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Chapter3-SocialBeliefsandJudgmentsPart4-Heuristics-1.pptxChapter 3
Social Beliefs & Judgments
Part 4 (Judgmental Heuristics and Rules of Thumb)
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Part Four
Judgmental Heuristics:
Rules of thumb to make life easier
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Judgmental Heuristics
Judgmental heuristics are mental shortcuts that are often simple, approximate rules or strategies for solving problems
Require very little cognitive energy, unlike rational processing
Over the next few slides, we are going to delve into some of these heuristics, including:
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Judgmental Heuristics
Judgmental heuristics are mental shortcuts that are often simple, approximate rules or strategies for solving problems
Require very little cognitive energy, unlike rational processing
Over the next few slides, we are going to delve into some of these heuristics, including:
6). Attitude Heuristic
7). False Consensus Effect
8). Confirmation Bias
9). Belief Perseverance
1). Representativeness Heuristic
2). Availability Heuristic
3). Negativity Bias
4). Optimistic Bias
5). Anchoring and Adjustment
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The Representative Heuristic
1). The representative heuristic compares one object to another to infer that the first object acts similar to the second
Think about an expensive bottle of wine. Many fine wines are expensive, so does high price mean high quality?
Our representative heuristic would say yes! We often equate expensive things with quality, so if it is (or looks) expensive, it must be high quality!
Of course, this is not always true! Our heuristics are rules of thumb, and won’t always lead to accuracy!
For example, which of the following cereals (on the next slide) is healthiest for a child? (Yes, I know I talked about this before!)
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Pick a healthy cereal for a child:
Nutritionally, the Lucky Charms is actually healthier! But we have this representative heuristic that says “100% Natural” is healthy (and cartoon characters with marshmallow treats is not!). May lead to wrong decisions
I bet you chose the Quaker 100% Natural Oats and Honey Cereal.
Wrong!
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Representative Heuristic
1). The representative heuristic
Monkey business:
Western medicine: epilepsy was treated using a drug made from a monkey whose movements appeared epileptic
If it looks like a monkey symptom, monkeys might be the cure!
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Representative Heuristic
1). The representative heuristic
Tall, dark, and … Presidential?
In an overwhelming majority of American presidential elections, taller candidates emerge victorious.
Does height really equal a better leader. Maybe, maybe not, but a tall presidential candidate “looks like a president!”
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The Availability Heuristic
2). The availability heuristic
On the next series of slides, I want you to try to figure out which city has the greatest population
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Rio De Janeiro, Brazil vs. Karachi, Pakistan
Baghdad, Iraq vs. Dacca, Bangladesh
Tehran, Iran vs. Los Angelos, CA
Berlin, Germany vs. Lagos, Nigeria
Madrid, Spain vs. Kinsasha, Congo
Chicago, IL vs. Lahore, Pakistan
Kiev, Ukraine vs. San Diego, CA
Paris, France vs. Wuhan, China
Alexandria, Egypt vs. Houston, TX
So which city has the most people? Let’s find out …
Which city has the greatest population?
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Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (6,211,000) vs. Karachi, Pakistan (10,807,800)
Baghdad, Iraq (5,948,800) vs. Dacca, Bangladesh (9,363,100)
Tehran, Iran (8,067,600) vs. Los Angelos, CA (3,900,700)
Berlin, Germany (3,387,300) vs. Lagos, Nigeria (8,682,200)
Madrid, Spain (3,290,900) vs. Kinsasha, Congo (6,789,900)
Chicago, IL (2,888,200) vs. Lahore, Pakistan (5,903,900)
Kiev, Ukraine (2,581,200) vs. San Diego, CA (1,290,000)
Paris, France (2,107,600) vs. Wuhan, China (5,005,900)
Alexandria, Egypt (3,977,300) vs. Houston, TX (2,071,800)
Did you guess the familiar sounding cities? They are more “available”
Which city has the greatest population?
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The Availability Heuristic
2). The availability heuristic
In this heuristic, judgments are based on how easy it is to bring specific examples to mind
You’ve probably heard of Baghdad Iraq, and it came to mind easily. But have you ever heard of Dacca Bangladesh? If not, you might have (incorrectly) assumed that Baghdad had the greater population, because it was more familiar to you.
Let me ask you another question: Do more people die from shark attacks or falling plane parts?
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The Availability Heuristic
2). The availability heuristic
In this heuristic, judgments are based on how easy it is to bring specific examples to mind
More people die from falling plane parts than shark attacks
But how often do you hear about falling plane parts killing people? Very rarely.
Shark attacks often make the Miami news, so you may overestimate their frequency via the availability heuristic
Do more people die from fires or from drowning?
