Questions tagged [decision-making]
For questions regarding the cognitive processes which result in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios.
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Is anonymous unanimity result a good thing?
I watched this video explaining why unanimous decisions aren't always a good thing, because of the influence of external factors (like corruption). I was wondering if an anonymous unanimous agreement ...
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19 views
Choices and satisfaction
Say person A can choose from some items one to be his own. After some time he can come back and replace it with another.
A person B can choose as well but cannot replace once chosen.
Are both the ...
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Probability distribution for a random variable related to self-assignment of a person's degree of belief
I am not a psychologist or neuroscientist. I am a mathematician wondering about how a person normally evaluate its own degree of belief in a given proposition.
Suppose a person X is given a question ...
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48 views
Do people have an innate preference to take matters into their own hands?
People usually want to make their own decisions. Those looking for spouses often listen to their inner romantic instincts and reject advice from more experienced people. Drivers are skeptical about ...
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1answer
30 views
How can we overcome positional bias when selecting an option on a screen/document?
I think the question is best described by an example:
You are at a doctors office and are about to have a conversation about you birth control prescription.
Before you can enter you have to decide if ...
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114 views
Bayesian models of conspiracy theorists
Are there any theories in cognitive psychology that try to model the belief in conspiracy theories through the lens of Bayesian decision theory?
For reference, in Bayesian decision theory a rational ...
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24 views
Why does asking opinion helps making choices? [closed]
You probably notice that you have have choice to make but you feel no preference for a certain option, you tend to ask for others opinion. When they give their opinion, you certainly noticed that you ...
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47 views
Why do people seem to do the opposite of what they were told regardless if their actions have repercussions or not?
In My Country Uganda, we are put under total lockdown. a curfew was imposed that starts at 7 Pm, but on the contrary, when it clocked 7 PM, people were not in their houses but rather on the verandas ...
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1answer
113 views
Why is toilet paper out of stock around the world during the coronavirus outbreak?
Ok, I am not going to fuss around the issue. The question is simple, but the internet is oozing with self-proclaimed behavioral scientists answering the question and it's hard to find a good, ...
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2answers
56 views
How can humans tell when something diverges from the norm
With this I mean the notion of humans being able to, for example, look at a painting and tell that something doesn't belong in there. For example sun glasses on the Mona Lisa, without prior knowledge ...
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1answer
54 views
Who was the first to use Softmax to model decision making?
Softmax is a mathematical function frequently used to model probabilistic choice between multiple alternatives associated with different values, e.g. two arms in a bandit task; See for example [1] and ...
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1answer
77 views
On a variation of Trolley's problem. How to explain the survey's results?
It is not long since a friend of mine reported about an experiment they would do in their philosophy class, or rather, in their philosophy classes. At that time, his and the parallel class were ...
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44 views
What is the best way to overcome: Why facts don't change our minds? [duplicate]
What is the best way to overcome: Why facts don't change our minds?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
I want to get climate change deniers to seriously ...
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1answer
2k views
Explanation of "I never thought I'd get this far" [closed]
There's a phenomenon where people get to a stage in life they never thought they'd see it and they don't know what to do. Why is that? Why is that when we're faced with a non-foreseeable dilemma we ...
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2answers
73 views
Do people always decide to do things that they believe will provide them the maximum amount of positive feelings in their conscious life?
Is there any scientific study or theory which supports the following claim? - People always decide to act in accordance with things they believe will guarantee them the maximum amount of positive ...
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2answers
72 views
Could human decision making have evolved from food finding?
One of the things human's do (and possibly other animals) is consider various options, imagine what they would be like, and then make a choice. This is called a "tree search". For example, "should I ...
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1answer
196 views
How does our brain allow us to commit suicide?
How does our brain allow us to commit suicide?
Our brain and everything in our body has developed to ensure our survival. At the prospect of a threat to our life, our brain does everything to save us ...
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Is Autism associated with an increased drowning risk for adults?
I have found several popular articles (e.g. ScienceDaily, The Globe and Mail, and WebMD) indicating that children with Autism have a significantly elevated risk of drowning. The general theory seems ...
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Upper Bounds on Rat Maze Complexity
Suppose you make a rat run through a maze to find it's food. Every day, you put the rat into the same maze. The first few times this rat has to run the maze, it will probably take a little while to ...
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1answer
67 views
Do humans really feel that a \$99 price tag is significantly lower than a \$100 one?
Do humans really feel that a \$99 price tag is significantly lower than a \$100 one?
Is there a name for this phenomenon and research supporting it?
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2answers
126 views
System 1 and unconsious
Kahneman (2011) apparently suggests there is system 1 and system 2 in decision making.
If I am not wrong he says system 1 is more prone to errors because it is automatic. Is this correct assumption ...
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0answers
50 views
Is decision making inference?
Inference is the process of generating further premises from information. Sperber et al (2012) write:
'An inference, as the term is used in psychology, is a process that, given some input information ...
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1answer
19 views
Correct term for realistic user behaviour and decision making
Describing the limitations of my study surrounding the modeling of domestic hot water storage tanks, I want to find a precise term to describe realistic user behavior, which was disregarded in my ...
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free will studies in long term decisoin making [duplicate]
this wikidepia article has a list of experiments and discussion around free will in neuroscience. One thing it notes is that there aren't studies focused on long term decision making in relation to ...
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1answer
123 views
Can one learn not to panic? How?
It's always impressive to listen to the professionalism of a commercial pilot communicating in a crisis situation, apparently remaining calm and in control in terrifying circumstances, with terrible ...
