The social context of reasoning: Conversational inference and rational judgment.

Hilton, Denis

doi:10.1037/0033-2909.118.2.248

Cited by 387 publications

(195 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…For example, sometimes it is argued that partici- pants construe tasks differently than experimenters (Hilton, 1995;Schwarz, 1996), that many errors are limited to (or at least exacerbated by) the laboratory environment (Anderson, 1990(Anderson, , 1991Klayman & Ha, 1987;McKenzie, 2003McKenzie, , 2004aMcKenzie & Mikkelsen, 2000;McKenzie & Nelson, 2003;Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 2003, and that some purported errors are consistent with an alternative normative standard (Anderson, 1990(Anderson, , 1991Chase, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 1998;Gigerenzer, 1991Gigerenzer, , 1996Gigerenzer et al, 1999;McKenzie, 2004a; Sher & McKenzie, in press;Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 2003. In this article, we invoke all of the above arguments to explain robust ''errors'' in covariation assessment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bayesian View of Covariation Assessment

McKenzie¹,

Mikkelsen²

2000

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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When participants assess the relationship between two variables, each with levels of presence and absence, the two most robust phenomena are that: (a) observing the joint presence of the variables has the largest impact on judgment and observing joint absence has the smallest impact, and (b) participants' prior beliefs about the variables' relationship influence judgment. Both phenomena represent departures from the traditional normative model (the phi coefficient or related measures) and have therefore been interpreted as systematic errors. However, both phenomena are consistent with a Bayesian approach to the task. From a Bayesian perspective: (a) joint presence is normatively more informative than joint absence if the presence of variables is rarer than their absence, and (b) failing to incorporate prior beliefs is a normative error. Empirical evidence is reported showing that joint absence is seen as more informative than joint presence when it is clear that absence of the variables, rather than their presence, is rare. Ó 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Keywords: Covariation assessment; Rationality; Bayesian inference Although reasoning and decision making errors are often reported (e.g., Evans, Newstead, & Byrne, 1993; Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002; Kahneman & Tversky, 2000), they are often disputed as well. For example, sometimes it is argued that partici- pants construe tasks differently than experimenters (Hilton, 1995;Schwarz, 1996), that many errors are limited to (or at least exacerbated by) the laboratory environment (Anderson, 1990(Anderson, , 1991Klayman & Ha, 1987;McKenzie, 2003McKenzie, , 2004aMcKenzie & Mikkelsen, 2000;McKenzie & Nelson, 2003;Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 2003, and that some purported errors are consistent with an alternative normative standard (Anderson, 1990(Anderson, , 1991Chase, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 1998;Gigerenzer, 1991Gigerenzer, , 1996Gigerenzer et al., 1999;McKenzie, 2004a; Sher & McKenzie, in press;Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 2003. In this article, we invoke all of the above arguments to explain robust ''errors'' in covariation assessment. Assessing how variables covary underlies such fundamental behaviors as learning (Hilgard & Bower, 1975), categorization (Smith & Medin, 1981), and judging causation (Cheng, 1997;Cheng & Novick, 1990Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986), to name just a few. Crocker (1981) noted that people's ability to accurately assess covariation allows them to explain the past, control the present, and predict the future. It is hard to imagine a more important cognitive activity and, accordingly, much research has been devoted to this topic since the groundbreaking studies of Inhelder and Piaget (1958) and Smedslund (1963; for reviews, see Allan, 1993;McKenzie, 1994).Despite the important role that covariation assessment plays in people's daily lives, most research over the last four decades examining performance with two binary variables-presumably the simplest possible case-has concluded that people are surprisingly poor at the task. Two robust...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bayesian View of Covariation Assessment

McKenzie¹,

Mikkelsen²

2000

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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“…A person with social intelligence might infer that the experimenter would not have made her read this description if it were of no relevance. Grice's theory of conversational maxims, such as relevance, describes these social inference processes that can decode polysemy (Hilton, 1995). Here, content-blind norms are confronted with social intelligence.…”

Section: Polysemy: Not All Probabilities Are Mathematical Probabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Content-blind norms, no norms, or good norms? A reply to Vranas

Gigerenzer

2001

Cognition

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In the psychology of thinking, little thought is given to what constitutes good thinking. Instead, normative solutions to problems have been accepted at face value, thereby determining what counts as a reasoning fallacy. I applaud Vranas (Cognition 76 (2000) 179) for thinking seriously about norms. I do, however, disagree with his attempt to provide post hoc justi®cations for supposed reasoning fallacies in terms of`content-neutral' norms. Norms need to be constructed for a speci®c situation, not imposed upon it in a contentblind way. The reason is that content-blind norms disregard relevant structural properties of the given situation, including polysemy, reference classes, and sampling. I also show that content-blind norms can, unwittingly, lead to double standards: the norm in one problem is the fallacy in the next. The alternative to content-blind norms is not no norms, but rather carefully designed norms. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.Keywords: Reasoning; Probability; Norms; Rationality; Fallacy; Error IntroductionA psychiatrist I know prescribes Prozac to his depressive patients. As do many drugs, Prozac has side effects. My friend used to inform each patient that he or she had a 30±50% probability of developing a sexual problem such as the loss of libido or peripheral malfunctioning. Upon hearing this, patients became concerned and anxious. After learning of our research on how to help people understand uncertainties, the psychiatrist changed his method of communicating risks to his patients. He

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“…Only in the affirmative is the task valid. For a general presentation of this approach, see Hilton, 1995;Politzer, 1986, in press;Politzer and Macchi, 2000. Let us now review some of the tasks from this viewpoint.…”

Section: The Validity Of the Task: Pragmatic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Rationality and the Experimental Study of Reasoning

Politzer¹

2004

Cognitive Economics

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Abstract. A survey of the results obtained during the past three decades in some of the most widely used tasks and paradigms in the experimental study of reasoning is presented. It is shown that, at first sight, human performance suffers from serious shortcomings. However, after the problems of communication between experimenter and subject are taken into account, which leads to clarify the subject's representation of the tasks, one observes a better performance, although still far from perfect. Current theories of reasoning, of which the two most prominent are very briefly outlined, agree in identifying the load in working memory as the main source of limitation in performance. Finally, a recent view on human rationality prompted by the foregoing results is described.

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The social context of reasoning: Conversational inference and rational judgment.

Cited by 387 publications

References 149 publications

A Bayesian View of Covariation Assessment

A Bayesian View of Covariation Assessment

Content-blind norms, no norms, or good norms? A reply to Vranas

Rationality and the Experimental Study of Reasoning

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