Decision Making & Judgment

1. Decision Making & Judgment

2. Brainstorm! Take two minutes to write down the big decisions YOU have to make in life! After two minutes, turn and talk to a neighbor about what made those decisions “big” or challenging/difficult

3. Dr. Zimbardo time! Dr. Z

4. Key terms • Judgment: ability to make considered decisions or sensible conclusions • Rationality: the state of being agreeable to reason; reasonable

5. Weighing the Pluses and Minuses • Balance sheet method—what are the pros and the cons of doing ______________ ? • Good method, but not always convenient • Need to know what pros and cons are…but we don’t always know what they are! • So we use heuristics (shortcuts)

6. Divide into groups • Donovan, D’Arcy, Tony • Jerrod, Austin Cairns, Claire, Josh • Danny, Chris, Carrington • Sam, Danielle, Ramon, Austin Crockett • Kayla, Michael, Adrian, Nikki • Delaney, Nellie, Royce, Emma • Nelson, Lexi, Kristina, Marc • Corey, Bryan, Jonathan, • Nathan, Brooke, Henry, Zaria

7. Group activity • 1) develop a list of difficult decisions facing students (maybe use one from before) • 2) focus on a decision you can ALL consider • 3) individually create a balance sheet to assess the pros and cons of your choice • 4) reconvene and evaluate your information and make a final group decision • 15 minutes total for activity

8. Pros Cons Additional info needed:

9. Representative Heuristic • Multiple choice test: • T TTTTT • F FF T TT • T F F T F T • Third option best represents the type of sequence you would expect based on your experience

10. Representative Heuristic • Misleading • What are the chances of an answer being true? Being false? • One in two in both cases • Likelihood of attaining any sequence (T TTTTTT or T F F T F T) is the same • Your test has T TTTT; what are the chances of the next answer being T? Six T’s in a row???

11. Availability Heuristic • Decision based on available information • News media “skews” information, shaping our view of current events • Experience influences view of available information • Overemphasize violence • More deaths per year in America due to car or plane crashes? • Odds of dying in a car crash: 1 in 98; odds of dying in a plane crash: 1 in 7,178

13. Anchoring Heuristic • Certain ideas that are “anchors” for us • Early learning • Often we share the same political views as our parents • Politics, religion, way of life are common anchors • Sometimes “anchors” can be negative • Racism, for example, is often passed on

14. Heuristics: Examples • Representativeness: making decisions about a sample (test items, people, events) according to the population that the sample appears to represent • Feminist bank teller • True/false questions • Tall guy wearing Air Jordans • Flip a coin 20 times in a row “heads”, chance that next flip will be tails remains 50%

15. Heuristics: Examples • Availability: decision on the basis of information that is available in our immediate consciousness • Fear of terrorism vs. fear of car accident in Middle East • Plane travel vs. car travel • Right to own guns threatened in light of Sandy Hook shooting

16. Heuristics: Examples • Anchoring: decisions made based on certain ideas or standards they hold, ideas or standards that serve as “anchors” in our lives • Childhood imprinting—we vote like our parents did, share the same values, religious beliefs • Hard to fully break free of these “anchors” if we choose to

17. The Framing Effect • How wording effects decision making • People react differently when something is presented as a gain or a loss Mad Men

18. Overconfidence • People tend to have great confidence in their decisions, whether they are right or wrong • Unaware of how flimsy supporting evidence is • Attention paid to examples that confirm their opinions and ignore those in conflict • Believe and achieve • People tend to stick with their incorrect opinions even in the overwhelming face of evidence to the contrary!