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1answer
362 views
System 1 thinking and ADHD
I'm interested in learning if there is any connection between System 1/System 2 thinking and ADHD. The former is a theory about the process underlying decision making, and the latter is a mental ...
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1answer
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Asking for illogical things to make extreme views normal?
A couple of months back I was reading an article about how politicians were asking to make decisions that are way beyond possible (name it unreasonable, unacceptable, illogical) just as a medium of ...
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1answer
1k views
Why do people bid on online auctions sooner than a few seconds before it ends? [closed]
This is something that has always puzzled me about human behavior on online auction platforms. I am talking about a specific platform where you can sell almost any item you want with a starting bid ...
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1answer
108 views
Does the subconscious mind communicate its analysis through emotions?
I'm reading this article by Marianne Cantwell, in the middle of the article, she quotes Jonah Lehrer's book How We Decide:
“When a person is drawn to a specific item on the menu or a particular
...
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1answer
72 views
What is the name of the phenomenon that would make me choose A over B because I was influenced by a trend?
I've looked at these 1,2,3 and I don't think they answer my question fully.
Let's say it's election time and I'm on the fence about who to vote for. I see some survey on the news and seeing party A ...
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0answers
59 views
What if MBTI differs a lot for short-term and long-term lifestyle?
Regarding the famous MBTI test, I am confused about how stable are the four indicators?
As of my experience, most people are certain whether they are introverted or extroverted. For the other three ...
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1answer
51 views
What research is there on how people go from examining/gathering evidence to executing on a decision?
I'm curious what research there is about when/how people decide to stop evaluating or gathering evidence, and actually begin executing on an action, and how the order of information presented could ...
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3answers
121 views
Why does having many options harm decision making?
I wonder what is the negative of having many possibilities. I sometimes find my self stagnate in some process when it comes to decision making. An the more opportunities I have the more I struggle. ...
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1answer
154 views
Are emotions needed to make decisions?
Oprah.com says:
It turns out, though, that for most people there is no such thing as a purely rational self. Decision making is intrinsically linked to our emotions, so much so that when a person ...
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Why are young girls writing love letters to the Parkland shooter?
Nikolas Cruz, now widely known as the shooter responsible for killing 17 students in Parkland, Florida and injuring another 17, is according to both CNN and the Sun Sentinel receiving piles of love ...
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1answer
130 views
Preconditioning before asking a favor
Suppose I want to borrow an item, such as a phone charger from someone.
Instead of directly asking them, "Could I borrow a charger?"
I first ask this question: "Do you have a charger?"
The act of ...
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1answer
134 views
Intuition behind loss quadrant of prospect theory
This picture summarizes prospect theory by Daniel Kahneman.
Looking at the gains part: The slope of the graph is getting smaller. I can understand this: If I own a million, then adding 100 euro's ...
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False statement by a dominant person in a group survives even if that person leaves the group
Can someone point me to a source for this study:
There was a group, in which a dominant person established a belief in
a false statement by speaking with high confidence. The group still
...
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1answer
2k views
What's the relationship between priming and availability heuristic?
As I have understood, availability heuristic means that things that are "available" in one's cognition (one has thought recently) are prone to influence one's perception.
Priming has been explained ...
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payoff matrix design for games of chance
I am trying to get a foothold into a new area for me. In games of chance (e.g., the lottery or roulette) I would like to understand how to setup the payout matrix. For example, in roulette, there are ...
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73 views
A mind experiment about probability [closed]
Consider a mind experiment: you are stuck inside a trapped room. There are only two ways for you to go out and you have to choose one. Would you rather go through four traps each with 20% chance of ...
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458 views
Anchoring Heuristic: a type of heuristic or the mechanism of functioning of heuristics?
Heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us to make decisions and judgments quickly, without spending time analyizing any aspect of reality.
There are several different categories of heuristics, ...
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115 views
Random-dot kinematograms implementation in javascript/HTML
I am looking for a "random-dot kinematograms" implementation in javascript/HTML that I can use in web-based experiments. Something like this, where the user can specify the direction using a mouse or ...
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90 views
Is there a psychological term for enduring hardship to achieve a promised state?
I'm new to CogSci and to Psychology in general, so forgive me if this question has been answered before...
I see a pattern in many sociological environments that goes like this:
Someone promises a ...
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3answers
329 views
Psychology of disrespect and being proud of law breaking. How does it work and how to combat it?
I'm gonna talk about Russia. :) I'm not interested in foreign policy, relations, for this question... maybe just a tiny bit.
A little preamble.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union (hereinafter S....
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2answers
3k views
Why do some people refuse to wear their seat belt while being aware of the risks?
I have multiple friends that simply refuse to wear their seat belt whenever they ride in a car. I make them wear it when in my car, but in any other situation they choose to go without it. They are ...
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2answers
20k views
Basis for "we make 35,000 decisions a day" statistic
In an advertisement by Microsoft for their To-Do product they use a statistic that we "make over 35,000" decisions a day. Unsurprisingly, they don't cite a source. Is there any scholarly basis for ...
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Why is it easier to neglect one's self than others? [closed]
If I am hungry, I often ignore my hunger because I'm more interested in continuing what I'm currently working on than getting myself food. However, if someone else (my girlfriend, a friend, a sibling, ...
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56 views
How to assess the rationality of real-life decisions?
I am looking for scales that measure the extent to which the process by which a person arrived at a real-life decision conformed to the principles of decision theory. I am specifically interested in ...
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1answer
76 views
Can we truly random choose which finger to raise by counting to 10 in your mind?
If a test person is asked to raise one of his 10 fingers at a given signal, is the choice truly random if he counts in his mind from 1 to 10 and associates with each number one of his fingers? The 1 ...
