Clinical diagnostic medicine is an experimental science based on observation, hypothesis making, and testing. It is an use dynamic process that involves observation and summary, diagnostic conjectures, testing, review, observation and summary, new or revised conjectures, i.e. it is an iterative process. It can then be said that diagnostic hypotheses are also ‘observation-laden’. My aim is to enlarge on the strategies of medical diagnosis as these are meshed in training and clinical experience—that is, to describe the patterns of reasoning used (...) by experienced clinicians under different diagnostic circumstances and how these patterns of inquiry allow further insight into the evaluation and treatment of patients. I do not aim to present a theory and illustrate it with examples; I wish rather am to let a realistic example, similar to actual clinical scenarios, direct the exposition. To this end, I introduce an account of medical diagnosis—briefly comparing and contrasting it to other accounts—in order to focus on discussing the process of diagnosis through a detailed clinical case. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHumans are cognitive misers because their basic tendency is to default to processing mechanisms of low computational expense. Such a tendency leads to suboptimal outcomes in certain types of hostile environments. The theoretical inferences made from correct and incorrect responding on heuristics and biases tasks have been overly simplified, however. The framework developed here traces the complexities inherent in these tasks by identifying five processing states that are possible in most heuristics and biases tasks. The framework also identifies three possible (...) processing defects: inadequately learned mindware; failure to detect the necessity of overriding the miserly response; and failure to sustain the override process once initiated. An important insight gained from using the framework is that degree of mindware instantiation is strongly related to the probability of successful detection and override. Thus, errors on such tasks cannot be unambiguously attributed to miserly processing – and corre... (shrink)

Individual differences on a variety of framing and conjunction problems were examined in light of Slovic and Tversky's (1974) understanding/acceptance principle-that more reflective and skilled reasoners are more likely to affirm the axioms that define normative reasoning and to endorse the task construals of informed experts. The predictions derived from the principle were confirmed for the much discussed framing effect in the Disease Problem and for the conjunction fallacy on the Linda Problem. Subjects of higher cognitive ability were disproportionately likely (...) to avoid each fallacy. Other framing problems produced much more modest levels of empirical support. It is conjectured that the varying patterns of individual differences are best explained by two-process theories of reasoning (e.g. Evans, 1984, 1996; Sloman, 1996) conjoined with the assumption that the two processes differentially reflect interactional and analytic intelligence. (shrink)

In the field of psychology, the topic of everyday life as a specific subject of inquiry has been afforded little attention. Indeed, everyday life has recently been analyzed mainly in psychological studies that examine people's ways of behaving and thinking when they act in situations termed as mundane and ordinary. These studies are mainly carried out in two fields of social psychology which we refer to in general terms as Social Cognition and Social Representation Theory. The aim of this paper (...) is to examine how both these fields treat some of the features commonly attributed to everyday life. In particular, the features of familiarization, continuity and stability over time and automaticity are discussed in order to try to figure out meeting points between the two fields mentioned. (shrink)

Canonical economic agents act so as to maximize a single, representative, utility function. However, there is accumulating evidence that heterogeneity in thought processes may be an important determinant of individual behavior. This paper investigates the implications of a vector-valued generalization of the Expected Utility paradigm, which permits agents either to deliberate as per Homo economics, or to act impulsively. This generalized decision theory is applied to explain the crowding-out effect, irrational educational investment decisions, persistent social inequalities, the pervasive influence of (...) non-cognitive ability on socio-economic outcomes, and the dynamic relationships between non-cognitive ability, cognitive ability, and behavioral biases. These results suggest that the generalized decision theory warrants further investigation. (shrink)

“Hard obscurantism” is a species of the genus scholarly obscurantism. A rough intensional definition of hard obscurantism is that models and procedures become ends in themselves, dissociated from their explanatory functions. In the present article, I exemplify and criticize hard obscurantism by examining the writings of eminent economists and political scientists.

ABSTRACTA recent line of argument insists that replacing democracy with markets would improve social decision making due to markets’ superior use of knowledge. These arguments are flawed by unrealistic assumptions, unfair comparisons, and a neglect of the epistemic limits of markets. In reality, the epistemic advantages of markets over democracy are circumscribed and often illusory. A recognition of markets’ epistemic limits can, however, provide guidance for designing institutions in ways that capture the advantages of both.

