Maximiser or satisficer?

   Schwartz and colleagues (2002) used questionnaires to divide people into two groups: maximisers and satisficers. Maximisers were always looking for the best and satisficers were just looking for something suitable, anything. Maximisers often showed regret after buying something, because they were still having doubts whether they had really bought the best thing or maybe there was something better still out there, while satificers were less worried about something like that. Once they had found something to satisfy them, they were happy. Maximisers also often compared themselves with others, always wanting to be the best.
This was also shown with an experiment where participants had to solve series of anagrams next to another "participant", who in reality was the experimenter's confederate. Maximisers were feeling down and not happy with their own performance when the confederate was faster than them, but if the confederate was slower, there was no effect. Satisficers in contrast showed no sensitivity whether the confederate was faster or slower than them. Maximisers are also more likely to become depressed that satisficers, because they are more worried about their performance or whether the thing they buy is the best or not.
  Strangely enough, i think i used to be a maximiser, always wanting to be the best, often not even knowing, what the best was, just trying to compare with others and be better or same maybe. Even succeeding that, i did not feel particularly happy, still worried maybe i could do better. And on the times, when i did something not as well as others, i was really unhappy with myself and stressed. I'm not that much of a maximiser anymore, because i have learned to accept, that i cannot always be the best and people (my friends) accept me the way i am and like me anyway. I do feel happier generally than before, but in contrast, before i had the drive to do something i wanted, the motivation, now i sometimes find myself struggling to find that motivation. Or perhaps, i am depressed? No, i don't think so, just different than before and still thinking about what i had, who i was- couple of gold medals, a few silvers and lots of diplomas, publicly recognized young athlete, future olympic gold? and often in the newspaper, once on the front page. I think i was down for a long time after leaving that life. But now, my life is different, yet good and i'm in peace with myself and i do not always want to be the best anymore, which aslo enables me to feel really happy for others.

The trolley problem

 There is a runaway trolley speeding towards four men working on the tracks. People are given a choice to pull a lever, which would change the course of the trolley to different tracks with only one man working on it. Somebody will die. In this choice people choose to pull the lever which results in one man dying, but saving four lives. In a similar scenario the runaway trolley is speeding towards four men working on the tracks. People are told that they are on the bridge and there is a big fat man there with them. They are given a choice to either let the four men die or push the big fat man off the bridge, resulting in his death, but saving four lives. It this case, people would let the four men die, rather than pushing another to his death. These two problems are so similar, yet people choose different options. It seems that people do not concentrate only on the outcome of the problem. Different areas of the brain are activated during making these choices and this of course provides  different outcomes.

Curious: Decisions, Decisions

How do we make decisions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGQLO_iXKlU

There have been many proposed theories on how we make decisions. But even the most supported theories cannot sometimes predict our behaviour, nor do they always lead to rational decisions. Prospect theory is widely supported by research, but it does not mean that it will lead to a rational decision. A good example of this is provided in the video by observing New York taxi drivers behaviour. The taxi drivers have a daily goal they would like to reach in business. On good days they reach their goal rather quickly and go home early, whereas on slow days they work very long hours trying to reach that goal. It would be more rational to work a bit more on good days and go home early in the slow days, but as prospect theory suggests they are not so motivated by their gains on good days to keep on working, as  they are by the losses on slow days. But it is interesting to know what happens in our brains when we make decisions.
Research has shown, that many of our decisions are based on emotion. Even in this video about prospect theory, the fMRI shows that the area activated in the brain during decision-making is indeed the amygdala- the centre of emotion. And as people can have various emotions on various times, it is not suprising then that people's decisions differ from person to person and from situation to situation.
Interestingly, the video also shows that small part of the frontal lobe is also activated during decision making and the extent of the activity differs from person to person. The area in the frontal lobe activated during decision making appears to be a controlling point for the amygdala, therefore controlling emotional responses. According to this some people are more in control of their emotions and are able to make more rational decisions than others.
This was to illustrate that most of our decisions are based on emotion and are not always rational.

