#apsychology

1) Finish APES Multiple Choice Retakes

2) Finish retaking all AP Psych quizzes

From previous post’s we have learnt how people can become fixed on a given value by an anchor (so maybe pay to much for those Bali clothes due to the high starting price), be influenced by easily available memories (So people might feel infidelity is at all time high with all the current Barnaby Joyce coverage)  and understand that evidence against peoples beliefs can actually strengthen that belief (“Driverless cars might be safe but I still think that they will cause more accidents”).  So, we are getting pretty good at picking out bias in our thinking…………. not really,  more just that we are getting better at seeing bias in everyone else’s thinking.

Enter the Bias Blind Spot which is the conviction that one’s own judgments are less susceptible to bias than the judgments of others (Pronin et al. 2002 & 2004). In a literature review by Ehrlinger et al (2004) it was found that individuals judgements are often clouded by several cognitive and motivational biases (Gilovich, 1991; Kunda, 1990; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Individuals consistently rate themselves above average across a variety of domains (Alicke et al 1995; Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989), take credit for their successes but explain away their failures (Miller & Ross, 1975; Whitley & Frieze, 1985), assume they are more likely than their peers to experience the good things in life and avoid the bad (Weinstein, 1980), and tend to detect more support for their favoured beliefs than is objectively warranted (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979).

The overwhelming positive view that we like to perceive ourselves in is obviously helpful when it comes to motivation and problem solving but it does leave us with a blind spot. This blind spot leads us to underestimate the impact bias has on our judgements. In part because we see bias as a negative in that it clouds our thinking, also that we easily attribute bias to other people’s action in the absence of introspection and not understanding the other persons inner thoughts and motivations. Lastly as we perceive ourselves to be introspective we are easily able to reason away bias in our judgement and thinking.

This failure to often practice introspection and empathy leads to conflict as we start to see other people’s judgements as inferior and ours to be superior. This black and white view point then turns into defensiveness and criticism which too often breaks down communications in relationships. We need to be mindful of our own susceptibility to be influenced by bias in our judgements just like everyone else. Therefore, when it comes to judging other people’s decisions perhaps we should be more critical of our own.  

 References

Alicke, M. D., Klotz, M. L., Breitenbecher, D. L., Yurak, T. J., & Vredenburg, D. S. (1995). Personal contact, individuation, and the better-than-average effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 804-825

Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessments of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082-1090.

Ehrlinger, J. Gilovich, T. & Ross, L. (2004). Peering Into the Bias Blind Spot: People’s Assessments of Bias in Themselves and Others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin: http://node101.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/tdg1/E_G_&_R(05).pdf

 Epley, N., & Dunning, D. (2000). Feeling “holier than thou”: Are self-serving assessments produced by errors in self- or social prediction? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 861-875.

Gilovich, T. (1991). How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. New York: Free Press.

Kruger, J., & Gilovich, T. (1999). “Naive cynicism” in everyday theories of responsibility assessment: On biased assumptions of bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 743-753

Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480-498

Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R., (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098-2109.

Miller, D. T., & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213-225

Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Pronin, E., Gilovich, T., & Ross, L. (2004). Objectivity in the eye of the beholder: Divergent perceptions of bias in self versus others. Psychological Review, 111, 781-799.

Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002). The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 369-381.

Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naïve realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In T. Brown, E. Reed, & E. Turiel (Eds.), Values and knowledge (pp. 103-135). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 806-820.

From 2005 to 2015 there was a 93 percent increase (from 8,330 in 2005 to 16,062 in 2015) in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education award courses compared with 47 percent growth for all domestic students.

For most people this is an encouraging fact, however, for some people, this reaffirms their belief that Closing the Gap is a failure. How???...........The Backfire effect. The Backfire effect was named by Nhyan & Reifler (2010) and it refers to the bias that when people are presented with evidence against their beliefs, people maintain and strengthen their belief.

Nyhan & Reifler (2010) conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock newspaper articles containing a statement from a political figure that reinforces a widespread misperception. Participants were randomly assigned to read articles that either included or did not include corrective information immediately after a false or misleading statement. They were then asked to answer a series of factual and opinion questions.

In each of the four experiments, ideological subgroups failed to update their beliefs when presented with corrective information that runs counter to their predispositions. In several cases, it was found that corrections strengthened misperceptions among the most strongly committed subjects.

Lodge and Taber (2000), and Redlawsk (2002) interpret the backfire effects as a possible result of the process by which people counterargue preference incongruent information and bolster their pre-existing views. If people counterargue unwelcome information vigorously enough, they may end up with “more attitudinally congruent information in mind than before the debate” (Lodge and Taber 2000), which in turn leads them to report opinions that are more extreme than they otherwise would have had.

So basically, when presented with information that goes against our beliefs, we argue as to why our beliefs are true and construct a narrative to rationalise away the information. This can result in further reinforced and strengthened beliefs. This kind of bias, however, is found to be rare and most of us are able to change our beliefs in the face of overwhelming factual information. 

