Lecture Notes on Reasoning Biases

Flashcards about Illusory Correlation, Confirmation Bias and related concepts.

What is an illusory correlation?

Overestimating the strength of relationships or detecting nonexistent ones.

What is confirmation bias?

Seeking evidence that supports beliefs.

What factors can contribute to an illusory correlation?

Small number of observations, ignoring base rates, confirmation bias

What are base rates?

Stated probabilities that should be used in decision making.

According to Kahneman & Tversky's research, how do people use base rates when making decisions?

People tend to use additional information when given and ignore base-rate probabilities.

What is a common error related to Confirmation Bias?

Searching for positive evidence to confirm an argument.

What is confirmation bias?

Tendency to seek positive evidence that confirms or supports an argument.

How do people typically react to evidence that supports their beliefs versus evidence that contradicts them?

Evidence that supports beliefs is usually accepted; evidence that does not is scrutinized & discounted.

Explain the main finding of the Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard (1975) study on belief perseverance.

Even after being debriefed, participants continued to rate themselves based on earlier false feedback.

What is belief perseverance?

Maintaining beliefs that are not supported by evidence, often due to confirmation bias.

How can discounting affect how disconfirming evidence is remembered?

Discounting disconfirming evidence can affect how it is remembered (i.e., as not very convincing).

How can we reduce the reliance of illusory correlations?

Judgment should involve comparison of ratios, not just the upper-left cell, to avoid illusory correlations

What is representative heuristic?

A mental shortcut used to make judgments based on how similar an object or event is to an existing prototype, often leading to statistical biases.

What is the gambler’s fallacy?

the mistaken belief that future probabilities are influenced by past events in random scenarios, leading individuals to expect a certain outcome after a series of different results.