Psychology of Learning

Module 10: Decision-Making 2

Summary

Heuristics & Biases

Decision-making under uncertainty often relies on mental shortcuts.

• Intuition: rapid, effortless judgments based on experience; reliable in familiar domains but error-prone in novel contexts.
• Algorithms vs. heuristics: algorithms guarantee correct solutions but are slow; heuristics are fast but approximate.
• Availability heuristic: judge frequency by ease of recall; vivid, recent, or personal events distort probability estimates.
• Representativeness heuristic: judge probability by similarity to stereotypes; produces base rate neglect & conjunction fallacies.
• Recognition heuristic: prefer familiar options, often useful but vulnerable to advertising & branding effects.
• Other shortcuts: take-the-best (single cue decisions) & fast-and-frugal trees (binary decision trees for speed). Heuristics evolved for survival but mislead in modern contexts where statistical reasoning is required.

Why We Fail at Self-Control

Self-control pits immediate gratification against long-term welfare, paralleling social cooperation dilemmas.

• Self-control vs. social cooperation: both require sacrificing short-term gain for future or collective benefit. Experiments show people cooperate more with themselves (future self) than with others, due to higher certainty of reciprocation.
• Tragedy of the commons: individual rationality can destroy shared resources (e.g., overfishing, pollution).
• Importance of self-control: childhood delay of gratification predicts lifelong success in academics, health, & relationships.
• Delay discounting: subjective value of rewards decreases hyperbolically with delay, producing preference reversals (plans to resist temptations collapse when rewards become immediate).
• Precommitment: constraining future choices helps overcome preference reversals.
• Uncertainty: probabilistic outcomes weaken self-control; feedback restores confidence by clarifying probabilities.
• Willpower: a limited cognitive resource subject to ego depletion, but trainable like a muscle. Failures of self-control stem from steep discounting, uncertainty, & depleted willpower rather than ignorance alone.

Life History Theory & Interventions

Decision strategies reflect evolutionary adaptations to environmental stability.

• Biases: anchoring (initial numbers skew estimates), framing (presentation alters choices), overconfidence (belief exceeds accuracy), gambler’s fallacy (expecting correction in random sequences).
• Life history theory: organisms allocate resources based on environmental conditions.
  • o Fast strategy: impulsive, early reproduction, risk-taking—adaptive in unstable, high-mortality contexts.
  • o Slow strategy: patient, future-focused, high parental investment—adaptive in stable, predictable contexts.
• Human variation: childhood adversity fosters fast strategies (steep discounting, impulsivity); stable environments foster slow strategies (patience, planning).
• Interventions for self-control:
  • o Lower value of impulsive choices (highlight immediate costs, remove temptations).
  • o Raise value of self-controlled choices (emphasize immediate benefits, visualize future rewards, enlist social support).
  • o Use feedback & record-keeping to reduce uncertainty & strengthen commitment.
• Key principle: modify environments & choice architecture rather than relying solely on willpower.

Conclusion

Module 10 shows that decision-making is shaped by heuristics, biases, & evolutionary strategies. Self-control failures arise from hyperbolic discounting, preference reversals, uncertainty, & limited willpower. Effective interventions restructure environments, provide feedback, & leverage evolutionary insights to align immediate choices with long-term welfare.