Terrorism

   Researchers have identified two types of  risks: unknown risk and dread risk. Dread risks are associated with catastrophic and fatal outcomes and lack of control. An example to this could be a threat of a nuclear war.

   Gigerenzer (2004) proposed, that after the 11th of September (2001) terrorist attacks in the US, people perceived flying as a dread risk. This is because airplanes were used as a tool for terrorism in those attacks. He further proposed, that many people decided to drive instead of flying soon after the attacks, to reduce the risk of dying in a similar way. If this were the case then one could expect an increase in traffic fatalities. 

   To support his hypothesis, Gigerenzer (2004) compared domestic air travel, driving miles and fatal traffic accidents in the months before and after September 11. He found that there were 317 extra fatal traffic fatalities and 353 "surplus" traffic fatalities in the three months after September 11. He also concluded a second analysis using a longer time frame to see the long-term impact of the attacks and found that 1595 more traffic fatalities occurred between October 2001 and March 2003 than expected if there wouldn't have been any terrorist attacks.

   Su and colleauges (2008) found limitations in Gigerenzer's study. They proposed that firstly, his analysis was descriptive and the basic assumptions were not tested for statistical significance, and secondly, his hypothesis is grounded on changes in the amount of people drove after the attacks. It is true, that less flying and more driving could lead to more fatal traffic fatalities, but driving associated risks are not stable over time and place. For example non-weather-related factors can affect the quality of driving and consequently, the number of fatal traffic accidents (Redelmeier& Stewart, 2003; Selzer & Vinokur, 1975).

   Su and colleauges (2008) proposed, that increase in traffic fatalities took place in the areas closer to the attacks and was more related to how people drove rather than how much.

   Evidence has shown, that people living closer to the sites of the terrorist attacks reported higher levels of stress in the few months directly after the attacks. Relationship between self-reported symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and geographic proximity to the attacks has also been found. (Schlenger et al., 2002)

   Stress has been related to impaired driving (Selzer & Vinokur, 1975). It is possible, that increase in traffic fatalities took place closer to the terrorist sites, because people's stress levels in these regions were higher and their quality of driving was therefore lower. It is further possible, that elevated stress levels led to driving under influence (alcohol, drugs). This has been termed a regional impaired driving effect. Su and colleauges (2008) proposed that any increase in traffic fatalities was more pronounced in the Northeast and around Washington, DC, than in other parts of the country.

   Su and colleauges (2008) re-examined Gigerenzer's dread hypothesis by applyng formal statistical tests to the same data in the same time frames where possible and also testes the regional impaired driving effect. They tested whether:

• U.S domestic flying miles decreased in the three months following the attacks, compared to the same months in the previous years
• total US driving miles increased in the three months following the attacks, compared to the same months in the previous years and whether this increase was greater than historical trends would predict
• the percentage increase in fatal traffic accidents and traffic fatalities was greater than expected in the three months after the attacks

   They did this by using data from the appropriate federal agencies' Web sites and found, that:

• indeed, the US domestic air travel decreased significantly in the three months following the September 11 attacks in 2001, compared to the same months in the previous years
• there was no notable increase in driving miles in the three months after the attacks compared to the same months in the previous years and any observed increase by Gigerenzer was normative according to the historical trends
• there was also no notable increase in traffic fatalities across the US in the three months following the attacks, compared to the same months in the previous years.The number of fatal traffic accidents in the US increased, but only marginally. There was no evidence of an overall increase in traffic fatalities.
• however, there was a significant increase in traffic fatalities in the Northeast region, with the Twin Towers (although, there was no significant increase in driving miles in the same region- meaning the increase in traffic fatalities in the region was not due to people driving more). The same effect was not observed in Northern South Atlantic region, with Pentagon. Perhaps the effects of the attack on Pentagon was experienced less widely than the attack on New York Twin Towers.
• there was a significant increase in the Northeast region in alcohol and drug-related citations issued in connection with the accidents. This supports the regional impaired-driving effect. It is important to note, that we cannot assume causal relationship, since numerous other factors could also be possible. For example, after the terrorist attacks in New York, there were likely to be many road blocks and traffic diversions in place, which means people would have been driving in unfamiliar settings. This is one factor which could have possibly have impact on the way people drove.

