Optimal and Non-optimal Behavior Across Species

Abstract

We take a behavioral approach to decision-making and, apply it across species. First we review quantitative theories that provide good accounts of both non-human and human choice, as, for example, in operant analogues to foraging (including the optimal diet model and delay-reduction theory). Second we show that for all species studied, organisms will acquire observing responses, whose only function is to produce stimuli correlated with the schedule of reinforcement in effect. Observing responses are maintained only by "good news": "no news" is preferred to "bad news". We then review two areas of decision-making in which human participants (but not necessarily non-humans) tend to make robust errors of judgment or to approach decisions non-optimally. The first area is the sunk-cost effect in which participants persist in a losing course of action, ignoring the currently operative marginal utilities. The second area is base-rate neglect in which participants overweight case cues (such as witness testimony or medical diagnostic tests) and underweight information about the base rates or probabilities of the events in question. In both cases we argue that the poor decisions we make are affected by the misapplication of previously learned rules and strategies that have utility in other situations. These conclusions are strengthened both by the behavioral approach taken and by the data revealed in cross-species comparisons.

When good pigeons make bad decisions: Choice with probabilistic delays and outcomes

“…The suboptimal choice with probabilistic outcomes reported here adds to the growing literature suggesting that animals and people do not always respond in ways that optimize their obtained primary reinforcement (e.g., see Fantino, ; Magalhães & White, ; Zentall, ). The occurrence of suboptimal choice, however, is not necessarily indicative of processes that are suboptimal in nature; behaviors that appear to go awry under artificial laboratory contingencies may in fact be adaptive for the natural pressures under which they evolved.…”

When good news leads to bad choices

“…Despite the importance of making good choices, human and nonhuman animals do not always choose optimally (see Ariely, ; Fantino, ; Kahneman, ; Zentall, ). One striking example of such suboptimal behavior comes from pigeons making decisions for delayed food rewards (e.g., Dunn & Spetch, ; Gipson, Alessandri, Miller, & Zentall, ; Kendall, ).…”