Judgment, Reasoning, Decision Making

● kind of all the same thing in the sense that in the end, you’re making a decision
○ decision making in a cognitive sense = going forward with a choice
It’s really about decision making
● logic: the science of correct reasoning
○ sitting back and thinking about things
○ philosophical, mathematical
● reasoning: the drawing of inferences or conclusions from known or assumed facts
○ one must understand the question, gather all pertinent facts, analyze (compare w/
previous problems)

Reasoning
● deductive reasoning: going from general to specific ideas
○ when performed correctly, guarantees a true conclusion (deductive validity)
○ ex. assuming that someone is pregnant because of a big belly (we have the assumption
that pregnant women have big bellies)
● inductive reasoning: going from specific to general ideas
○ when performed correctly, probable for the conclusion to be true (inductive strength)
○ ex. assuming that a student doesn’t respect time because she’s been late to class thrice
Deductive Reasoning
a) Categorical Syllogisms
● major + minor premises, conclusion; all, none, some
● classic example
○ All men are mortal.
○ Socrates is a man.
○ Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
● the above is an example of a syllogism
○ does the conclusion logically follow based on the premises presented?
○ for any given set of premises, if the conclusion is guaranteed, the arguments is said to be
valid
■ All students eat pizza. Claire is a student at AUP. Therefore, Claire eats pizza.
■ all, none arguments → easier to determine whether conclusion is valid or invalid
○ if the conclusion is not guaranteed, the argument is said to be invalid
○ lawyers, politicians excel at this (valid syllogisms but not necessarily true in the real
world)
● truth is not necessarily a part of it
● about form and not about content
Approaches:
● Venn diagrams
○ All smiling cats talk. The Cheshire cat smiles. Therefore, the Cheshire cat talks.
● Mental models
b) Conditional Syllogisms
● not about truth as well, more about form and validity
● first premise: if p, then q.
 Modus Ponens Modus Tollens Denying the antecedent Affirming the
(valid) (valid) (fallacy) consequent (fallacy)
affirming the denying the denying
affirmation

p→q p→q p→q p→q

p xq xp q

q xp xq p

If I am hungry, I will If I am hungry, I will If I am hungry, I will If I am hungry, I will

eat. eat. eat. eat.
I am hungry. I didn’t eat. I am not hungry. I will eat.
Therefore, I will eat. Therefore, I’m not Therefore, I will not Therefore, I am hungry.
hungry. eat.

How good are we at deductive reasoning?

Wason’s 4 card problem
If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side.
Turn over as many cards as you need to in order to test the rule.

A D 4 7
A = Modus ponens
D = irrelevant
4 = affirming the consequent (fallacy) → even number on one side, therefore vowel on the other side
7 = Modus tollens (not an even number, not a vowel on the other side)

Context Matters
● real knowledge vs. abstract knowledge
● more likely to determine validity correctly if it’s relatable and familiar
○ we have a very strong pull towards what we have experience of (schema)
Hypothesis Testing
● we tend to be confused by our tendency to confirm our own beliefs
● confirmation bias: we prefer being right and look for evidence or examples that would confirm
our beliefs
● most people come up with a hypothesis, then test only sequences that obey the rule → they don’t
test sequences that could disconfirm the rule
● Wason’s number sequence problem

Inductive Reasoning
● an inductive argument is never guaranteed; merely a generalization
● when it comes to individual situations - learning about people, trying to figure out a new
environment, culture, etc.
● heuristics: availability, representativeness
Decision making
● satisficing: not much thought placed into our day-to-day decisions
● bigger decisions: more thought, however eventually one just ‘pops out’ or stands out over others