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The Availability Heuristic
2). The availability heuristic
In this heuristic, judgments are based on how easy it is to bring specific examples to mind
More people die from drowning
But again, how often do you hear about drowning on the local news?
Fires make a better news story, so they get more press. The more you hear, the more frequent they seem!
People who watch a lot of TV overestimate the amount of real violence in our nation, simply because they see of lot of fictionalized violence.
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For the following slides, answer the questions.
Then, try to figure out which heuristic is probably at work (Representativeness or Availability Heuristic) …
Heuristic Pop Quiz!
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1. “I have 100 thumbnail descriptions of people—30 are lawyers and 70 are engineers. The following biographical sketch is pulled at random:”
John is a 39-year-old man. He is married and has two children. He is active in local politics. The hobby he enjoys most is rare book collecting. He is argumentative, competitive, and articulate.
Is John more likely to be a lawyer or an engineer?
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1. “I have 100 thumbnail descriptions of people—30 are lawyers and 70 are engineers. The following biographical sketch is pulled at random:”
John is a 39-year-old man. He is married and has two children. He is active in local politics. The hobby he enjoys most is rare book collecting. He is argumentative, competitive, and articulate.
Is John more likely to be a lawyer or an engineer?
Since lawyers only make up 30% of the sample, it is
much more likely that John is an engineer!
Representativeness heuristic may have led you to guess lawyer since lawyers are often argumentative, competitive, and articulate
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2. Which sequence of coin tosses is most likely to occur?
(a) H H H H H H
(b) H H H T T T
(c) H T T H H T
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2. Which sequence of coin tosses is most likely to occur?
(a) H H H H H H
(b) H H H T T T
(c) H T T H H T
All coin toss combinations are equally likely
If you picked one over the others, representativeness at work again
We think of coin tosses as random, so we look for a random-looking sequence. However, just because random-looking coin-tosses are representative of our expectations, this is not always accurate!
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3. Which birth order sequence is more likely in 6-children families?
(a) G B G B B G
(b) B G B B B B
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3. Which birth order sequence is more likely in 6-children families?
(a) G B G B B G
(b) B G B B B B
All birth order combinations are equally likely
(representativeness again)
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4. Which is more likely in the United States?
Death by car accidents or death by stroke?
Death by murder or death by heart attack?
(If you thought car accidents or murder are more common, then the availability heuristic probably influenced you)
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4. Which is more likely in the United States?
Death by car accidents or death by stroke?
By a margin of 4 : 1
Death by murder or death by heart attack?
By a margin of 30 : 1
(If you thought car accidents or murder are more common, then the availability heuristic probably influenced you)
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5. The FBI classifies crime in the United States into two categories—violent crimes (murder, rape, assault) and property crime (burglary, larceny, car theft).
What % of crimes are violent?
What % of accused felons plead insanity?
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5. The FBI classifies crime in the United States into two categories—violent crimes (murder, rape, assault) and property crime (burglary, larceny, car theft).
What % of crimes are violent?
11% are violent
What % of accused felons plead insanity?
Less than 1% plead insanity (and less than 1% of those are truly successful!)
(Availability heuristic in effect if you guessed higher percentages!)
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6. In a random English text, which words are more likely—those beginning with the letter K or those with K as the third letter?
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6. In a random English text, which words are more likely—those beginning with the letter K or those with K as the third letter?
K as the third letter (3:1)
Availability heuristic again!
How many words can you think of that begin with the letter K.
Now how many with K as the third letter?
Much harder to think of for K as the third letter, so the “available” set of K-related words in your mind are those with K as the first letter!
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The Negativity Bias
3). The negativity bias is our heuristic sensitivity to negative information (compared to positive information)
This might be evolutionarily based – you have to admit that it is evolutionary adaptive to quickly identify threats to our safety!
Indeed, Ohman, Lundqvist, & Esteves (2001) found that people react faster and more accurately to identifying threatening faces
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The Optimistic Bias
4). The optimistic bias refers to our predisposition to think things will turn out okay. This relates well to the …
… overconfidence phenomenon, where have more confidence in our beliefs and judgments than is probably warranted
Who in this online course is below average? If I told you that only half the class could pass this course, would you be in the half that fails? (don’t worry, usually 51% pass!)
I bet no one said “I plan to be in the lowest half of this course, because I want to fail!”
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Anchoring & Adjustment Heuristics
5). The anchoring and adjustment heuristic: We use a number as a starting point and make adjustments around that number
Greene (1991) and the ad damnum
Jurors provided with an anchor adjust their damage decisions in civil trials around that number. Without the anchor, their decisions are more variable.
For example, if a civil attorney says his client should get $25,000 for his injuries, civil jurors anchor their $ amount around that $25,000 number (+ or – $1,000). Without that anchor, the $ jurors give to the plaintiff vary a lot more!
