after an airplane accident, we figure out what went wrong...

LP 7B heuristics and DM 1 01/21/19

After an airplane accident, we figure out what went wrong to avoid the same errors. We need to learn from our mistakes. However, we don’t do that with human thinking.


Decision Making

Decision Making: Attempting to select the best alternative from among several options

Psychological Science, Fifth Edition

Copyright © 2015 W. W. Norton & Company

Problem Solving: Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal.


Decision Making Strategies Under Uncertainty: Heuristics

• Availability heuristic

• Representative heuristic


What is a heuristic?

A heuristic is a quick rule of thumb we use when making a judgment or decision that usually bring a correct answer. It is a mental shortcut that uses very little time and resources instead of weighing all the evidence before deciding.

Familiar Heuristics

• Tarnish heuristic: You judge the age of a coin based on the presence (or lack of) tarnish on it. Generally speaking, the presence of tarnish means it is “old”.

• Price heuristic: You judge the quality of a product based on its price. A more expensive product believed to be of a higher quality than the less expensive product.

• Most people believe that the expensive brand of bleach is “better” than the generic brand due to price. The major reason for the price difference is advertising.

• Confidence heuristic: You judge the truthfulness of a person is based on how confident they sound.

• People who claim they are abducted by aliens, have been reincarnated, who are certain of their flashbulb memories are believed, not because of any corroborating evidence, but by how confident they believe the experience has occurred.


• Feeling heuristic: We will make a decision on a person, product, or policy based on how we feel about it.

• Familiarity heuristic: We judge the truthfulness and accuracy of a statement based on how familiar it sounds.


Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic is the heuristic where people judge the likelihood or frequency of an event based on its vividness or ease to recall specific examples. Can we think of examples?

If NO, then If YES, then we judge the event as unlikely

We judge the event as likely

Examples (1) Estimate how many words have a k in 3rd position (cake) and how

many words begin with a k (kitten)?

(2) Estimate how many English words fit the pattern:

(a) _ _ _ _ n _ (b) _ _ _ i n g

(3) Are there more deaths due to homicide or due to diabetes-related deaths in America?


Normally, we would count the frequency of events to get an accurate count. However, instead of counting, we take a “short cut” and think of the number of examples to estimate the frequency of these events.


Availability Heuristic


Availability Heuristic Can we think of examples of the phenomena in question (are examples psychologically available)?



k in 3rd position (cake) begin with a k (kitten)

_ _ _ _ n _ _ _ _ i n g

diabetes-related deaths deaths due to homicide


Other “Real-Life” Examples of the Availability Bias (Availability Heuristic)

• We overestimate the likelihood of winning the lottery because we hear about the winners all the time and underestimate the likelihood of losing because we don’t hear about the losers.

• Those who are unemployed tend to overestimate the unemployment rate because they associate with the unemployed more often and examples are more psychologically available

• Those who are employed tend to underestimate the unemployment rate because they associate with those who have a job. It is easier to think of examples of people who have jobs.

• If we constantly tell ourselves negative self-statements, we tend to recall negative thing about ourselves. If we constantly tell ourselves positive self-statements, we tend to recall positive things about ourselves.

• We also think of creative geniuses as a sudden light bulb of inspiration that leads to success because we hear about the successes. What we don’t hear about all the failures.


• The odds of making a living as an author are low. We overestimate the odds by easily thinking of authors who are famous.

• U.S. House of Representative Stephen _ _ _ _ claimed that


Why is learning About the Availability Heuristic Important?

Experience matters. I have heard in the business world, they try to avoid high paid experienced employees and replace them with younger, less paid employees (short version for facebook). Why don't you see 30 year old admirals or generals (rhetorical question)? Students overestimate how easy learning and success is because they only see the finished product and not the hard work involved. Do we see all of Micheal Jordan's failures? Do we see all of Thomas Edison's failures? No, we don't and underestimate how much hard work it takes to be good because we don't see or hear about the failures, and only see the success. How would we think about the odds of winning the lottery if we heard about all the millions of people who lost the lottery?

