Final exam prep
Explain/define adaptation. How can you be better prepared for adaptation?
Adaptation meaning, we adjust ourselves when life experience hits us, either with good or bad. We adapt our experience of good that it stop feeling good enough. Something the things we enjoyed will gradually fade in couple days or months, we need to be aware of that and remind yourself of how good things are instead of focusing on how they are less good than they were at first.
Explain Dweck's study. How should you praise kids if you want them to learn from their mistakes? How can you improve your own performance on anything?
Dweck studies the ability to learn from mistakes. Her study was done in New York schools and involved more than 400 5th graders children. Kids were given an easy test of nonverbal puzzles. After they were done, the child were told of their score and provided a single sentence of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence and the others were praised for their effort. The students then were allowed to choose between two different tests. The first test was more of difficult set of puzzles but was told that they would learn a lot by trying. The second test was an easy test similar to the one they took. The group that was praised for effort, 90% chose harder set test while the other group, most choose easier test. After all the tests, Dweck gave them another test that is even harder (written for 8th grader) effort group work hard at figuring it out, got very involved and enjoyed it. Meanwhile the other intelligent group was discouraged. The smart group were more interested in comparing with worse score students to boost their self-esteem. While the effort group were more interested in the higher scoring exam and wanted to understand their mistakes. The effort group ended up raising their average by 30% while the smart group dropped by nearly 20%. I would learn from this experiment by making sure I praise my nephews and other children for how hard they work for it and not on their smart. I also would focus on how to improve my mistakes and learn from it to improve my performance on anything.
What does it mean to choose? Health plan? Retirement plans? Medical care?
Health plans is a tough decision to pick because there are so many choices to pick if employees did not go with employers' default option. Within health plans, there are more options to choose from. Same with retirement plans, there are variety of retirement plans and more of employers switched to different plans. So many options is difficult to decide which one to choose and which is best. The more options there are, the more responsibility it land on the chooser. However sometime there are some cases where the chooser would want the professional to make the decision for them such as deciding treatment for cancer (12% of cancer patients actually want doctor to decide). What it mean to choose is that everything in life is choice. Even if it is a mindless choice such as brushing teeth every day, we don't think about choosing to brush our teeth and it is a good thing because it would be very exhausting. To be constantly look and deliberate our every activity choice is a burden.
What is Plato's metaphor about reason and emotion? Was this a popular idea in Western culture? Freud? What is the point of feelings? Was Plato correct?
Plato metaphor about reason and emotion was that it was mind controlling two horses. One horse (emotion) is more wild than other (reason) horse. This idea is popular in Western culture such as Freud and Thomas Jefferson. In the case of Freud, his metaphor differs a little such as id vs ego (desire vs rational). He felt that it was an ego (rational) job to restrain the id (desire) into socially acceptable ways. The point of feelings is that feelings help us make decisions along with our rational thoughts. Plato was wrong about needing to ignore emotion, we need emotions to help us to make decision.
What important factors appear to be responsible for people's happiness? Do people have more or less access these day?
The important factor to happiness is social relations such as family, spouse, children, and friends make each other happier than those who don't have it. However, social relations is now a deliberate and demanding choice.
What is the paradox of our time? Do the majority of people shop around for phone coverage companies or plans? What's the cost to sticking with what you have vs. shopping around?
The paradox of our time is that the majority of people want more control over the details of their lives, but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives. The majority of people don't shop around for phone coverage, they stick to what they have. The cost of sticking with what you have over shopping around is that you may end up paying a lot more for the same service.
Why is social influence one of the most powerful and effective ways to nudge? Summarize the research findings on page 55.
Two social influences are information and peer pressure. Both are powerful and effective ways to nudge people. Several research findings are teenagers girls that see other teenagers are having children are more likely to become pregnant themselves. Another finding is that if your best friends are fat, your risk of gaining weight goes up. Also, the choice of roommate in college as freshman also influence their grades and their future prospects.
Describe Wansink and colleagues' study? About automatic pilot mode. What kind of nudges could help people limit overeating in this mode? What are examples of self-control strategies explained in the book.
