The Perils of Intuition Chapter 4 - PowerPoint Presentation

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The Perils of Intuition

Chapter 4

Intuitions about our Past and Future

Illusory Intuitions

Cognitive Errors that exist in the present because they led to survival and reproductive advantages for humans in the past.

e.g., Sexual Overperception Bias (Haselton & Buss, 2000)

Men overestimate women’s sexual interest while women tend to underestimate men’s interest.

Why?

Reproductive costs of sexual Underperception are greater for men than the risk of making false positives.

For, women, evolutionarily speaking, sexual overperception is more costly than underperception. women who over-perceived the commitment of a male, are more likely to end up with an unintended pregnancy, lack of a partner to raise a child with, and her own reputation at risk.

Constructing Memories

Memory Point of View.

Memories viewed from your original perspective 

Field Memories

because they encompass your visual 

field

 of view. 

Observer memories

 are when you see yourself in your memory as an outside 

observer

 would have seen you.

Observer Memories are evidence that memories are not exact copies of experienced events

Daniel Offer conducted interviews of 73 high school male freshmen. He followed those subjects for eight years and then caught up with most of them again when all were in their late 40s.

The 48-year-old subjects had little ability to accurately recall answers they had given in the original study. E.g. Is sex in high school okay?, were you physically disciplined? . . . . .

Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 men, starting with their undergraduate days.“It is all too common for caterpillars to become butterflies and then to maintain that in their youth they had been butterflies”. George Vaillant

Relationship Studies

Diane Holmberg and John Holmes (1994) Interviewed 373 newlywed couples, most of whom reported being very happy.When resurveyed two years later, those whose marriages had ended, recalled that things had always been bad. “Such biases can lead to a dangerous downward spiral. The worse your current view of your partner is, the worse your memories are, which only further confirms your negative attitudes.”

Memory of Pain

Daniel Kahneman and Colonoscopy pain

Video

(min 4–6:35)

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive emotions differently.

The 

peak–end rule-

psychological heuristic in which people judge experiences based on how they were at their

peak

(i.e., most intense point) and at their end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. It occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant.

Other failures of Intuitions about our past.

Mood Dependent Memorywhen depressed we recall negative past events when happy we recall happier events.Misinformation Effect e.g. Loftus’ studies

False Memories e.g., Ceci and Bruck (1995)Source MisattributionsThe inability to distinguish an actual memory of an event from information you learned about the event elsewhere.

 The illusion of confidence

In

court room deliberations, a jury can easily fall victim to confusing a speaker’s confidence with his or her credibility, with more confident speakers deemed more credible. 

It appears to make “intuitive” sense that you should trust your doctor more if they appear more confident when they are giving you medical advice.  We might intuitively lose confidence in doctors who have to consult with a reference book before advising us.  However, research has shown that confidence is not a good indicator of ability (e.g. Kruger & Dunning, 1999).

How accurately do people predict their emotional reactions to future events?

Daniel Gilbert – Stumbling on HappinessFew of us can accurately gauge how we will feel tomorrow or next week.“Bad things don’t affect us as profoundly as we expect them to. That’s true of good things, too. We adapt very quickly to either.”TED Talk if you are Interested

Misinterpreting Our Own Behavior

S

wim and Hyers study on responses to sexist comments.

109

women were asked to imagine themselves as part of a small group given the task of assigning castaways roles on a deserted island. The participants read that one of the men in the group repeatedly said sexist things, such as "I think we need more women on the island to keep the men happy," and "one of the women can cook."

Fifty

percent anticipated commenting publicly on the inappropriateness of the guy's comments.

About

40% of the participants anticipated that they would also use sarcasm and 

humor to

confront the sexist

remark

.

8

% anticipated that they would hit or punch.

All

in all, a full 81% of the women in the study predicted that they would give at least one confrontational response.

Study 2

Swim

and Hyers actually 

ran

 the study, and recorded the behavior of the female participants who were part of such a  group. The results?

Only

16% of women who actually participated in the study commented on the inappropriateness of the response.

Two

percent grumbled, and nobody hit or punched.