Decision Making Experiments

Kahnemann & Tversky

Disease expected to kill 600 people, participants asked to identify which program they would use

Program A

200 people saved

Program B

1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved & 2/3 probability that no one will be saved

Program C

400 people will die

Program D

1/3 probability that nobody will die & 2/3 probability that 600 people will die

Kahnemann & Tversky Results

Majority of people picked Program A and Program D

Khnermann & Tversky Concepts

Framing Effect & Prospect Theory Curve

Wason Card Task

Partcipants shopwn four cards and given a rule, asked to identify which cards they would use to test the rule

Falsification Principle

The principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for solutions that would falsify the rule

Wason Results

Better results for beer & drinking age study than numbers and letters study

Wason Conclusion

People understand syllogisms better when they are stated in terms of real world situations

Permission Schema

A pragmatic reasoning schema that states that if a person satisfies condition A, they get to carry out action B

Feminist Bank Teller

Linda is more likely to be a bank teller than a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement

Feminist Bank Teller Results

More people think she is a feminist bank teller than just a bank teller

Feminist Bank Teller Conclusions

Participants influenced by the representativeness heuristic and violated the conjunction rule

Ultimatum Games

Proposer offers money to responder, if responder accepts they both get money, if responder declines neither gets money

Ultimatum Games & Utility Theory

The responder should always accept the offer as long as it's greater than zero

Ultimatum Games Results

Most people reject low offer & were less angry with computer's offer than real person

Ultimatum Game Brain Activation

Insula and Pre-Frontal Cortex active during game