Wansink study people who mindless choosing eating such as stale popcorn at movie. People who have large buckets of stale popcorn ate more (53% more) than people who had smaller (medium) buckets despite that all disliked the taste of stale popcorn. And people who had large buckets assumed that they wouldn't be tricked by size of buckets, but it is not true, they were tricked and ate more because of the size. Another study/experiment Wansink did was on unlimited soup, people kept eating the soup, not paying attention that they were eating a lot of soup until researchers ended the experiment. The soup itself was wired to refill themselves without letting participants know that it was refilled every time they eat. Large plates and large packages mean more eating and that was powerful nudges. If we want nudges people to eat smaller and healthier, use smaller plate, smaller load or do what I did. I used chopsticks for many of my meals and because of that I ate slower and smaller. I was fuller quicker than I would with fork. In the book, examples of self-control strategies are things like making lists to help remember shopping items or alarm clock to help us get up in morning. Another example from book is Christmas club, people can sign up to deposit money every week with no interest fee. They cannot withdraw any money out of that for a year which start in November and just end in time for Christmas shopping. It is a good market and have strong incentives to self-control spending for a year.
a _____ has the responsibility for organzizing the context in which people make choices.
choice architect
hot state vs cold state
cold state is thinking abstractly while hot state mean arsoual is high and working. example quit sweet (cold state) but smelling dessert and seeing dessert - drooling ( hot state). The "cold" is the rational part of ourselves and the "hot" is the emotional part of ourselves
the tendency of groups to stick to established patterns even as new needs arise is called ______.
collective conservation
status quo bias
default setting or opt out too
when people initially prefer A over B, but they later choose B over A, that is called ______ behavior.
dynamically inconsistent
hot-cold empathy gap
gap is when you plan on resist temptation (in cold state) but when you are in hot state, temptation is stronger and defeat ya
N U D G E S
iNcentives Understanding mapping Defaults Give feedback Expect errors Structure complex choices
pluralistic ignorance
ignorance about what other people think
the sudden production of new adaptive responses not arrived at by trail and error is called _______.
insightful problem solving
libertarian paternalism
libertarian is people should be free to do what they like and opt out of undesirable arrangements. paternalistic is like being overseen by a paternal figure but not in way that you're being forced to do it. you are being nudged to do something that goning to make your life longer, healthier and better.
the goal of a ____ is choosing the absolute best option. They must be assured every choice is the best choice that could be made.
maximizer
The system (sometimes implict) that households use to evaluate, regulate, and process their home budget is called _____.
mental accounting
Keller & DeLong (2016)
monkeys one that was tested with floating object task by spitting water in tube to raise the treat to top. In human 4 yrs, 8% completd with it and 58% of 8 yrs complete it. 3 conditions: wet, dry ic, and dry (most demanding task) 6 session each. male successfull in all 6 session and is faster than female. used all tooluse it was provided. female was successfull in 3 of 6 seion. 1 in dry stick and both in wet conditions. both did use sticks tool and both used materials around them. Dont know if have insightful problem . Think male Dena have more insightful.
a___ is any aspect of choice architecture that alter people's behavior ina predictable way without forbidding any options or changing the econmoic incentives.
nudge
when you have finished your main task, you tend to forget things relating to previous steps. Leaving the gas cap behind or leaving you ATM card in the machine are examples of _____.
post-completion error
When you make decisions about WHEN to make decisions, these are called ______.
second-order decisions
Kuba et al. (2010)
stingray fish. 5 stringrays (3 ales and 2 females. for testing stage, they get treat in pipe with open side on both sides. for actually problem stage, they closed one side with black mark and other side is white taped that left open for them to grab the treat. one ray at a time. tested until have 5succesul trails up to 3 mins. Result show that males have decrease in number of nonsuccessful by frist and second session. female #1 only successful contact and watch other to correct her attempt. female 2 unsuccessful. all show side preference. female approach right more often and male to left.femaile use fin movement to create currents inside the pipe to get food. while male use all three, fin movement, sucking, or both. Another example of water tool use - archer fish!
tool use
the action of using an agent to achieve a goal
social nudge
the actions of other people shape how you behave
satisficer
to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better
Bird & Emery (2009)
two alpha and beta mates birds did experiment with tool use of stick, metal and making their own tool use to get treat. Birds were successfull.
mere measurement effect
when people are asked what they intend to do, they become more likely to act in accordance with their answers. This is called the _____ .
collaborative filtering
when you use the judgments and preferences of other with similar tastes to make choice, this is called ___ .
