability is an example of

an illusory correlation.

stereotypes

an oversimplified generalization about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative

stereotype

an oversimplified generalizations about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative

right anterior insula

area located deep within the brain between the parietal and temporal lobes

father of deductive reasoning

aristotle

expected utility theory

assumes people are rational and will make the decision based off maximum expeced utility

two types of heuristics

avalibility heuristics and representativeness heuristics

stanovich favored

because it better reflected the interconnected, distributed processing that occurs in the brain

in deductive reasoning, conclusions reached can be definitely true if

both premises anre definitely true and if the form of the syllogism is valid

deductive reasoning starts with

broad principles to make logical predicitons about specific cases

Given its definition, expected utility theory is most applicable to deciding whether to

buy first-class or coach tickets for a spring break trip.

sanfey findings

people most accepted offers the closer they were to equal. unfair offers were more likely to be accepted if they were computer generated.

selective attention impact on stereotypes

can makethe stereotype more apparent or available which then strengthens the stereotype

characteristic of inductive reasoning

conclusions we reach are probably, but not deffinitely true

If a motorcycle cop believes that young female drivers speed more than other drivers, he will likely notice young female drivers speeding in the fast lane but fail to notice young male or older drivers doing the same. In this case, the police officer's judgments are skewed by the operation of the

confirmation bias

illusory correlation

correlation appears to exist, but either does not exist or is much weaker than assumed

framing effect

decisions are influenced by how a decision is stated

framing effect

decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated, or framed

social decisions

decisions involving other people

status guo bias

people tend to stick to what is already put in place

An experiment measures participants' performance in judging syllogisms. Two premises and a conclusion are presented as stimuli, and participants are asked to indicate (yes or no) if the conclusion logically follows from the premises. Error rates are then calculated for each syllogism. This experiment studies _________________ reasoning.

deductive

modus tollens

denying the consequent

categorical syllogism

describe relation between two categories using all, no, or some

incident emotions

emotions that are not caused by having to make a decision

expected emotions

emotions that people predict they will feel for a particular outcome

availability heuristic

events that are more easily available or events that come to mind more easily are judged to be more probable than events harder to recall

availibility heuristics

events that more easily come to mind are judged as being more probable than events that are less easily recalled

system 1

fast, automatic, intuitiv, nonconscious

inductive reasoning goes from specific observations to

general conclusions

deductive reasoning

generalize to broad principles based on specific cases given to us

representative heuristic

how much one event resembles another event

neuroeconomics

how we manage gains losses in an economic context using neuroscience

permission schema

if a is satisfied, b can be carried out

people regularly behave inways that

ignore the optimum way of responding based on probabilities

backfire effect

individual support for a viewpoint becomes stronger when presented with facts opposing own attitudes and beliefs causing them to believe in their own beliefs even stronger

one of the primary mechanisms involved in making judgements

inductive reasoning

reasoning based on observations and involves reaching conclusions from evidence

inductive reasoning

adding alternative to be considered as possible choices can

inluece decisions

system 1

intuitive, fast, nonconcious, automatic

a conclusion is valid only if

it cannot be refuted by any model of the premises

confirmation bias is broader than myside bias becasue

it holds for any situation in which information is favored that confirms a hypothesis

inductive reasonng is used in

make predctiion about what will happen based on observations about what has happened in the past

judgement

making a decision or drawing a conclusion

representative heauristic involves

making judgements based on how much an event resembles other events

logic involved in syllogisms

mathmatical logic

illicit conversion

misinterpreting "all a are b" to mean "all b are a"

types of conditional syllogism

modus ponems(1), modus tollens(2), 3, 4

atosphere hypothesis

no attempt at evaluating underlying logic and mood of syllogism can cause participants ot believe they know the corect answer

conditional syllogism 4

not p therefore not q

modus tollens

not q therefore not p

confirmation bias

occurs when people look for information that conforms to their hypothesis and ignore information that refutes it

utility

outcomes that are desireable because they are in the persons best interest

modus ponens

p therefore q

we make predictions and choices based on

past experiences

basic principle behind mental models

people create model, or an imagined representation of the situation, for a reasoning problem

When the "abstract" version of the Wason four-card problem is compared to a "concrete" version of the problem (in which beer, soda, and ages are substituted for the letters and numbers),

performance is better for the concrete task.

conjunction rule

probability of conjunction two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents

utility approach sprcifies

procedures that make it possible to determine whihc choice would result in the highest monetary value

conditional syllogism 3

q therefore p

people are often better at judging the validity of syllogisms when

real world examples are substituted for abstract symbols

system 2

reflective, slow, conscious, controlled

strength of argument depends on

representativeness of obcervations, number of observations, quality of observations

factors contibuting to the strength of inductive argument

representativeness of observations, number of observations, quality of the evidence

representative heuristic examples

resemblence, conjunction rule, rule of large numbers

responds about three times stronger when individuals reject an offer versus accpet it

right anterior insula

expected emotions are one of the determinants of

risk aversion

frame in terms of gains

risk aversion

frame in terms of losses

risk taking

system 2

slower, deliberative, conscious, controlled

prefrontal cortex and insula have been shown to be involved in

social and individual decisions

permission schema

states that if a person satisfies a specific condition (being of legal drinking age), then he or she gets to carry out an action (being served alcohol)

law of large numbers

states that the larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population.

illusory correlatins can result in

stereotypes

goal of neuroeconomics

study how the brain activates in relation to decision making when posed with gains or losses

myside bias

tendancy for people to generate and evaluate evidence and test their hypothesis in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes

myside bias

tendency for people to generate and evaluate evidence and test their hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes

According to your text, the key to solving the Wason four-card problem is

the falsification principle

syllogism is valid when

the form of the syllogism indicates that its conclusion follows logically from its two premises

law of large numbers

the greater the sample, the more likely the ratio is to be representative of the population

At a lunch meeting with a client, the CEO of Gossip Polls, Inc., was asked to determine America's favorite day of the week. Hundreds of Gossip employees across the U.S. started collecting data immediately, calling people at their residences. One hour later, the attitudes from 10,000 Americans, across all 50 states, were collected. A staff member called the CEO, still at her lunch meeting, to tell her the results of the poll: America's favorite day of the week is Monday. Given your text's discussion of inductive reasoning in science, we might suspect that the observations in this poll are not representative because

the people who are home to answer the phone in the early afternoon are not an appropriate cross-section of the U.S. population.

decision

the process of choosing between alternatives

reasoning

the process of drawing conclusions

inductive reasoning

the process of drawing general conclusions based on specific observations and evidence

base rate

the relative proportion of different classes in the population

Failing to consider the law of large numbers most likely results in errors concerning

the representativeness heuristic.

belief bias

the tendancy to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable

belief bias

the tendancy to think that a syllogism is valid if its conclusions are believable

risk aversion

the tendency to avoid taking risks

status quo bias

the tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision

falsification principle

to test a rule, you must look for situations that falsify that rule

stanovich

type 1 and type 2 processing

Consider the following syllogism: All cats are birds. All birds have wings. All cats have wings. This syllogism is

valid

illusory correlations

when a relationship between two events appears to exist, but in reality, there is no relationship or the relationship is much weaker than it is assumed to be

risk avoidance

when anxious individualstend to avoid making a decision that could lead to a negative outcome

representative heauristic

which states that the likelihood that an instance is a member of a larger category depends on how well that instance resembles properties we typically associate with that category

conjunction rule

which states that the probability of a conjunction of two events (A and B) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (A alone or B alone)