18
votes
Accepted
Basis for "we make 35,000 decisions a day" statistic
Concurring with the comments on the Skeptics question, I am also not aware of a standardized operationalization of "number of decisions" that could be used to produce a meaningful measure ...
- 19.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Pros and Cons of PsychoPy for designing psychological experiments?
I highly recommend PsychoPy over E-prime. Why?
Keeping track of who has the e-prime dongle is annoying.
Students learn it more easily (see data below).
E-prime uses visual basic (boo) and PsychoPy ...
- 261
6
votes
Accepted
Why do some people refuse to wear their seat belt while being aware of the risks?
I think this is a rather difficult question to answer. Psychology Today sums up some interesting reasons why people totally aware of the risks involved in not wearing a seat belt (or in smoking ...
- 20.7k
6
votes
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Wisdom of crowds vs group polarization
Great question.
Wisdom of crowds happens when participants are motivated to find a "correct" answer. The classic example is counting jelly beans in a jar - where the average of guesses ...
- 19.8k
6
votes
Is a decision caused by a prior brain state?
"Cause" is a tricky word with multiple operational meanings. Most often in experimental science the word "cause" means something more similar to the word "influence" in a ...
- 7,735
5
votes
Accepted
Where are scientific references for the claims made in "Thinking Fast and Slow"
Just found the book I used to study decision making. It's called Judgement and Decision Making and is written by Daniel and David Hardman. It is a perfect introductory book on the topic with ...
- 3,162
5
votes
Accepted
Are emotions needed to make decisions?
Phineas Gage style indeed (is that a precursor to Gangnam style?) - ironically (referring to one large iron rod), Phineas Gage's accident is believed to have entirely removed his OFC, as well as parts ...
- 19.8k
5
votes
Why does having many options harm decision making?
The problems presented by having too many choices are defined at the personal level by Overchoice and at the organization level as Analysis Paralysis. However, they both cover the same idea, wherein ...
- 8,853
5
votes
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Does the subconscious mind communicate its analysis through emotions?
First, there's not complete agreement in psychology nor neuroscience: you can find support for most any imaginable position. But in terms of the consensus of recent peer-reviewed work, here are some ...
- 1,478
5
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Do people always decide to do things that they believe will provide them the maximum amount of positive feelings in their conscious life?
I would say that the more compelling scientific evidence would suggest the opposite.
Daniel Kahnemann got a Nobel Prize for behavioural economics, part of which discussed that the default decision ...
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4
votes
What is the term for when too many choices results in inability to decide?
Overchoice or "choice overload" are the common used terms for
describing the cognitive process in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with many options (Wikipedia on ...
- 137
4
votes
What experiment in a simple decision task should we run to obtain one million trials?
I agree with Marc-André, the selected stimuli should have no semantic association (or as little as possible) which is why I would encourage the use of geometric shapes that vary in colour. ...
- 41
4
votes
What experiment in a simple decision task should we run to obtain one million trials?
I like this idea! I think the task should be one where the data could be used by many analytic tools. Hence, the data would not only be beneficial for one particular question, for example parameter ...
4
votes
What experiment in a simple decision task should we run to obtain one million trials?
Just a few comments...
Since one of the advantages of a large data set is high statistical power, it might be a good idea to use a task where the key effect has not been found in previous studies. ...
- 41
4
votes
Accepted
What experiment in a simple decision task should we run to obtain one million trials?
I don't like the idea that the task should be low error, errors are needed for modeling choice. I don't like random dot motion because there are big individual difference making it hard to find a ...
4
votes
Accepted
What research is there on how people go from examining/gathering evidence to executing on a decision?
It's possible that there is no sharp threshold between information gathering and acting. A recent paper by Piantadosi exploring that possibility, and citing a ton of (admittedly more conventional/...
- 1,399
4
votes
Accepted
System 1 thinking and ADHD
I think there's very likely a connection between the two, but not a direct one.
The first difficulty will be visible when you dig into the literature on Dual Process Theory — that's the overarching ...
- 326
4
votes
Accepted
How does our brain allow us to commit suicide?
The survival instinct is not the only drive that decides whether or not a person will choose to continue or end his/her life. Other instincts that have been evolved to increase the survival chance of ...
- 1,845
3
votes
Basis for "we make 35,000 decisions a day" statistic
A serious answer exists to a sort-of-related question though, you can track the "energy budget" of the brain and see how much glucose/oxygen it's burning. 'Number of decisions' might be a silly way to ...
- 1,399
3
votes
Is Decision-Making Emotionally Based, with Rationalization as the only Conscious Component?
The human brain is subject to many faults and biases (Kahneman, 2011).
Human beings usually use heuristics, screening, ranking, and other rules of thumb to limit the complexity of a decision.
...
- 137
3
votes
Accepted
Why is it easier to neglect one's self than others?
It seems that what you are describing is Empathy-Altruism.
Debate over whether other-helping behavior is motivated by self- or other interest has raged over the last 20 or so years. The prime people ...
- 12.3k
3
votes
Accepted
Can we truly random choose which finger to raise by counting to 10 in your mind?
I think your question ultimately is about whether people can or are able to behave like a uniform random number generator drawing numbers from 1 to 10.
I don't think the fact that the participant ...
- 30.8k
3
votes
What processes underlies confidence ratings in cognitive decision-making?
Note: There are different kinds of confidence ratings (eg, confidence in skill or ability, confidence in knowledge or expertise, etc). This answer only addresses the question as asked, regarding ...
- 19.8k
3
votes
Why do some people refuse to wear their seat belt while being aware of the risks?
Despite the neatness of the Hyperbolic Discounting idea in the first answer, I think it extremely unlikely that anyone would find putting a seatbelt on so much of a hassle that the reward gained from ...
- 131
3
votes
Accepted
What's the relationship between priming and availability heuristic?
Psychological Priming and Availability Heuritic are both concepts within Social Psychology and Behavioural Psychology. Although I can see where you are trying to make a link here, and there could be ...
- 12.3k
3
votes
Why does having many options harm decision making?
There are several perspectives that you can take in understanding your (and others) difficulties in making decisions when there are a lot of options. You could think like a psychologist, in terms of ...
- 176
3
votes
Accepted
What is the name of the phenomenon that would make me choose A over B because I was influenced by a trend?
Bandwagon effect:
The bandwagon effect is a phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others. In other ...
3
votes
Accepted
On a variation of Trolley's problem. How to explain the survey's results?
The two problems might seem to be equivalent but they aren't - in the "John" scenario those advocating not to arrest John and harvest his delicious organs are pointing out that:
that John should ...
- 146
3
votes
Is a decision caused by a prior brain state?
It should be obvious just by the existence of the question "Why did you do that?" that decisions are not First Causes. If they have an answer for "Why" they did something, their ...
- 131
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