Drawing on the spiral of silence theory and heuristic information processing, we contend that individuals use likes as sources for assessing public opinion. We further argue that individuals may even adapt their personal opinions to the tenor reflected in those cues. The assumptions were tested using data from an experiment involving 501 participants, who encountered media items on two issues with or without likes. The findings show that respondents inferred public opinion from the media bias if it was supported by (...) likes, however, only in cases of high levels of fear of social isolation. Respondents further adapted their personal opinion to the media bias if it was supported by likes. (shrink)

The notion of risk plays a central role in economics, finance, health, psychology, law and elsewhere, and is prevalent in managing challenges and resources in day-to-day life. In recent work, Duncan Pritchard (2015, 2016) has argued against the orthodox probabilistic conception of risk on which the risk of a hypothetical scenario is determined by how probable it is, and in favour of a modal conception on which the risk of a hypothetical scenario is determined by how modally close it is. (...) In this article, we use Pritchard’s discussion as a springboard for a more wide-ranging discussion of the notion of risk. We introduce three different conceptions of risk: the standard probabilistic conception, Pritchard’s modal conception, and a normalcy conception that is new (though it has some precursors in the psychological literature on risk perception). Ultimately, we argue that the modal conception is ill-suited to the roles that a notion of risk is required to play and explore the prospects for a form of pluralism about risk, embracing both the probabilistic and the normalcy conceptions. (shrink)

Since the 1970’s there has been a major increase in adventure sports participation but it seems that engagement in such sports comes with a stigma: adventure sports participants are often regarded as reckless ‘daredevils’. We approach the questions about people’s perception of risk and recklessness in adventure sports by combining empirical research with philosophical analysis. First, we provide empirical evidence that suggests that laypeople tend to assess the danger of adventure sports as greater than more mundane sports and judge adventure (...) sports participants as more reckless than participants in non-adventure sports. We contextualise these findings within existing psychological risk perception paradigms and outline new philosophical explanations of the identified pattern in laypeople’s risk perception. (shrink)

Mountaineering is a dangerous activity. For many mountaineers, part of its very attraction is the risk, the thrill of danger. Yet mountaineers are often regarded as reckless or even irresponsible for risking their lives. In this paper, we offer a defence of risk-taking in mountaineering. Our discussion is organised around the fact that mountaineers and non-mountaineers often disagree about how risky mountaineering really is. We hope to cast some light on the nature of this disagreement – and to argue that (...) mountaineering may actually be worthwhile because of the risks it involves. Section 1 introduces the disagreement and, in doing so, separates out several different notions of risk. Sections 2–4 then consider some explanations of the disagreement, showing how a variety of phenomena can skew people's risk judgements. Section 5 then surveys some recent statistics, to see whether these illuminate how risky mountaineering is. In light of these considerations, however, we suggest that the disagreement is best framed not simply in terms of how risky mountaineering is but whether the risks it does involve are justified. The remainder of the paper, sections 6–9, argues that risk-taking in mountaineering often is justified – and, moreover, that mountaineering can itself be justified by and because of the risks it involves. (shrink)

Mountaineering is a dangerous activity. For many mountaineers, part of its very attraction is the risk, the thrill of danger. Yet mountaineers are often regarded as reckless or even irresponsible for risking their lives. In this paper, we offer a defence of risk-taking in mountaineering. Our discussion is organised around the fact that mountaineers and non-mountaineers often disagree about how risky mountaineering really is. We hope to cast some light on the nature of this disagreement – and to argue that (...) mountaineering may actually be worthwhile because of the risks it involves. Section 1 introduces the disagreement and, in doing so, separates out several different notions of risk. Sections 2–4 then consider some explanations of the disagreement, showing how a variety of phenomena can skew people's risk judgements. Section 5 then surveys some recent statistics, to see whether these illuminate how risky mountaineering is. In light of these considerations, however, we suggest that the disagreement is best framed not simply in terms of how risky mountaineering is but whether the risks it does involve are justified. The remainder of the paper, sections 6–9, argues that risk-taking in mountaineering often is justified – and, moreover, that mountaineering can itself be justified (in part) by and because of the risks it involves. (shrink)

