CHS AP Psychology Unit 7 Part II: Cognition Essential Task 7.3: 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)

Essential Task 7.3: 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

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 Susan is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful, but with little interest in people, or in the world of reality.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?

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. This leads people to fear things that rarely happen as opposed to things that happen frequently because they remember the horrible, rare event more.

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? 1.How recently we have heard about the event. 2.How distinct it is.

Which causes more deaths per 100,000? 1.All accidents or strokes 2.Blood poisoning or suicide 3.Homicide or diabetes 4.Motor vehicle accidents or colorectal cancer 5.Leukemia or drowning

Which causes more deaths per 100,000? 1.All accidents (35.7) vs. strokes (57.4) 2.Suicide (10.4) vs. blood poisoning (11.3) 3.Homicide (7.1) vs. diabetes (25.1) 4.Motor vehicle accidents (15.7) vs. colorectal cancer (18.9) 5.Drowning (1.1) vs. leukemia (7.8)

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

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 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.