Behavioural W8

Question 1

Give a definition of heuristics

Answer 1

Mental shortcuts that individuals use to make judgements and decisions and efficiently.

Question 2

Give a definition of cognitive bias

Answer 2

Systematic errors in decision making caused by errors in the way we reason about the problem at hand.

Question 3

What is representativeness heuristic and the key features

Answer 3

A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that individuals use when making judgments about the likelihood or category membership of objects, events, or people.
1. Insensitivity to prior probability of outcomes - people neglect the base rate as soon as specific information becomes available.
2. Insensitivity to sample size.
3. Misconceptions of chance.
4. Stereotyping.

Question 4

What is the availability heuristic and the key features

Answer 4

People judge the likelihood event by the ease with which examples can be brought to mind.
1. Retrievability of instances.
2. Effectiveness of the search set.
3. Imaginability.

Question 5

What is the anchoring and adjustment heuristic and key features

Answer 5

Estimates are often made by starting from an initial value and then
adjusting it to give a final answer.
1. Insufficient Adjustment.
2. Experiments and valuation studies.

Question 6

What are system 1 and system 2 and how do they differ

Answer 6

System 1: Fast, high capacity, Intuitive and low effort.
System 2: Slow, low capacity, Deliberative and high effort.
1. Consciousness.
2. Age of evolution - system 1 evolved earlier.
3. Functional characteristics - system 1 = multitask, system 2 = one thing at a time.

Question 7

Describe the concept of ecological validity and its role in Gigerenzer’s account of decision making

Answer 7

The study of ecological rationality results in comparative statements of the kind “strategy X is more accurate (frugal, fast) than Y in environment E”.

Question 8

Outline the recognition and fluency heuristics and give an example of when they can be useful.

Answer 8

Recognition heuristic - if one alternative is recognised
and another is not, it is judged more highly on the criterion at hand.
Fluency heuristic - if one alternative is recognised faster than another, it is judged more highly on the criterion at hand.

Question 9

What is the tallying heuristic

Answer 9

Suggests that people simply count the number of cues on each option “wins”, ignoring the relative intelligence.
The 1/N rule is a simple heuristic or the allocation of resources to N alternatives.