EPTWhy do we.. - Page 2
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
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Daigomi
South Africa4316 Posts
In this study, researchers played probability games with students, and students were given one of two games (out of three games total) to bet on. In the first game, an opaque bowl was filled with 50 red and 50 white marbles, and students could bet on drawing a red marble in one draw. In the second game, the bowl was filled with 90 red and 10 white marbles, and students could bet on drawing seven red marbles in a row. In the final game, the bowl was filled with 10 red and 90 white marbles, and students could bet on drawing 1 red marble in seven draws. When betting, students preferred betting on game 2 rather than game 1 or game 3. When students could choose between game 1 and game 3, they preferred betting on game 1. Probability wise, Game 1 has a 0.50 probability, Game 2 a 0.48 probability, and Game 3 a 0.52 probability. The reason why people preferred Game 2 was because you start with a very high anchor value (90%, omgz) which you then adjust downwards insufficiently, while in Game 3 you start with a very low anchor value (10%) which you then adjust upwards insufficiently. This was one of the studies where participants were later told how anchoring and adjustment works, and also given an incentive to choose accurately (they were told that they really would bet their money), and the effects remained pretty much unchanged. Not really relevant to your specific questions, but it shows a bit how people make "irrational" decisions. However, as I said, these decisions aren't really irrational since they work out quite well most of the time. It just means that in certain situations, people are biased towards higher starting odds in certain, systematic ways. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
I read a statistics book last semester that referenced some studies on how some of the parkinson's treatment can lead to people having perpetual gambling problems - apparently its been found that elevating dopamine levels can affect your ability to see patterns where none exist, leading to the conclusion that there is a kind of hard wired effect in play for certain kinds of behavior like that. | ||
JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
Same with the coffee. You take the extra walk and pay the extra money for the peace of mind that you aren't drinking something questionable. That's not true, like I said I have tasted both coffees and at least I can't tell the difference, so it's not that I'm avoiding a bad product. This stuff is pretty fascinating daigomi, must be a fun master's =) I'll look up Ariely's stuff when I get home, thanks for the tip | ||
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yoshi_yoshi
United States440 Posts
Given that you are not particularly smart or talented there is basically 0% chance that you will have $10 mill in your lifetime. Even if you are these things it will most likely take a buttload of hard work. Lottery is just a shortcut to getting to a place that you otherwise would have no chance of getting to. Depending on your personality, a few bucks can be worth it or totally not worth it. | ||
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Daigomi
South Africa4316 Posts
On March 10 2010 06:48 heyoka wrote: Can you link to some more work on anchoring values and how they work/implications? Ariely talked about them a lot when I saw him speak, its been the most interesting part of this kind of work to me (presumably because I come from a gambling background and had to train myself for years to do this correctly -_-). I read a statistics book last semester that referenced some studies on how some of the parkinson's treatment can lead to people having perpetual gambling problems - apparently its been found that elevating dopamine levels can affect your ability to see patterns where none exist, leading to the conclusion that there is a kind of hard wired effect in play for certain kinds of behavior like that. Are you fine with using things like Science Direct? I'll give you the references for a few interesting studies from my research proposal. I don't really have web links though, since I can't really use them in my research, so I don't bother checking. Anyway, here are some studies you can look at: + Show Spoiler [some sources] + Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185 (1), 1124-1131. That is the very first article on heuristics, and goes into the availability heuristics, anchoring and adjustment, and one other I can't remember now :p It has three nice anchoring experiments in it (including the one I just mentioned). Gilovich, T. (2002). Introduction – Heuristics and biases: Then and now. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 1-18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. If you can get that book, it is awesome, and that chapter basically summarises all the anchoring research done from 1974 to 2002. Englich, B., & Mussweiler, T. (2001). Sentencing under uncertainty: Anchoring effects in the courtroom. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31 (7), 1535-1551. That one is fairly interesting. It looks at how the requested sentence serves as an anchor for the judge recommending a prison sentence. Mussweiler, T., & Schneller, K. (2003). "What goes up must come down": How charts influence decisions to sell and buy stocks. Journal of Behavioral Finance, 4 (3), 121-130. It discusses how anchoring and adjustment contradicts some of the claims of the rational market hypothesis. Also, quite an interesting study. Other than that, there is a book by Scott Plous on all the cognitive biases which is quite interesting: Plous, S. (1993). The psychology of judgement and decision making. New York: McGraw-Hill. Instead of focusing on the technicalities, it just looks at experiment after experiment, and how the biases affects peoples decisions in real life. Quite fun to read, I read it in like a day (not that it's thick, but academic reading is never quick for me...) | ||
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Salv
Canada3083 Posts
Just what I heard. EDIT: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/fp/money/Hortons heats battle over breakfast/2480925/story.html | ||
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Salv
Canada3083 Posts
On March 10 2010 05:43 Rekrul wrote: people get by day to day in their miserable lives by looking to the future or hoping for something more (ala religion, or hoping they win the lottery) Are you referring to a coworker weekly lottery pool? I've worked at places that have these pools where every one chips in, and I never talked to one person who was expecting to win or looked at it as something remotely possible, it was just something fun to do. | ||
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CoOl]1st[
United States243 Posts
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buickskylark
Canada664 Posts
have you tried to live in the most logical way? It's impossible. Firstly, 'logic' can be subjective because what's a perfectly logical choice to you is an illogical choice to another. Secondly, if you tried to make the smartest decisions possible for every action you take you become completely immobilized because the possibilities are infinite. | ||
Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
On March 10 2010 07:51 Salv wrote: Are you referring to a coworker weekly lottery pool? I've worked at places that have these pools where every one chips in, and I never talked to one person who was expecting to win or looked at it as something remotely possible, it was just something fun to do. no i'm referring to broke people who play the lotto every day | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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Rekrul
Korea (South)17174 Posts
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Newbistic
China2912 Posts
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