Foerder et al. (2011)
will the elephant be able to use the tools to reach the food. females quit. Wasn't able to use the stick. Was able to use the objects as steps. treat is above them and only younger male elephants was sometime successful with tool use cube of standing box) to grab treat. and other time he wasnt. Tho he do recall where location is. Elephants can not use stick because their trunk is esstenital to tem and is sensory organ. insightful problem (no right or wrong), imo yes because kuba show the capability to switch strategy every time his strategy didnt work.
stimulus-response compatibility
you want the signal you receieve to be consistent with a desired action. For example, if a door has a big handles, people expect to pull it. If you must push it instead, this creates confusing. this is called ____.
How many items are carried in a typical supermarket? Provide an idea of how many choices we have for different types of items? Electronic gadget? Shopping by mall? College curriculum? How much do we shop and how much do we like it? What might be the cause of that dissatisfaction?
200 kinds of crackers, 285 varieties of cookies and so many kinds on shelves. 45 different car stereo system and 42 different computers 20 different catalogs a week! College back then have larger fixed course of study with the goal of education ethical and civic tradition. Now college don't have fixed curriculum. Larger choice allowed students freedom to choose bundles of knowledge they want. We shop once a week, and we don't like it as much. Because there are so many options and it is in our face all of the time. Basically tyranny of small decision.
class project: How many participants we have, mean for genders and age, results for maximization scale and part 1 responses results
68 participants: Male = 33, Female = 31, Non-binary = 4. Mean age is 26 years old Result for max scale is means is 58 which is higher than the book. book say avg were 50. about 56% particpant fall in neither. Response in part one: some quesion does have possible of anchoring such as age do influence the next question is close however it is not enough to say it does have some anchoring influence.
Why is the job of quarterbacks so difficult? What is Wonderlic intelligence test? Is there a correlation between performance on this test and the success of quarterbacks in the NFL?
A quarterback is so difficult because they have to make the hardest decisions in a short period of time. They have to assess the risk of potential outcome of their decision all along trying to avoid being tackled. Wonderlic test is a shorter IQ test. It was thought that Wonderlic test high score would correlation a better quarterback player but result show that there is no correlation between the test score and success of quarterbacks.
What area of the brain generates an error-related negativity signal whenever dopamine neurons make a mistaken prediction?
ACC - Anterior cingulate cortex
Describe Solomon Asch's series of experiments on conformity. How often did people conform? Are these effects limited to a certain culture?
Asch's study is about a group of people who will either conform to the majority decision or not. In the experiments, a participant is supposed to match a particular line shown on a large white card to one of three comparison lines that is identical to it in length. In the first three rounds, all agreed easily but in the 4th round, when all give incorrect answers, the participants will agree 1/3 of time. Then this experiment is also replicated in all other countries and show no huge differences across nations. People all over the nation conform between 20 and 40% of times.
What is a choice architect? Describe some examples of choice architects. What is one parallel between choice architects and traditional architects?
Choice architect is a person who is responsibility for organizing the context in which people make decisions. For example, the teacher made the decision to set up exams, homework, and study guide for students. A lot of people are a choice architect, for example doctor would provide several choices of treatments, they are choice architect. The parallel between choice architects and traditional architects is that there are no neutral designs. Everything have an impact on people's decision no matter how unintentionally you made it. Everything matters. For example, men bathroom have black housefly into each urinal thus men improve attention and accuracy are increased and lead less spillage by 80%.
Define "collective conservatism." How does "pluralistic ignorance" feed into that tendency?
Collective conservatism mean the tendency of groups to stick to established patterns even as new needs arise. Pluralistic ignorance is ignorance about what other people think such as we follow a practice or tradition because we think most other people like it. Example of how that practice like Nazism works despite many people knowing that everyone else is wrong. Another example is a person names Jones, he was reverend who was faced with charges, but he convinced his followers to move away with him and then eventually convinced the parents to poison their children and then themselves. People will conform when they know others will see what they have to say. Or wearing ties had become established patterns even if there is no reason for it. For example, airplane clothes used to be classy, nice clothes, why? Eventually people now wear whatever they want, including pjs for airplane rides.