Ditto & Lopez (1992) stated, preference inconsistent information is likely to be subjected to greater scepticism than preference consistent information, but individuals who are “confronted with information of sufficient quantity or clarity… should eventually acquiesce to a preference-inconsistent conclusion.” The effectiveness of corrective information is therefore likely to vary depending on the extent to which the individual has been exposed to similar messages elsewhere. For instance, as a certain belief becomes widely viewed as discredited among the public and the press, individuals who might be ideologically sympathetic to that belief.

Ditto & Lopez (1992) conclusion was further supported in a recent study by Wood & Porter (2017). Wood & Porter (2017) conducted five experiments, enrolling more than 10,100 subjects and tested 52 issues of potential backfire. Across all experiments, no corrections capable of triggering backfire were found, despite testing precisely the kinds of polarized issues where backfire should be expected. Evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests. By and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their ideological commitments.

Reference

Ditto, Peter H. and David F. Lopez (1992). “Motivated Skepticism: Use of Differential Decision Criteria for Preferred and Nonpreferred Conclusions.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63(4): 568-584

Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber (2000). “Three Steps Toward a Theory of Motivated Political Reasoning.” In Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. McCubbins, and Samuel L. Popkin, eds., Elements of Reason: Understanding and Expanding the Limits of Political Rationality. London: Cambridge University Press.

Nyhan, B. & Reifler, J. Polit Behav (2010) 32: 303. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2

Redlawsk, David (2002). “Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making.” Journal of Politics 64(4):1021-1044

If I were to tell you my friend Bill was often complimented on his rugged good looks and was often volunteering to raise money for the homeless, do you think he would be a good leader?

If you met Bill, you would more than likely make a brief assumption that due to his physical attractiveness characteristic and altruistic behaviour towards the homeless characteristic, that Bill is a great guy and would make a great leader. This would be the Halo effect in play. The Halo effect is when we make a positive generalisation about a person based on specific characteristics. Bill, who is imaginary, hasn’t given enough information to us to make an accurate evaluation of his leadership qualities. We have focused in on some of the good characteristics of Bill and then decided ourselves that there would be a causal relationship between those characteristics and the characteristics of a good leader.

This is a common error that we all make. Palmer & Peterson (2012) found that political candidates perceived as attractive individuals are subjectively viewed as more knowledgeable even after objectively accounting for their levels of factual knowledge.

In another study by Ostrove & Signall (1975), participants were asked to sentence criminals based on their photos and crimes. Participants would assign more lenient sentences to the attractive defendant than to the unattractive defendant; when the offence was attractiveness-related (swindle), the attractive defendant would receive harsher treatment. Results confirmed a cognitive explanation for the relationship between the physical attractiveness of defendants and the nature of the judgments made against them.

The Halo effect can obviously be a bias that gets us into trouble. Correlation does not equal causation and when making a decision we have to be mindful to weigh up the facts as they relate to that specific characteristic which we are judging.     

References

Palmer, CL; Peterson, RD (2012), "Beauty and the Pollster: The Impact of Halo Effects on Perceptions of Political Knowledge and Sophistication   

Following on from yesterdays discussion into the anchoring effect, we now investigate the world of heuristics. Heuristics (from the Greek, “find”) simply defined are mental shortcuts that allow the brain to come to a decision. Heuristics are fast in that they are a shortcut but what they make up for in speed they often lack in accuracy.

The Availability heuristic is one of the most prominent and researched heuristics and was defined by Kahneman & Tversky as the process of judging frequency by “the ease with which instances come to mind”.

So what does this look like, well………..How frequently is South Korea mentioned in the news?

As the winter Olympics are currently being held in Pyeongchang and new to non-stop coverage in relation to North Korea, we are likely to be able to think of many instances when we have heard or viewed South Korea in the news. This will then influence our estimate of how frequent South Korea is mentioned in the news.

A study I often refer to during couples counselling conducted was conducted by John Gottman and did a wonderful job of highlighting the availability heuristic. Each partner was asked to rate out of 100% how often they complete household duties such as washing the dishes, cooking dinner, cleaning etc. It was found that the couple estimates added up to over 100%. This is the availability heuristic at work. Each partner was able to easily and quickly recall the times they had completed the household duty and therefore estimated completing the duty at a higher frequency compared to their partner.

Schwarz et al (1991) further refined the availability heuristic through a study that asked people to rate their assertiveness. Participants were either asked to list 6 occasions or 12 occasions when they behaved assertively. Following the list, participants were then asked to rate how assertive they are. Surprisingly, even though the 12 group was able to list double the amount of times they behaved assertively, they rated themselves on average, less assertive than the group who recalled 6 assertive behaviours.

Shwarz et al (1991) concluded that the availability heuristic was not just concerned with the amount if instances that came to mind but also the fluency with which they come to mind. It would have bene difficult to think of 12 occasions of demonstrating assertive behaviour and therefore participants perception of their assertiveness was adversely affected due to the lack of fluency of the retrieval.

The Availability heuristic, although useful, is open to making significant errors in judgement. It is something that I continue to be mindful of as I myself have fallen into the trap of learning more about a certain disorder and then seeing that disorder with all my clients. If I didn’t take the time to consciously stop and think “Maybe because I have just been reading about this disorder that is now impacting on my judgement”, then major issues could arise. 

 Reference

Kahneman, D. (2015). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux