Exercise 2-6: Ecological fallacy

Exercise 2-7: Regression artefact: Lord’s paradox

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Recaptiulation I: Memory errors Empirical Evidence

Misleading information (Loftus)

Misinformation: realistic examples Piaget

Ingram

Memory and psychological interventions

DRM-Paradigma: Experimental demonstration of false memory (false recollection)

Recapitualtion II: Memory errors Mechanisms

Cognitive Mechanism: Reality monitoring

Cognitive Mechanism: Source monitoring

Cognitive Mechanism: Memory as a constructive process: Automatic activation of information.

Memory Judgments: Stability and Change

Experiment: Marcus, 1982 Basic results: Assessment of former

attitudes of 1973 is influenced more by actual attitudes in 1982 than by real attitudes in 1973.

Explanation: Anchoring and adjustment: Anchor = actual attitudeAdjusted by means of plausible inferences.

Memory Judgments: Stability and Change

Experiment: Conway & Ross, 1982 Basic results: Biased assessment of

of prior capabilities in order to explain »effects« of training.

Both experiments (Marcus as well as Conway and Ross) demonstrate the influence of subjective theories on the adjustments of memories.

Memory Judgments: Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias: Concept: Erroneous retrospective

assessment of previous knowledge.

Experiment of Fishoff & Beyth, 1975: Adjustments of political assessments.

Mechanism: Anchoring and adjustment.

Memory Judgments: Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias: Reduction of Hindsight-Bias:

Thinking of a different outcome.

Open-mindedness as an important aspect of critical thinking: Thinking of different aspects (perspectives) of a problem.

Memory Judgments: Retrospective Evaluation of negative episodes

Basic Experiment: a negative event of greater duration is preferred to a shorter negative event that is part of the longer event.

Application: Colonoscopy.

Explanation: Snap-shot model

Probability Judgments: Heuristics and Biases

Heuristics & Bias program.

Bounded rationality: Satisficing vs. optimizing.

Heuristics: Availability.

Representativeness.

Anchoring and Adjustment

Availability heuristic: Functioning

The frequency of events is judged due to the easiness how particluar instances can be generated (or come to mind).

Problem: Availability of instances and frequency of occurence are generally not correlated.

Availability heuristic: Examples

Ex. 4-1: How many different paths?

Availability heuristic: Examples

Ex. 4-2: Memory and availability

Ex. 4-3. Death rates

Availability heuristic: Imagination and availability

Ex. 4-4: Influence of imagination on predicted political outcome.

Ex. 4-5: Imagination and estimation of aquiring a disease.

Availability heuristic: Personal experience

Ex. 4-6: Influence of personal experiences

Central lession to be learned:Beware of arguments based on examples.

Probability Judgments: Representativeness Heuristic I

Functioning: Assessment of the frequency of events according to similarity.

Example: Evaluation of the probability of random sequences

Probability Judgments: Representativeness Heuristic II

Example: Linda-Problem:Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply con cerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Ranking Statement(5.2) Linda is a teacher in elementary school.(3.3) Linda works in a bookstore and takes Yoga clas ses.(2.1) Linda is active in the feminist movement. (F)(3.1) Linda is a psychiatric social worker.(5.4) Linda is a member of the League of Women Vo ters.(6.2) Linda is a bank teller. (B)(6.4) Linda is an insurance salesperson.(4.1) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. (BF)

Probability Judgments: Representativeness Heuristic III

Example: Political predictions:

Rank Statement

(1.5) Reagan will cut federal support to local govern ment. (B)

(3.3) Reagan will provide support for unwed mothers. (A)

(2.7) Reagan will increase the defense budget by less than 5%.

(2.9) Reagan will provide federal support for unwed mo thers and cut federal support for local government. (AB)

Probability Judgments: Representativeness Heuristic IV

Conclusion (Basic lession): Beware of detailed internally coherent and

plausible scenarios (those concerning the future as well as those concerning the past).

More detailed scenarios appear as more plausible. However more detailed scenarios are less probable since each added de tail reduces the probability of the scenario.