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The Attitude Heuristic
6). Attitude heuristic: stored evaluations (good or bad) of objects
The attitude heuristic is used to heuristically assign objects to favorable or unfavorable categories
Which of the following do you think is closer to the truth?
Ronald Reagan maintained an A average in college
Ronald Reagan maintained a C average in college
Believe it or not, Regan maintained a C average in college.
What you think is likely to be influenced by your stored evaluations of Ronald Reagan. If you liked him, you may have guess an A average. If you didn’t like him, a C average
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The False Consensus Heuristic
7). The false-consensus effect: As I’ve mentioned before, we tend to overestimate the percentage of people who agree with us
Ross did a study where he asked people if they would wear a “Eat at Joes” sandwich board
If participants said they would be happy to wear one, they believed that other people would also wear one
If participants said they would not wear one, they believed that other people would also refuse to wear one
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The Confirmation Bias
8). Confirmation bias: This heuristic is based on our tendency to seek confirmation of our initial impression or beliefs
This may lead us to ignore, disregard, or see as poor quality any disconfirming information
In the real world, this bias may lead police officers who believe a suspect is guilty to discount other potential leads and focus all of their energy on the suspect (even if he is innocent!)
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The Confirmation Bias
8). Confirmation bias: Imagine a study by Snyder and Swann
Female college students were told they would meet a person who was described as very introverted or very extroverted.
The students were more likely to ask questions consistent with their expectation when they met this new person:
For the introvert expectation, they asked things like: “What do you dislike about parties?”
They asked the extrovert, “How do you liven up a party?”
The answers to such questions often confirm the impression
Might lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
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Belief Perseverance
9). The belief perseverance heuristic involves the persistence of ones initial beliefs, even when the foundation of those beliefs has been discredited
For example, on the next slide you will see a series of six pictures starting in the top, left-hand corner. For each picture, write down on a piece of scratch paper what you think is in the picture (it’s the same picture six times, just with more degree of detail as you progress from picture 1 through 6)
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What is this picture?
1
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What is this picture?
1
2
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What is this picture?
1
2
3
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What is this picture?
1
2
3
4
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What is this picture?
1
2
3
4
5
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What is this picture?
1
2
3
4
5
6
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A herd of Zebra, obviously
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What is it? A herd of Zebra, obviously
Via belief perseverance, our initial thoughts about the pictures (at first you may have thought that it was a group of referees!) may lead us to stick with that thought even when it becomes very clear that the picture doesn’t involve referees!
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Belief Perseverance
The belief perseverance heuristic involves the persistence of initial conceptions, even when that belief has been discredited
Anderson, Lepper, & Ross – “Who makes the best firefighter?”
Group One: Participants in this group were told that Risk Prone firefighters were successful & Cautious firefighters unsuccessful. Participants had to explain why this was true
Group Two: Participants in this group were told that Risk Prone firefighters were unsuccessful & Cautious firefighters successful; again, p’s explained why this was true
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Belief Perseverance
The belief perseverance heuristic involves the persistence of initial conceptions, even when that belief has been discredited
Anderson, Lepper, & Ross – “Who makes the best firefighter?”
Okay, here’s the twist: Participants were then told that the “reality” was actually opposite (For group one, Risk Prone firefighters were unsuccessful; Cautious were successful)
Participants persisted in believing what they’d initially been told and the position they had initially defended. Disregarded new arguments contrary to their entrenched views.
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Let’s Briefly Review Heuristics
Although we can be rational and use felicific calculus, more often than not we are “cognitive misers”, using heuristics because …
we don’t have time to think carefully about an issue
we are overloaded with information
the issue at stake isn’t important to us (so why bother with it)
we have very little solid information to use AND / OR
we are influenced by our emotions
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Let’s Briefly Review Heuristics
Heuristics also tell us that …
first impressions are usually the most influential
easily accessed categories are overused
representative categories are often misused
memory can often be (erroneously) reconstructed
there are lots of heuristics / rules of thumb that we use to make sense of our social world
We discussed nine of these, but there are a ton more!
stereotypes can distort our information processing
For example …
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Categorization and Social Stereotypes
Easily retrieved categories may influence how you will interact with an individual
If you are primed with a “Homeless” stereotype, or you have that stereotype activated through heuristic judgments, you may react differently to a person who is ambiguously dressed than if you were primed with an “Absent-minded professor” stereotype
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Making Good Decisions
Yet we can avoid some of the negative consequences of cognitive conservatism and stereotypes by …
being wary of those who attempt to create categories
trying to use more than one category
trying to think of persons as being unique
trying to remember you may be mistaken
Our final section of this chapter (Part 5) will deal with a slightly different way that social beliefs and judgments affect us: What happens after our decisions are made? …
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