In my view of the world, management underestimates how much hard work and how much experience matters with their employees. They only see the finished product and not the hard work and pitfalls avoided by good experienced employees, which in their mind justifies the belief that the job is easy and can be replaced by a less pain employee, or the idea that "anyone can do it". Likewise, management only sees their contributions to their organization, and not of their employees and conflate their relative importance.


Read the two possible scenarios for a nuclear war

Scenario 1: An all-out nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Scenario 2: A situation in which neither the United States or the former Soviet Union intends to attack the other side with nuclear weapons, but an all-out nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union is triggered by the actions of a third country such as Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or North Korea.

(1) Which scenario is more likely to occur? (a) Scenario 1 (b) Scenario 2

Bruce is a homosexual. When he told his parents that he was gay, they were not surprised and very supportive of him and wished him well. He realizes that in American society being a homosexual has a negative stigma attached to it.

(2) Is it more likely that Bruce lives in? (a) California (b) San Francisco

(3) You are going to a store to buy some fruit. What are you more likely to find? (a) a red apple. (b) a green apple. (c) an apple.


Representative Heuristic Does the event match our mental representation?



An all-out nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

A situation in which neither the United States or the former Soviet Union intends to attack the other side with nuclear weapons, but an all-out nuclear war between the United States and the former Soviet Union is triggered by the actions of a third country such as Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or North Korea.

California San Francisco

Apple Red Apple


Representative heuristic A thinking strategy where we make a judgment of likelihood based on how well it matches our mental representation, prototype or stereotype.

• If the person, event or object is similar to our mental representation, image, stereotype, or prototype, then we are likely to believe that event.

• If the person, event or object is dissimilar to our mental representation, image, stereotype, or prototype, then we are not likely believe that event.




Other examples of judgments using representativeness:

• Susan Smith drowned her kids and claimed a black man stole the car. People believed her story because it fit their mental representation of a carjacking.

• People didn’t believe bacteria could cause infection or diseases because something that large and devastating had to come from something big, not something small.

• We are more likely to believe that Nazi Germany advocated the use of eugenics because it fits our mental representation of Nazi Germany. However, we are not likely to believe eugenics was advocated by the United States during the same time period because it does not fit our mental representation of the United States.

• In 2018, Racist Twitter Trolls claimed that white movie goers were attacked while attending the premier of the movie Black Panther.

• We are likely to believe that the average individual is likely to be less happy when their children leave home (the empty nest syndrome).

• We are not likely to believe that a Cuyahoga river caught on fire because it doesn’t match our world view.


• When describing an encounter with space aliens, you are more likely to be believed if you describe them in a way that fits the current cultural depiction of space aliens (eg. Green Martians, “gray aliens”, Aliens from the movie Aliens)

• Susceptibility to hypnosis is unrelated to submissiveness, trust or psychopathology, but we have a hard time believing it because it doesn’t fit our world view or mental representation or commonsense notion of hypnosis

• We are not likely to believe that there are ports or Naval bases in Idaho because it doesn’t match our mental representation of ports or Idaho


Representative Heuristic

Few people believed that she was actually a software engineer because she didn’t fit their mental representation of a software engineer (they thought she was an actor).


Representative Heuristic If someone told us they had an encounter with space aliens, we would look for corroborating evidence—pictures, physical evidence, a consistent timeline of events, scientific accuracy.


However, most people don’t know how to ask these questions or find this type of evidence. Since most people don’t have these investigative or scientific knowledge, people rely on the representative heuristic. If you describe the encounter in a prototypical way such as describing aliens as the prototypical “grey alien” increases the likelihood that people will believe you because it matches most peoples’ mental representation of what an alien would look like.


Representative Heuristic There is a stereotype that male homosexuals are effeminate and female homosexuals are masculine. The research indicates that these stereotypes are not true. One problem is that people commit the confirmation bias and look for evidence that confirms their belief. In addition, these stereotypes fit the mental representation of homosexuals and are likely to believe it. There is a stereotype of a rapist—he is an unattractive stranger. So when it is someone we know who is an “upstanding” citizen who is cute, it is hard to believe.


