1. Implicit Decision making
Dr Magda Osman
Room 2.25
Office hours Mondays

2. Are our choices the product of unconscious processes that we are unaware of, and have no control over?
Yes No
Unsure

3. Learning objectives
Understand the underlying differences between analytical and intuitive decision-making/differences between risk/uncertainty
Have a good knowledge of the tasks used to examine dissociation between explicit and implicit forms of judgment and decision-making (e.g., framing tasks, base-rate neglect)
Understand what the different theoretical approaches to explaining judgment/decision-making behaviour

4. High order processes Reasoning:
A process by which we transform/combine information in order to draw a conclusions/formulate laws/make general statements about the world
Decision making:
A process by which we select an action from a number of choice-alternatives in order to generate a particular outcome.
Judgement:
A process by which we make an assessment/evaluation/prediction regarding an outcome

5. Conditions under which we make decisions: Risk
Under Risk
people are engaged in planning actions against knowledge of the probabilities of the outcomes following their actions. (Osman, 2011; Trepel et al, 2005)
E.g. betting on the roll of a dice, or placing money on a roulette wheel.

6. Conditions under which we make decisions: Uncertainty
Under Uncertainty
People plan their actions from limited/unavailable knowledge of the possible outcomes, and in which the probabilities of the outcomes following actions is not known, or cannot be known (Osman, 2011; Trepel et al, 2005)
E.g., deciding on what to do after one’s degree, which house to rent/buy, how much to save for the future

7. Rational Decision-making is based on:
The problem itself is unambiguous
There is a single well-defined goal
All alternatives and consequences are known
Our preferences can be clearly stated
Our preferences are constant and stable
There are no time/cost constraints
We will make choices that will maximize our payoff

8. Intuitive decision-making is thought to:
Relies on non-conscious, non-rational, or non-linear thought processes
Based on experience
Integrates isolated information into an coherent whole
Relies on biases (self-serving preferences) and heuristics (short-cuts)

9. What these distinctions imply
Processing distinctions:
Dissociation between Explicit (analytical/rational) and implicit (intuitive) forms of decision making:
i.e. an analytic form/normative form of decision making - Conscious
i.e. an heuristic/intuitive form of decision making Non-conscious

10. Varieties of Decision-Making Tasks
Conjunction Fallacy
Non-deliberate thinking task
Base-rates

11. Conjunction fallacy LINDA Tversky & Kahneman (1983)
Example: Linda is 31, single, outspoken, & bright. She studied philosophy at university, and was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and participated in anti-war demonstrations
Judge the likelihood of each of the following statements:
Linda is a teacher in a primary school
Linda works in a bookstore and takes Yoga classes
Linda is active in the feminist movement
Linda is a member of the league of women voter
Linda is a cashier in a bank
Linda is a cashier in a bank and is active in the feminist movement
conjunction

12. Conjunction fallacy LINDA
People violate the extension law of probability: A conjunction cannot be more probable than its constituents
People assume that Linda is likely to be a feminist bank cashier, than a cashier.
But, Statement Cashier & Feminist could not possibly be more probable than the Statement Cashier because it presupposes that she is a Cashier.
People typically show the representativeness bias
Cashier
Cashier
Feminist

13. What type of task is this:
Reasoning task
Decision-making task
Judgment task

14. General findings
Understanding probability theory doesn’t help improve performance (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983)
Individual differences show that people scoring higher on SATs don’t commit the error, whereas those scoring lower tend to make the error (Stanovich & West, 1998)
When solving the task– the ACC (Anterior Cingulate Cortex) is activated – which suggests that there is a conflict intuition and rational judgments (DeNeys, Vartanian, & Goel, 2008)

15. But…
LINDA
…there are problems with the way the instructions are presented
By changing the statement from “Linda is a bank cashier” to “Linda is a bank cashier whether or not she is active in the feminist movement” – reduces the rate of the fallacy from 85% to 57%
Also, it might be that people are behaving perfectly rationally, because it shows that people are using social cues to make pragmatic inferences

16. Deliberation without attention task
Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, & van Baaren (2006). Science, 311,
Eighty undergraduate students of the University of Amsterdam were randomly
assigned to one of the following 4 conditions:
Mode of thought – Conscious , Choice alternative - simple 4
Mode of thought – Conscious , Choice alternative – Complex 12
Mode of thought – Unconscious , Choice alternative - simple 4
Mode of thought – Unconscious , Choice alternative – Complex 12

17. Design of Experiment 1 Phase 1 – Phase 2 – Read descriptions of cars
(the descriptions include positive and negative attributes)
Car A – 75% positive, Car B 50% positive, Car C 50% positive, Car D 25% positive
Phase 2 –
Conscious condition – think carefully about what they read for 4mins then make a choice of which car to buy.
Unconscious condition – solve anagrams for 4mins then make a choice of which car to buy.
Exp 2 was a replication of Exp 1 but with a different DV (instead of choice of best car, it was rating of car in terms of the most liked)

18. Key manipulations & predictions
Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren, & van Baaren (2006). Science, 311,
1. IV 1– amount of information to consider – (4 vs. 12 items per car)
2. IV 2– thinking time (4mins, 0 mins)
Prediction 1. Should make an accurate selection for simple rather than complex condition
Prediction 2. Should make an accurate selection when not thinking about the information (specifically for complex condition)

19. Key Findings
Fig. 1. Percentage of participants who chose the most desirable car as a function of complexity of decision and of mode of thought (n. of participants 18 to 22 in each of the four conditions). Error bars represent the standard error.
Fig. 2. Difference in attitude (on a scale of –25 to +25) toward the desirable and undesirable car as a function of complexity of decision and of mode of thought (n. of participants 12 to 14 in each of the four conditions). Error bars represent the standard error.

