Reasoning and Decision Making

Question 1

Decision making

Answer 1

Making choices between alternatives

Question 2

Reasoning

Answer 2

Process of drawing conclusions

Question 3

Inductive reasoning

Answer 3

Arriving at conclusions about what is probably true, based on evidence
Uses heuristics

Question 4

Deductive reasoning

Answer 4

Following logic to assess validity of a statement

Definitely correct, no need for experience

Question 5

How strength of inductive reasoning is determined

Answer 5

High representativeness of observations: strong evidence

How much one instance fits with another instance

Question 6

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 6

Judgments based on how much one event resembles another event
Probability that A is a member of class B can be determined by how well the properties of A resemble the properties commonly associated with class B
Example: meet Steve exercise (Steve sounds more like a librarian than a salesman, but Steve isn’t necessarily a librarian)

Question 7

Base rate

Answer 7

Relative proportion of different classes in the population
People ignore this, leading to error in their reasoning
Meet Steve example: people forget that there are more salesmen in the population than librarians (therefore, it is more likely that Steve is a salesman)

Question 8

Conjugation rule

Answer 8

Likelihood of 2 events occurring together cannot be higher than probability of either event occurring alone
Meet Linda example: Linda sounds like a feminist, but it is more likely that she is just a bank teller (more bank tellers in population than feminist bank tellers)

Question 9

Law of large numbers

Answer 9

The larger the number of individuals randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population
A few observations don’t correlate to a large number of observations
Example: kidney cancer (incidence is both highest and lowest in rural, sparsely populated, and traditionally Republican states: population is small, so individuals can greatly affect incidence)

Question 10

Availability heuristic

Answer 10

Those instances that come to mind most readily are judged to be the most common
Example: people think of plane crashes more than car crashes, but there are far more car crashes than plane crashes

Question 11

Illusory correlations

Answer 11

Imaginary relationships

Lead to stereotypes and superstitions

Question 12

Economic utility theory

Answer 12

If people are rational and have all the relevant information, they will make a decision which results in the maximum expected utility
People don’t always use this approach (people choose a 50% chance of winning $500 over a 25% chance of winning $1100)
Can’t use theory when payoff can’t be calculated

Question 13

Framing effects

Answer 13

People can be influenced to make a certain decision based on the way that it is framed
Example: “gun violence” rather than “gun control” or “gun rights” rather than “gun control”
Opting in versus opting out (more effort to opt in or out, so more people pick default option; reason why organ donation is so low in US, which has an opt in policy)

Question 14

Ultimatum game

Answer 14

Proposer (human or computer) and responder
Proposer has money and must split it
Responder must decide on whether to take offer (if not, no one gets anything)
People are more likely to take bad offers ($9 to $1) if computer than if human (feeling of unfairness associated with human)

Question 15

How an increase in choices affects decision making

Answer 15

More choices -> greater feeling of overwhelm -> lessened ability to make decisions

Question 16

Why computers make different decisions than people

Answer 16

Computers don’t have emotions: make rational decisions

People have emotions: don’t always make rational decisions (don’t always maximize benefit)

Question 17

Predicting emotions

Answer 17

Points game: people overestimate effects of winning (keep all 5 points) and effects of losing (lose 3 points, leaving you with 2) on happiness levels
People overestimate the influence of emotions (especially negative ones)

Question 18

Justifying decisions

Answer 18

People use emotions to justify decisions
Trip example: people choose to buy trip package after finding out that they passed or failed test (justification: reward or opportunity to release stress), but delay making decision when it isn’t clear whether they passed or failed test

Question 19

Confirmation bias

Answer 19

Tendency to look for information that conforms to our hypotheses and to overlook information that argues against it

Question 20

Relationship between validity and truth

Answer 20

Validity doesn’t always equal truth

Question 21

Conditional syllogism

Answer 21

Form of deductive reasoning that contains two premises and a conclusion and the first premise has the form “If… then…”
First “if” term: antecedent
Second “then” term: consequent
Example: “If you hit a glass with a feather (antecedent), it will break (consequent).”

Question 22

Affirming the antecedent

Answer 22

If p, then q. P. Therefore, q.
Example: “Lisa hit the glass with a feather. Therefore, the glass broke.”
Valid syllogism: follows logical rule

Question 23

Denying the consequent

Answer 23

If p, then q. Not q. Therefore, not p.
Example: “The glass didn’t break. Therefore, it wasn’t hit with a feather.”
Valid syllogism

Question 24

Affirming the consequent

Answer 24

If p, then q. Q. Therefore, p.
Example: “The glass broke. Therefore, it was hit with a feather.”
Invalid syllogism: other things could break glass

Question 25

Denying the antecedent

Answer 25

If p, then q. Not p. Therefore, not q.
Example: “Lisa didn’t hit the glass with a feather. Therefore, the glass didn’t break.”
Invalid syllogism: glass could still break from something else

Question 26

Wason task

Answer 26

4 cards: each has a letter on one side and a number on the other
Task: which cards need to be turned over to test the rule
Rule: if there is a vowel on one side, there is an even number on the other
E, K, 4, 7
Must check E and 7 (affirming antecedent and denying consequent)
4% of people get this task right

Question 27

Falsification principle

Answer 27

To test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that falsify that rule

Question 28

How everyday experiences affect deductive reasoning

Answer 28

We perform better on tasks that match our everyday experience
Amended Wason task: cards say beer, soda, 24 years old, 16 years old
73% of people can get it right (need to turn over beer and 16 years old)