 

  References:

 

 Gigerenzer, G. (2004). Dread Risk, September 11, and fatal traffic accidents. Psychological Science, 15, 286-187.

 

 Redelmeier, D.A., & Stewart, C.L. (2003). Driving fatalities on Super Bowl Sunday. New England Journal of Medicine, 348, 368-369.

    

 Schlenger, W.E., Caddell, J.M., Ebert, L., Jordan, B.K., Rourke, K.M., Wilson, D., et al. (2002). Psychological reactions to terrorist attacks: Findings from the National Study of Americans'          Reactions to September 11. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 581-588.

 

 Selzer, M.L., & Vinokur, A. (1975). Role of life events in accident causation. Mental Health & Society, 2, 36-54.

 

 Su, J.C., Tran, A.G.T.T., Wirtz, J.G., Langteau, R.A., & Rothman, A.J. (2008). Driving Under the Influence (of Stress). Evidence of a Regional Increase in Impaired Driving and Traffic Fatalities After the September 11 Terrorist Arracks.

Why are people's judgements outperformed by linear models, including models of their own judgement?

Why are people's judgements outperformed by linear models, including models of their own judgement?

There are several reason for this:

• People can be inconsistent
• they (people) can mistakenly rely on irrelevant information or look at wrong variables as well do addition or multplication errors
• when relying on relevant information, they can weigh the information in the wrong way
• when presented with more information, people can easily identify single cases as exeptions to the rule
• people who are in close contact with particular domains may see a skewed sample of events
• people can underestimate situational factors on other people's behavior- fundamental attribution error
• people may obtain incorrect relationship between cues and criterion
• people are influenced by their past personal experiences as well as fatigue or boredom
• people can misunderstand the task
• people can "follow their feelings" based on the idea, that every case is unique and statistics do not apply
• people have limited information processing capacity
• linear models and models of people's own judgments are consistent and always follow the same rule or a formulae

Research has shown, that people may actually make judgements using fast and frugal heuristics, meaning they often base their judgments on a single cue ( a cue found from memory that enables a judgement to be made)

  It is strange to think about what actually happens in our mids when we make decisions or what we base our judgments on. To most people, like me, we know we have to make a decision and we will do it based on many things like feelings, instinct and considering various variables (for example would the outcome of the decision make us happy?), but we do not really think about what exactly happens in our brains when we do that. Do we? Or maybe it's just me...

Prospect theory

  Prospect theory... ( a small summary)

...consists of two phases:

1. Editing stage. At this stage the decision maker simplifies the problem for the purpose of evaluation and choice. It has 4 sub-stages: coding- based on gains and losses, combination- associated problems, probabilities and outcomes, segregation- separate risky components from non-risky ones, and cancellation- dismissing common values.
2. Evaluation stage has two functions: value function- first gains have a really high value, but the subsequent gains which are also good have less and less value. For example a first drink- a bottle of cold water after half a day at the beach seems priceless, whereas the subsequent drinks are still good, but not the same value.The same works for losses, meaning that the first loss has the highest value- this reminds me of heart-break, the first is always the worst, the subsequent ones are always less and less painful. To compare losses and gains: losses are worse than the gains of the same value; weighting function- the likelihood of things occurring. Sensitivity to changes is probability. Small probabilities have an undue value. For example according to this, it is not very wise to play the national lottery and pay a pound for that, because the £1 ticket's value is actually much less than £1.