What is compensatory decision-making strategy? What is the elimination by aspect strategy? Explain how collaborative filtering works and provide an example. Is this always a good strategy?
Compensatory decision-making strategy is a strategy to make list of importance of things you desired and make decision that fix within that important. For example, choosing apartments in locations, people might look at size, view, neighbors, and distance to work to make their decision about which apartment fit the best with their important attributes list. A person will use "elimination by aspect" strategy to either removes or establishes cutoff to reduce the number of finalist apartments. Collaborative filtering is when you use the judgments and preferences of others with similar tastes to make choices. Collaborative filtering is about filtering the vast number of books or movies available in order to increase the likelihood of picking one you like. For example, on any steaming tv service such as Netflix, you would choose to watch a new show if you knew the people you tend to like to watch what you had liked before. Collaborative filtering makes difficult choices easier. However, it is not always a good strategy because sometimes it is good to learn or like other shows that you thought you would never like. It is good to be more open minded and try things from different sides.
Explain dynamically inconsistent behavior and give an example. What is a "hot state" and what is "cold state"? describe the "hot-cold empathy gap"
Dynamically inconsistent behavior mean people choose A over b but later changed mind and choose B over A. For example, before dinner, people would have snack - nuts- and they would snack on it but when it is removed, people are happy that it is removed so they don't spoil their appetite for dinner. Hot state means people are thinking and smelling (and drooling) over the dinner. In cold state, people are just thinking about it in abstractly way. Basically, the difference is temptation and mindlessness for hot and cold state. For example, Ulysses told his ship crew to plug wax into ear to resist siren, this is in cold state. And then he asked the ship crew to tied him up to resist temptation to steer ship closer when siren's music put him into a hot state. Regarding the hot-cold empathy gap, people's self-control are off the bet when things are there at their max to tempt them such as I love brownies, but I know and am trying to control my resistance to brownie temptation, but as soon friends offer me the brownie in my face, I lose my control. It altered my behavior and thoughts. I underestimate the effect of arousal.
What was wrong with Antonio Damasio's patient named Elliot? How is the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) involved?
Elliot had a small tumor in the frontal lobe of his brain, and it was cut out. Before the surgery, he was a model father and husband. He held an important management job in a large company and was active in his local church. However, after the surgery, everything changed. His IQ stay the same but his ability to make decisions is incapable. He would obsess over unnecessary important tasks such as to use which blue or black pen, which to eat lunch or where to park the car. He would spend hours and hours researching which restaurants to go to for lunch by looking at each menu, seating plan and then check how busy the place was. Before long, he was fired, he was con, got divorced, and moved back with parents. Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was responsible for Elliot's change. This OFC is the collection of wants and desires and by removing that, Elliot became like a stranger and is no longer capable of making decisions. OFC is very involved with emotion because it would send signals to our rational brain of our various opinions.
What is the problem with extended warranties? Do Econs purchase them? Do Humans purchase them?
Extended warranties is usually bad deal for people because phone break usually happen 1% of time but people think it is more than 15% and they would buy it as if it is "better to be safe than sorry" even if the deal price is not beneficial for them but for the company. Econs do not purchase them, but Humans does purchase them. Usually, the warranty is $2 dollars' worth and not worth of paying $20. But because humans sometimes have less than fully rational belief, thus we make bad decisions.
How does the frequency of a decision and the feedback available for a decision affect whether that decision would benefit from a nudge? (difficult, frequency, feedback)
Frequency helps practice makes perfect but in life we don't get to practice decision (unless we adjusted them like retirement plan). The higher the stakes, the less often we are able to practice. For example, we buy a house and a car not more than once or twice a decade, but we are expert at grocery shopping by trial and error. The frequency practice we get like the grocery shopping does not need nudge much unlike choosing the right mortgage. The more difficult the decision is, the more useful feedback/nudge it would be benefits for chooser. When feedback does not work, this is when we may benefit from a nudge.
Why is investments goods and sinful goods prime candidates for nudges?