Representative and Availability Heuristic

Representative

Availability

A thinking strategy where we make a judgment of likelihood based on how well it matches our mental representation, prototype or stereotype.

The availability heuristic is the heuristic where people judge the likelihood or frequency of an event based on its vividness or ease to recall specific examples.

• Description of alien abductions by Grey aliens vs one eyed one horned purple people eaters

• Susan Smith claiming her sons were abducted

• Picking the “Middle Eastern” looking person to be likely of committing an act of terror

• Judging that you are more likely to be killed by sharks (especially in the summer) than alcohol related illnesses or accidents

• Ignoring the problems (judging the likelihood of a problem to occur as low) of American infrastructure (water lines, roads, bridges) because we don’t see the problems


When will we use heuristics to make decisions?

Heuristics are short cuts in the decision making process. When will we use heuristics such as the availability, representativeness, confidence or price rather than systematic decision making processes? We will use them when

(1) we don't have the time to think carefully about the issue, (2) we are overloaded with information that it becomes impossible to

process it fully, (3) we believe that the issues at stake are not very important, (4) we have little knowledge or information to base a decision, and


Why should we care about the availability heuristic? Our perception of risk is influenced by the ease at which examples come to mind, which is influenced by how the media covers causes of death. Because we overestimate and underestimate certain risks, we affect public policy by giving priorities to scientific and social issues that we are exposed to, rather than the ones we don’t hear about and are not exciting and “news worthy”. Risks due to the following are overestimated because we can think of examples that come to mind:

� terrorist attacks, � airplane crashes, and � nuclear accidents

Risks due to the following are underestimated because is it more difficult to think of examples that come to mind

• Accidents due to automobiles are not as vivid and memorable as homicides.

• Risks due to heart disease, smoking or alcohol related risks tend to be underestimated because they are not as vivid or as easy to recall (this can depend on individual experiences and age).


In addition,

• When making a decision about who to elect for government office, in which we know nothing about the candidates, we will favor the person who’s name we can easily recall.

• When thinking about what problems we face as a nation, state or county, we will think of the problems that easily come to mind.


Why should you care about the availability heuristic?

• We have known that bridges in America need repair and upgrades (29% nationally, 21% in Oregon). It is likely that this problem will only get fixed when a bridge collapses and/or people get killed (availability and vividness effect).

• We know that buildings in Oregon need upgrades to reduce the effects of earthquake damage. However, very little money is allocated for these upgrades. Only when serious damage occurs, and possibly lives are lost, will upgrades be made (availability and vividness effect).

• What problems have always been present in New Orleans that have received little attention before Hurricane Katrina and now is receiving more attention because examples are more vivid and psychologically available?

• When thinking of private contractors in Iraq, we tend to think of Blackwater International or KBR because they have been in the news and are psychologically available.

• If we don’t understand financial products like credit default swaps, we will rely on the confidence heuristics.

What other problems will not be addressed due to the reverse of the availability heuristic (we can’t think of examples of the problem)


It is likely that we will underestimate the risks due to the following because the consequences are not vivid, the consequences are temporally distant from their causes, and they do not get attention from the national news media, politicians or are discussed publicly.

• global warming,

• trash disposal (where do we put our trash?),

• availability of fresh, clean water and air,

• toxic waste and chemical pollution,

• state of our educational system

• state of our health care system

• germ, biological, or chemical warfare,

• skin cancer,

• unaccounted nuclear weapons in the former U.S.S.R.,

• antibiotic resistant bacteria,

• landslides, and

• smoking,

• problems with private contractors in Iraq (such as with Blackwater, USA)

• mad cow disease (BSE)

• overfishing of the oceans—depletion of fish stocks

• Gerrymandering

• Social media bots


• (insert your problem here)…

It is difficult and more expensive to turn these issues into a visual that entertains (unless of course, you can tie it in with a new movie coming out). In addition, many media outlets have ties to industry that contribute to these problems. Preventative measures are difficult to see when the outcome is not mentally available. Only when we talk about these issues, and demand our leaders to talk about the issues, will our leaders address these thorny problems. This is why controlling the media is important. You can focus attention on certain problems or avoid attention by not covering certain problems.

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