reasoning and decision making Flashcards
What is the main difficulty in defining “thinking” and “reasoning”?
It is surprisingly hard to pin down exactly what is meant by these terms, even though we feel conscious of our thoughts.
How did E.M. Forster describe the relationship between thinking and speaking?
“How can I know what I think till I see what I say.”
What are the key components of decision making and reasoning?
Judgement, decision making, problem solving, and reasoning.
What does “judgement” refer to in decision making?
The component that concerns calculating the likelihood of certain events.
What is decision making?
Selecting one out of a number of potential options.
What is problem solving?
The cognitive processes that take us from recognizing that there is a problem to developing a solution.
What is reasoning in problem solving?
Determining what conclusions can be drawn from a set of premises assumed to be true.
Do we use the same cognitive system for judgement, decision making, problem solving, and reasoning?
Yes, we use the same cognitive system for all these processes, despite key differences.
What part of the brain is particularly involved in decision making and reasoning?
the frontal cortex
Why are we bad at estimating the likelihood of things?
Due to cognitive limitations, such as difficulty understanding percentages, fractions, and probabilities.
What percentage of people give the wrong answer to the disease test probability question?
Most people give the wrong answer due to misunderstanding probabilities, with the correct answer being 2%.
What improves our ability to estimate probabilities?
Reframing problems in terms of frequencies rather than probabilities.
What are heuristics?
Cognitive shortcuts or rules of thumb used to make judgments, often due to cognitive or time limitations.
What are the main types of heuristics?
Availability, representativeness, and anchoring and adjustment.
What is the availability heuristic?
Estimating frequency or probability based on how easily examples come to mind.
What does the availability heuristic explain?
It explains why we might overestimate certain events, like thinking we do more washing up than others or overestimating the frequency of some dangers.
What is the representativeness heuristic?
Assigning a high probability to events that seem typical of a certain category.
What is a classic example of the representativeness heuristic?
The “Tom W.” experiment, where participants incorrectly assume Tom is more likely to have graduated in humanities based on his personality description, despite the base rate of computer science graduates being higher.
What is the anchoring and adjustment heuristic?
Making decisions based on an initial estimate (anchor) and then adjusting from there.
What example demonstrates anchoring and adjustment?
The study where participants were asked to estimate the percentage of African countries in the UN after being given an anchor number from a spinning wheel.
What is utility theory in decision making?
The idea that people should choose the option with the greatest utility (value to them).
What is prospect theory?
The theory that explains how people are “loss averse” and tend to weigh potential losses more heavily than potential gains.
How does the framing effect relate to prospect theory?
The framing effect occurs when people make different decisions based on how a problem is presented, emphasizing potential losses or gains.
What is the somatic marker hypothesis?
The idea that unconscious “gut feelings” based on past experiences influence decision making by associating actions with emotional states.