20. Key conclusions
Conscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among simple but not complex choices.
Why, Conscious thinking has low capacity, and conscious thought can lead to suboptimal weighting of the importance of attributes – liable to biases
Unconscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among complex products
Unconscious thought can conform to rules in that it detects recurring patterns

21. Failures to replicate Dijksterhuis’s study
Aczel, B., Lukacs, B., Komlos, J., & Aitken, M. (2011). Unconscious intuition or conscious analysis? Critical questions for the deliberation-without-attention paradigm. Judgment and Decision Making, 6, 351–358
Acker, F. (2008). New findings on unconscious versus conscious thought in decision making: Additional empirical data and meta-analysis. Judgment and Decision Making, 3, 292–303.
Newell, B.R., Wong, K.Y., Cheung, C.H.J., & Rakow, T. (2009). Think, blink or sleep on it? The impact of modes of thought on complex decision making. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62,
Payne, J. W., Samper, A., Bettman, J. R., & Luce, M. F. (2008). Boundary conditions on unconscious thought in complex decision making. Psychological Science, 19,
Rey, A., Goldstein, R. M., & Perruchet, P. (2009). Does unconscious thought improve complex decision making? Psychological Research, 73, 372–379.
Thorsteinson, T., & Withrow, S. (2009). Does unconscious thought outperform conscious thought on complex decisions? A further examination. Judgment and Decision Making, 4, 235–247.
Gonzalez-Vallejo, C., Lassiter, G. D., Bellezza, F. S., & Lindberg, M. J. (2008). “Save angels perhaps”: a critical examination of unconscious thought theory and the deliberation-without-attention effect. Review of General Psychology, 12, 282–96
Calvillo, P., &Penaloza, A. (2009). Are complex decisions better left to the unconscious? Further failed replications of the deliberation-without-attention effect, Judgment and Decision Making, 4,
Waroquier, L., Marchiori. D., Klein, O., & Cleeremans, A. (2010). Is it better to think unconsciously or to trust your first impression? A reassessment of unconscious thought theory. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 111–118.
Waroquier, L., Marchiori. D., Klein, O., & Cleeremans, A. (2009). Methodological pitfalls of the Unconscious Thought paradigm. Judgment and Decision Making, 4,
Mamede, S., Schmidt, H., Rikers, R., Custers, E., Splinter, T., & van Saase, J. (2010).Conscious thought beats deliberation without attention in diagnostic decision-making: at least when you are an expert. Psychological Research, 74, 586–592
Gonzalez-Vallejo, C., & Phillips, N. (2010). Predicting soccer matches: A reassessment of the benefit of unconscious thinking. Judgment and Decision Making, 5,

22. Base-rate task Kahneman & Tversky (1973)
Choose from the following options:
less than 10%, 10-30%, 30-50%, 50-70%, 70-90%, over 90%
A cab was involved in a hit and run accident at night. Two cab companies, the GREEN and the BLUE, operate in that in which the accident occurred. 85% of the cabs in the city are GREEN, 15% are BLUE. A witness identified a BLUE cab. The reliability of the witness was tested and shown to be 80% reliable.
What is the probability that the cab involved in the accident was Blue?

23. What type of task is this:
Reasoning task
Decision-making task
Judgment task

24. Base-rate task Kahneman & Tversky (1973)
Most respond 80% - The task demonstrates that people neglect base-rate information (i.e. the actual number of blue cabs in the city)
It demonstrates peoples’ reliance on erroneous intuitions (the representativeness” heuristic)

25. Baserate-updated
A psychologist wrote thumbnail descriptions of a sample of 1000 participants consisting of 995 females and 5 males. The description below was chosen at random from the 1000 available descriptions.
Jo is 23 years old and is finishing a degree in engineering. On Friday nights, Jo likes to go out cruising with friends while listening to loud music and drinking beer.
Which one of the following two statements is most likely?
a. Jo is a man
b. Jo is a woman
(DeNeys et al, 2010)

26. Summary of general findings
People typically make errors in decision making tasks
They usually find it difficult to show insight into the reasons behind their answers
Even when they gain insight, they tend to default back to their erroneous thinking
People show highly biased contextualised experiential thinking
People show difficulty adopting or implementing normative standards (logic, probability theory) to solve problems correctly

27. Theories of decision making
Dual Process theory

28. Dual process theories Unconscious Thought Theory Dual process Theory
Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren & van Baaren (2006)
Dual process Theory
Kahneman & Frederick (2002) Evans (2008) Stanovich & West (1998); Evans and Stanovich (2013)
Conscious thinking is best suited to making decisions between choices that do easily be discriminated between based on few attributes.
Unconscious thinking is best suited to making decisions between complex choices, in which there is a lot of information to consider. Reliant on heuristics, revealing biases (availability heuristic; Representativeness heuristic) in our processing.

29. Problems with dissociation accounts
Strong Critics of the Dual-Process Framework:
Keren & Schul, 2009; Lin, Ashcroft, & Osman, 2017; Newell & Shanks, 2014; Osman, 2004, 2008, 2013, 2014, 2016.
It is difficult to demonstrate double dissociations.
Using continuous data to find discrete differences.
Conflicts between intuitive and analytic reasoning are hard to account for in a 2-process model.
The evidence based that support dual-process theories of judgement/decision-making/reasoning is very weak and unreliable

30. How convinced are you that our choices are influenced by unconscious processes?
Entirely convinced
Somewhat convinced
Unsure
Somewhat unconvinced
Entirely unconvinced