Decision Making Under Risk

● utility theory
○ assess the expected value of different outcomes
■ EU = Prob. of outcome x Subjective value attached to outcome
○ maximize utility by choosing the option with the highest expected utility
● however, people treat decisions as gambles
○ in fact, people’s decisions are often influenced by many additional factors, not just utility
Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984)
● people identify a reference point generally representing their current state
● loss aversion; people are much more sensitive to potential losses than to potential gains
○ ex. preferring to gain $10 instead of risking losing $30
● people tend to overweight rare events
○ high-probability events also receive less weight than they deserve
● not about what the outcome is, but what’s more important to me at the moment: what would I
lose, what would I gain?
● our moods affect rationality in decision making
○ sadder-but-wiser effect: more rational thinking when you’re sad
○ myopic-misery effect: starting fresh, wanting to replace things as rewards

Judgment
● involves deciding on the likelihood of various events
○ however, we do not assess base probabilities of events

Taxi-Cab problem
● base rate probabilities

Representativeness heuristic
● deciding something belongs to a given category because it appears typical
● a rational person would look at the numbers; however, most people’s gut instinct is to look at
typicality

Conjunction fallacy
● the mistaken belief that the combination of two events (A and B) is more likely than one event (A
or B) on its one

Base-rate information
● we have causal knowledge that allows us to make accurate judgments using base-rate information

Availability heuristic
● influenced a lot by media knowledge; more visceral and emotionally impactive
 ○ ex. dying in tornadoes or because of pregnancy - however, it’s actually more likely to die
of asthma or appendicitis
● illusory correlations
○ what leads to superstitions
■ ex. ‘lucky’ socks = hitting a home run while wearing certain socks (however,
there’s no actual relation)
○ stereotyping
■ computer science students = shy, anti-social, nerdy
● assuming that if you’re a computer scientist, you’re shy, nerdy, etc.
*Heuristics and Biases Approach: Overall Evaluation
● strengths
○
● limitations
○ hackneyed: generally don’t explain how they reduce effort
○ some errors are made bc participants misunderstand parts of the problem
Decision Making Effects
● choice overload
○ more is not necessarily better
○ people tend to be less satisfied with the choices they make when there are a lot of choices
to choose from
○ the more choices there are, the more things you think you’ve missed out on
● preceding decisions
○ every next decision you make is influenced by decisions you’ve made previously
○ doesn’t necessarily have to be related to each other
○ anchoring effect
■ initial value/starting point affects estimate
● presentation of choices
○ real-world vs. abstract
○ opt-in vs. opt-out
■ status quo bias
● framing effects
○ risk-aversion/risk-taking
■ potential gains vs. potential losses*
○ cultural relevance
Biases
● confirmation bias
○ looking for evidence and info that confirms our judgment
○ myside bias
■ people tend to focus on reasons and arguments that fall in line with prior beliefs
● curating newsfeed, etc.
■ filter bubbles: you tend to only hear what you wanna hear → ex. why people
were so surprised about Donald Trump winning in 2016
● hindsight bias
○ we revise our memory of what we did or what we believe
 ○ the after feedback theory
■ memory of what we did prior to the feedback changes
○ “oh I knew that was gonna happen!”
○ overconfidence → overpredicting what we think is gonna happen
○ we’re very bad at guessing what we actually know, what we didn’t know in the past
○ we always overestimate what we’re gonna do and our abilities
The Dunning Kruger Effect
● people tend to be pretty bad at realizing how little we know about a subject
● we have the sense that we know so much and understand so much about a subject
○ illusory superiority
● tends to happen when people cram → fresh and floating in memory
● pattern of no knowledge → confidence in knowledge → fall
○ slope (top = very confident, but actual knowledge is very little)

Dual Systems Approach

System 1 (type 1 processing) System 2 (type 2 processing)
● fast ● more reflective
● autonomous ● requires working memory
● judgments and decisions that are more
● relies on basic emotions
high-stakes
● visceral, implicit, quick decisions ● slow
● tend to be biased ● capacity limited (one decision and few
● ex. choosing a snack options at a time)
● more conscious, going through criteria
and rules
● weighing out consequences
● ex. buying a car