Unit 9: Cognition

Essential Task 9-3:  Identify decision making techniques (compensatory models, representativeness heuristics, and availability heuristics) as well as factors that influence decision making (overconfidence,�confirmation bias, belief bias, belief perseverance, and hindsight bias) 

AP Psychology

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Unit 6:

Cognition

Problem Solving Techniques

Decision Making Techniques

Acquisition and use of Language

Heuristics

Algorithms

Compensatory Models

Biological Factors

Cognitive Factors

Representativeness Heuristic

Availability Heuristic

Cultural Factors

Memory

Obstacles to Decision Making

Obstacles to Problem Solving

Information Processing Model

Storage

Encoding

Retrieval

Essential Task 6-3:

• Problems vs. Decisions
• Identify decision making techniques
• representativeness heuristics
• availability heuristics
• compensatory models
• Factors that influence decision making
• Overconfidence
• confirmation bias
• belief bias
• belief perseverance
• hindsight bias

Outline

Problems and Decisions

• Problem solving – the task is to come up with new solutions
• Decision making – a type of problem solving in which we already know the possible options.

Heuristics in Decision Making

• Short-cuts learned from experience, that people use to make decisions typically when facing complex problems or incomplete information
• Assumptions
• Two Types
• Availability heuristic
• Representativeness Heuristic.

Representativeness Heuristic

You make a decision based upon how much something represents, or matches up, with characteristics from your schema, or the typical case.

Good

School

Bad School

School

It matches my

‘party school’

schema so I decide

it is bad school.

Representativeness Heuristic in action.

Decide where they are from.

Representativeness Heuristic in action.

• Susan is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful, but with little interest in people, or in the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, she has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail.
• Is Susan a Librarian, a Teacher, or a Lawyer?

Representativeness Heuristic in action.

• Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
• Is Linda a Bank Teller? Or Is Linda a feminist Bank Teller?

Truth or Lie

• Something that happened to me during grade school.

I got into a fight in the bathroom and my first grade teacher didn’t break it up.

• My favorite meal – Sushi at the California Grill
• My earliest memory – 4^th birthday party
• My favorite vacation trip - Disney
• A high point of my high school days – Band
• The most influential person in my life - Dad
• My favorite teacher – Mr. Day my ELA
• The part of the country in which I’d most like to live – Pacific Northwest
• A surprising talent that I have - Cook
• Something interesting about a member of my family – My sister is a concert Pianist.

Availability Heuristic

Operates when we make decisions on how available information is. The faster people can remember an instance of some event the more they expect it to occur.

Availability Heuristic in Action

• Which household chores do you do more frequently than your partner? (e.g. washing dishes, taking out the trash, etc.)
• - wives report 16/20 chores
• - husbands report 16/20 chores

Ross and Sicoly (1979)

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• Why? Availability!
• - I remember lots of instances of taking out the trash, washing dishes, but I do not remember lots of instance of my wife doing it

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Availability Heuristic

Why does our availability heuristic lead us astray? Whatever increases the ease of retrieving information increases its perceived availability.

How is retrieval facilitated?

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• How recently we have heard about the event.
• How distinct it is.

Which causes more deaths per 100,000?

• All accidents or strokes
• Blood poisoning or suicide
• Homicide or diabetes
• Motor vehicle accidents or colorectal cancer
• leukemia or Drowning

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Exaggerated Fear

The opposite of having overconfidence is having an exaggerated fear about what may happen. Such fears may be unfounded.

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The 9/11 attacks led to a 20% decline in air travel due to fear. 800 more people would die if they drove just half those miles

Which causes more deaths per 100,000?

• All accidents (35.7) vs. strokes (57.4)
• Suicide (10.4) vs. blood poisoning (11.3)
• Homicide (7.1) vs. diabetes (25.1)
• Motor vehicle accidents (15.7) vs. colorectal cancer (18.9)
• Drowning (1.1) vs. leukemia (7.8)

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Which city has the higher crime index?

• Detroit or Myrtle Beach
• Chicago or Baltimore
• Manhattan or Gary, India
• Boston or Flint
• Montreal or Hot Springs
• San Francisco or Durham

Answers

• Detroit (crime index = 531) vs. Myrtle Beach (597)
• Chicago (335) vs. Baltimore (479)
• Manhattan (152) vs. Gary (544)
• Boston (223) vs. Flint (329)
• Montreal (181) vs. Hot Springs (201)
• San Francisco (176) vs. Durham (216)

Overconfidence

Overconfidence is a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

At a stock market, both the seller and the buyer may be confident about their decisions on a stock.

Confirmation Bias

• While we make a decision, we actively look for information that confirms our ideas

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Belief Bias

The tendency of one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning by making invalid conclusions.

God is love.

Love is blind

Ray Charles is blind.

Ray Charles is God.

Anonymous graffiti

Democrats support free speech

Dictators are not democrats

Dictators do not support free speech.

We more easily see the illogic of conclusions that run counter to our beliefs than those that agree with our beliefs.

Belief Perseverance

Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.

Bias after the process

Hindsight Bias

• a tendency to think that one would have known actual events were coming before they happened, had one been present then or had reason to pay attention.
• a.k.a Monday morning quarterback.
• ‘I-knew-it-all-along’ effect, reflecting a common response to surprise.

Decision Making and Judgements

• Decision making/judgments are special cases of problem solving in which possible solutions or choices are already known
• Logical decision making
• Compensatory model
• Rational decision-making model in which choices are systematically evaluated on various criteria
• Example: buying a car
• Good when issues are well-defined