Investments goods are good things like exercise, flossing, and dieting, the costs are born immediately but the benefits are delayed. People often err on the side of doing too little with investment goods. While with sinful goods, the cost is delayed, and benefits are immediately. People are doing pleasure now and suffer the consequences later. Both are prime candidates for nudges because both are helpful nudges such as needing help to exercising more but don't need special encouragement to eat another brownie.
What is the Iowa Gambling Task? When do players report understanding the rules? What does psychophysiological data indicate?
Iowa Gambling Task is an experiment that tests how brain's cells measure errors to improve performance. They test subject with 4 deck of card, two blacks and 2 reds along with $2k play money. Each card tell the player whether he'd won or lost money. The player must turn over a card from one of 4 decks to make as much money as possible. The cards were rigged. Two decks were full of high-risk cards. These have bigger payouts but also have extreme punishment. The other two decks were smaller payout and rarely punished player. After 10 cards, people started to get nervous when reached the negative deck. Feelings figured it out before logic. It took 50 cards before they draw directly from profitable decks. And about 80 cards, they could explain why they favor those decks. Impaired people could not pick the right card. Emotion became accurate and disappointment is educational. Dopamine neurons detect subtle patterns that we otherwise fail to notice. They assimilate all that data that we cannot comprehend.
What is status quo bias? Example?
It is another definition of person do nothing to change their choice or leave their choice such as default option, people often used the default option in many settings, but they don't realize that sometime their default option is not best for them or there are other that is best. For example, employers provide health plans for their employees but if they don't enroll by the deadline, it will go to default plan which could either mean certain plan such as basic one or no health plan.
Define libertarian paternalism. First define libertarian and then define paternalism. What are two key aspects to paternalistic policies?
Libertarian mean people should be free to do what they like to and to opt out of undesirable arrangements. Paternalism mean like choice architects try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better. For example, companies will provide a lot of health plans and retirement, employers (the choice architects) can give employees some helpful nudges. The two key aspects to paternalistic polices is choice architects choose in a way that will make choosers better off and choices are not blocked or fenced off .
What was Lt. Commander Michael Riley's job? What was the situation that forced him to make a quick and deadly decision? Did he have complete information? How did he answer his captain when he was asked how he knew he made the right decision?
Lt. Riley's job was to watch the radar screen on British ship and watch all the airspace surrounding the naval team. Before the air war, radar crew had duty to be on for 6 hours and then 6 hours to sleep and eat. Riley had been on duty since midnight, at 5 am, he noticed something odd on the radar off the coast. He couldn't figure out why, but he felt it was off about that one small blip. He waited for 40 seconds even though his pulse was racing, and his hand was clammy. The blip grew closer with each sweep of radar. There was problem with the blip location, it was in location where American jets used to support their people on ground. That one blimp was similar to American jet's behavior on radar. And those jet also had turned off their id system, so he had no way to contact that radar blip and the altitude of the blimp was incorrect. With all of those against Riley, he still fired a missile to that blimp. Captain asked him how he could be sure that it was Iraqi's missile, he responded with he just knew. The result was that blimp is an Iraqi's missile and he saved them. Many years later, Gary Klein decided to investigate this situation and study it. He discovered that Riley got used to seeing the blip pattern and when a new blip showed up, his brain picked up signals that he was unconsciously aware of it. His intuitive insight noticed the timing! His dopamine was working to communicate with one another.
Characteristics of maximizers and satisficers. What are the key differences between them? When Schwartz gave Max scale to thousands of people, what are the result? And how should maximizers answers and why? How do maximizers experience decisions and their aftermath, as well as general life events? What is the connection between max and happiness? As well max and regret? Difference between perfectionism and maximizing?
Maximizers are the individual who typically choose the "best" option in order to optimize an outcome. They will seek and will accept the best all along searching for more alternative options. While the satisficers people will choose an option that is best but is good enough or merely a satisfactory option at first. Both have criteria and standards to seek options but satisficers will accept the first one that met all of those criteria and not worry about the possibility that there might be a better option compared to the maximizer who will continue to look for more options. Schwartz gathers over several thousands of responses from people and the result were shown that the high were 75, the low 25, and average were about 50. There were no differences in genders. Maximizers should answer several questions such as they would channel surf tv shows options as if they are seeking for best one to watch. How maximizers experience their decision is that they experience less happy, less optimistic, and were more depressed. For example, they are more likely to spend time thinking about alternatives to the purchase they made, and they are feeling less positive about their purchasing decisions. There is a correlation between maximizing and happiness but not the causes. Maximizers are very susceptible to regrets. The difference between perfectionism and maximizing is perfectionists have high standards that they don't expect to meet while maximizers have high standards that they do expect to meet.
Define mental accounting. What are some examples from the book? Or your own life?
Mental accounting is the system that households use to evaluate, regulate, and process their home budget. In the book, the example they used was two actors (Gene and Dustin) who were starving artists back in the days and when Dustin asked Gene for loan and Gene agreed. But when Gene visited Dustin's home, he saw that Dustin had several jars with money in it and asked him why he needed loan if he does have money. Dustin showed that each jar is labeled with necessary bill such as rent, utilities and so forth. The one he need loan is labelled "food". We all have mental accounting where we budgeted which is important to pay off first. Example of my own life, I once had to budget amount for rent, utilities, school and food. I recalled living off chicken nuggets for two weeks because money was directed into rent, school, and utilities before food. That was a tough time.
Define the mere-measurement effect. Provide an example of this effect.
Mere-measurement effect means people are more likely to act on their answer when asked what intended to do. The example from the book is campaign officials want to encourage supporters to votes so asking people the day before election, they are more likely to go and vote, and increased by 25%. Or ask people if they plan to buy a car within the next 6 months, the percentage increased by 35% of people do buy cars.
Describe Schultz's experiment. What kind of conditioning was Schultz doing? How is dopamine involved? What is the ACC?
Neuroscientist Schultz experimented with monkeys by sounding the tone and then gave monkey the apple juice as reward. After time, he saw the dopamine reaction when the tone happened before the reward. If the cell predict based on the tone was correct when it did get reward, surge of dopamine will happen. However, if it was incorrect, dopamine neurons will go on strike and decrease releasing it. Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) mean to detect errors. Basically, it will fire "oh shit" signal like Riley's situation. It send signal to alert the brain to pay attention and also send signal to the body such as heart rate increase and adrenaline increase. ACC is important because it remember the mistakes and learns from it. For example, monkeys with joystick were able to learn which movement of joystick will earn them reward, but after 25 tries, it will switch direction. Monkeys with ACC did learn and stay with their new movement, however the monkey with ACC did not stay with their new learned movement and remained confused by simple experiment.
Define nudge. Explain the false assumption and two misconceptions people may have about nudges. Example of nudge?
Nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any option. A false assumption about nudge is that we don't need nudge because we make best decisions. Two misconceptions people have about nudges is that it is possible to avoid influencing people's choices and that paternalism always involves coercion. It is not possible to avoid it because sometimes we do in unintentional nudge such as employer decide to pay employee by monthly or biweekly but was surprised to find that people save more if get paid biweekly because twice a year they get paid 3 paychecks in one month. Paternalism don't always try for coercion, for example with setting up food in café for children, they don't force anybody to pick specific food, they only set up arrangement of food and let children pick for them. For example, of nudge, we could use setting up food in café where children can make best choices and pick what food is good choice, the best nudge approach would be putting the fruit and other health foods at eye level in first arrangement. Or Supersize problem that McDonald created but it was unhealth nudge and eventually it was stopped. Example, Cinnabon cart vs fruit smoothies cart.
the part of the brain responsible for integrating visceral emotions into the decision-making make a mistaken prediction?
Orbitofrontal coretex (OFC)
Define second-order decision. What are 4 things as ways to make second-order decisions? How does culture influence choice?
Second order decision is to make decision about WHEN to make decisions. The 4 things as way to make second-order decisions is rules, presumption. Standards, and routines. Rules as an example, your rule is to always buckle your seat belt, you would always buckle up. Presumptions are less strict than rules, kind like default setting, you would set your font default setting to Arial and never think about it again. Therefore, that decision is made for you. The third way is standards which is even less strict than both rules and presumptions. Standard mean you would divide your choices into what meet your standard and options that don't. The last way is routines (or habits) which is combined with standards. When we decide on what we find that met our standards, we will stick with it which take away the decision making for you. For example, people are drawn to the type of friends they hang out with, depending on kindness, character, wit and loyalty. We don't make the choice to maintain the friendship, we just do based on those 4 ways. By using those 4 ways, we make life more manageable and give us time to invest ourselves to people and to decision we can't or don't want to avoid. Other cultures have some constraints in oppressive amount such as Amish culture.
Seligman's study. What does this say about our ability to choose actions and exert control over the environment? What are the three types of benefits of choice?
Seligman's study focus on learned helplessness. His study involved teaching three different groups of animals to jump over a hurdle from one side of a box to the other to escape or avoid an electric shock. One group was given a task with no prior exposure to such experiment. The second group already learned to make a different response in different settings to escape from shock. The third group had been given a series of shocks that can not be escaped by any response in different settings. This third group had failed to learn at all, they didn't even try to escape, they became passive and took shock until researchers ended it. They were basically helpless when it came to controlling their fate - learned helplessness. From this study, we learned that learned helplessness affect our future motivation to try. In a situation where we have no choice, helplessness would appear. There are three types of benefits of choice: instrumental- enables people to get what they want, expressive - enables people to say who they are, and psychological - enables people to be actively and effectively engaged in the world.
How well did social nudge work in Texas? How well did a social nudge work in Minnesota? And in Montana?
Social nudge work very well in Texas because in Texas, they are huge fan of footballs and the slogan, "Don't mess with Texas!" was popular there. The littering on its highways was reduced from 29 % and then within 6 years later, it reduced by 72%, and all by creative nudge. It work very less in Minnesota and even less in Montana because there are less football fans there and it is colder there. In Montana, it is more useful if use an animals or nature approach.
Explain stimulus-response compatibility. Provide an example of this concept from the book. From your own if possible. What is a post-completion error? How could you avoid it? What is a well-designed system that provide feedback? Give examples of a well-designed system.
Stimulus-response compatibility is the signal you receive to be consistent with a desired action. For example, if a door has a big handle, people expect to pull it. If you must push it instead, this creates confusing. Or stove with 4 burners, you want the design of burner and the knob to be clearly automatic intuit for user to use quickly and easily. Post-completion error is when you have finished your main task, you tend to forget things relating to previous steps. For example, leaving the gas cap behind or leaving you ATM card in the machine. Eventually the gas cap had an additional cable attached so it won't be forgotten, and ATM card now return when you first input the card. How to avoid the post-completion erro is to do a force function like before changing ATM card function when they quickly return the card as soon, they used to force users to get their card before they could get their cash. Or birth control pills, it required person to take pills for 3 weeks and then skipped 4th week, so company designed pill pack for a full month but the last 22nd to 28th pills are placebos which is great way to avoid post-completion error. A well-designed system is a warning that things are going bad or about to go bad. A good example of that is when your laptop have pop up message that let you know that your battery is at a low level and suggest you need to charge your laptop now.
What is TD-Gammon? How is it different from Deep Blue?
TD-Gammon chess was a computer that learned based off it's previous experience while Deep Blue backgammon focused on what move had the highest likelihood of a good outcome.
Embrace satisficing. how? why? why is subjective experience important?
The 4 steps to manage the problem of excessive choices is 1. Review some decisions, 2. Itemize the step, time, research, and anxiety that went into those decisions, 3. Remind yourself how it felt to do that work, and 4. Ask yourself how much your final decision benefited from that work. Satisficing is about improving your subjective experience of making decision. You will be happier when you're not maximizing. Learning to accept "good enough" will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction. It is much better for people to be a satisfier and have subjective experience because they will be less depressed, anxious, and more content with what they get and not have any regrets.
"When choice is demotivating" study. What are the implications of the result?
When exposed to jams, people who were shown more options (24 jams) bought less (3% less ) compared to 6 jams sample. In chocolate study, students from college were invited to experiment which contain chocolate would they choose based on description and appear. Then they tasted and rated that chocolate. After that students were offered a small box of chocolate instead of cash as payment if they choose. In a group of small amounts (6) chocolates were more likely to choose chocolate than cash. The implication of both studies show that the large array of options might discourage people from buying or choosing those options.
