Cognition & Reasoning

• Reasoning


  Operating on information in order to reach conclusions
• Varieties of Formal Reasoning


  • Formal reasoning: Apply a set of logical procedures (an algorithm) to evidence or premises
  • Deductive reasoning: draw logically valid conclusions from a set of premises
  • Logically valid conclusions may or may not be true
• Formal reasoning


  • Guarantees the conclusion(s) will be valid, if you do it right
• Deductive reasoning


  Tells you what must be true, if the information (premises) you are given is true
• Syllogisms


  A type of deductive reasoning problem: A set of premises and one or more conclusions, decide if the conclusion is valid
• Inductive Reasoning


  Judging probabilities, Hypothesis construction and refinement, How likely is a conclusion, given the evidence?
• Informal Reasoning


  Using mental shortcuts including schemas, biases and heuristics, Quick and easy but does not guarantee a valid conclusion
• Biases


  Predisposition to favor some conclusions over others
• 4 card problem


  Propose a rule, choose which cards to turn over to decide if rule is true
• If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other
• Confirmation bias


  We seek out evidence that might confirm a hypothesis, when seeking out disconfirming evidence would be more informative
• Schemas


  Expectancy-based thinking from well-practiced scripts or routines
• Functional fixedness


  When the schema guides us down a familiar but unhelpful route
• When a schema is activated


  Performance improves on the 4 card problem
• Framing


  The way in which a problem is presented
• People are more willing to take a risk to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain
• Heuristics


  Mental shortcuts that make reasoning efficient but not always correct
• Representativeness heuristic


  Judging probability according to how well an example matches or represents its class
• Availability heuristic


  Judging frequency or probability based on how readily examples come to mind, based on actual frequency or salience
• Confirmation bias: we tend to store examples that confirm our beliefs and ignore ones that don't
• Cognitive economy


  Getting the most information for the least mental effort
• We are evolved to make important decisions quickly
• Advantages of drawing the correct conclusion vs. advantages of thinking fast, Disadvantages of drawing the wrong conclusion vs. risks of thinking slow
• Social Cognition


  How is the way we perceive others influenced by our cognitive biases and heuristics?
• Cognitive economy


  Gain the most information for the least amount of mental effort
• Judging other people


  • Snap Judgements
  • Ratings of professors after a 30 second exposure are a good but imperfect predictor of ratings after a semester
  • Attractiveness (youthfulness, symmetry, average features) guides early impressions and liking
  • Attractive features correlate with youth and health (evolutionary bias?)
  • Physical attractiveness stereotype: perceiving attractive people as having positive characteristics, e.g. sociability and competence
  • Halo Effects: Liking someone guides our information gathering and remembering
• Judgements and social categories


  • Schematization
  • Social schemas: Organized beliefs and knowledge about people, objects, events, and situations
  • We commit to a schema early, and then assimilate additional information to that schema
  • Stereotypes: General person schemas
• Jill the Waitress / Librarian


  • Show videotape of a woman celebrating her birthday with her husband
  • IV: librarian or waitress (suggesting a social schema/stereotype)
  • DV: What subjects remember
  • Schema consistent 88% vs. schema inconsistent 78%
  • Schema provides organized routes for retrieving information
• Illusory Correlations


  • Beliefs in correlations that are not there, for example, between social category and behavior
  • We like to see patterns, sometimes even when they don't exist
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecies /Stereotypes/Schemas


  Expectations guide behavior, which makes expectations come true
• Attractiveness on the Phone


  • Men and women have a phone conversation, men see photos
  • IV: attractiveness (of picture, not actual woman)
  • Show half the men an attractive picture, half unattractive
  • DV: rated friendliness of woman (by male subjects)
  • DV: rated friendliness of woman (by observers)
  • Men who believed they were talking to an attractive person rated them as friendlier
  • Observers rated them friendlier without seeing the photos
• Causal Attributions


  • Making judgments about the causes of people's behavior
  • Dispositional attribution: the cause is something about the person
  • Situational attribution: The cause is something about the situation
• Game Show Study


  • Subjects in pairs, randomly assigned to roles
  • IV: role – game show questioner or contestant
  • When show is over, participants and observers rate participants' general knowledge
  • DVs: rated knowledge of questioner and contestant, by questioner, contestant and observer
  • Results suggest that contestants and observers make a dispositional attribution about the questioners, and the contestants make a dispositional attribution about themselves
• The fundamental attribution error (FAE)


  • Making a dispositional attribution, when the situation is perfectly sufficient to explain the behavior
  • Subject to the actor-observer effect: Our own behavior as a result of situations, other's behavior as the result of disposition
  • Reflects differences in focus of attention, and types of information
  • Self-serving bias: attributing our successes to disposition, and our failures to situation
• Attitudes


  Cognitive consistency: psychological consistency between beliefs, attitudes and behavior
• Cognitive Dissonance


  • A negative drive-state that arises when attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are inconsistent
  • Cognitive dissonance theory: we are motivated toward reducing that dissonance
• Induced compliance experiment


  • Give subjects a very boring menial task
  • IV: amount of payment
  • Give one group $20 to tell the next subject it was fun
  • Give the other group $1 to tell the next subject it was fun
  • Control group given no money, does not tell next subject anything
  • DV: rating of task
  • Cognitive Dissonance Explanation: The $20 group received sufficient reward to justify lying, The $1 group had to revise attitude to reduce dissonance