Afterthoughts on biases in history perception Contemporary social psychology describes various deformations of processing social information leading to distortions of knowledge about other people. What is more, a person in everyday life refers to lay convictions and ideas common in his/her cultural environment that distort his/her perceptions. Therefore it is difficult to be surprised that authors of narrations in which participants of history are presented use easily available common-sense psychology, deforming images of both the participants of history and their activities, (...) as well as the sequence of events determined by these activities. Which cognitive biases, how often, and in what intensity they will be presented in historical narrations depend on statements of dominating common-sense psychology. The article outlines some biases made by historian-lay psychologists, such as attributional asymmetry or hindsight effects, whose occurrence in their thinking, as formed in the cultural sphere of the West, influences history perception and conducted historical interpretations. (shrink)

A range of formal models of human reasoning have been proposed in a number of fields such as philosophy, logic, artificial intelligence, computer science, psychology, cognitive science, etc.: various logics, probabilistic systems, belief revision systems, neural networks, among others. Now, it seems reasonable to require that formal models of human reasoning be empirically adequate if they are to be viewed as models of the phenomena in question. How are formal models of human reasoning typically put to empirical test? One way (...) to do so is to isolate a number of key principles of the system, and design experiments to gauge the extent to which participants do or do not follow them in reasoning tasks. Another way is to take relevant existing results and check whether a particular formal model predicts these results. The present investigation provides an illustration of the second kind of empirical testing by comparing two formal models for reasoning – namely the non-monotonic logic known as preferential logic; and a particular version of belief revision theories, screened belief revision – against the reasoning phenomenon known as belief bias in the psychology of reasoning literature: human reasoners typically seek to maintain the beliefs they already hold, and conversely to reject contradicting incoming information. The conclusion of our analysis will be that screened belief revision is more empirically adequate with respect to belief bias than preferential logic and non-monotonic logics in general, as what participants seem to be doing is above all a form of belief management on the basis of background knowledge. The upshot is thus that, while it may offer valuable insights into the nature of human reasoning, preferential logic is ultimately inadequate as a formal model of the phenomena in question. (shrink)

A range of formal models of human reasoning have been proposed in a number of fields such as philosophy, logic, artificial intelligence, computer science, psychology, cognitive science, etc.: various logics, probabilistic systems, belief revision systems, neural networks, among others. Now, it seems reasonable to require that formal models of human reasoning be empirically adequate if they are to be viewed as models of the phenomena in question. How are formal models of human reasoning typically put to empirical test? One way (...) to do so is to isolate a number of key principles of the system, and design experiments to gauge the extent to which participants do or do not follow them in reasoning tasks. Another way is to take relevant existing results and check whether a particular formal model predicts these results. The present investigation provides an illustration of the second kind of empirical testing by comparing two formal models for reasoning – namely the non-monotonic logic known as preferential logic; and a particular version of belief revision theories, screened belief revision – against the reasoning phenomenon known as belief bias in the psychology of reasoning literature: human reasoners typically seek to maintain the beliefs they already hold, and conversely to reject contradicting incoming information. The conclusion of our analysis will be that screened belief revision is more empirically adequate with respect to belief bias than preferential logic and non-monotonic logics in general, as what participants seem to be doing is above all a form of belief management on the basis of background knowledge. The upshot is thus that, while it may offer valuable insights into the nature of human reasoning, preferential logic is ultimately inadequate as a formal model of the phenomena in question. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Twenty years ago Leif Lewin made the case that altruistic motives are more common than selfish motives among voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. We propose that motives and beliefs emerge as reactions to immediate feedback from technical-causal, material-economic, and moral-social aspects of the political task environment. In the absence of certain kinds of technical-causal and material-economic feedback, moral-social feedback leads individuals to the altruism Lewin documents, but also to righteousness (moralized regard for the in-group and disregard for the out-group) and (...) myopia (disregard for distant consequences). The mix of altruism, righteousness, and myopia increases the focus on winning the next high-stakes election rather than on discovering or enforcing socially productive institutions. (shrink)

Language is more than a source of information for accessing higher-order conceptual knowledge. Indeed, language may determine how people perceive and interpret visual stimuli. Visual processing in linguistic contexts, for instance, mirrors language processing and happens incrementally, rather than through variously-oriented fixations over a particular scene. The consequences of this atypical visual processing are yet to be determined. Here, we investigated the integration of visual and linguistic input during a reasoning task. Participants listened to sentences containing conjunctions or disjunctions and (...) looked at visual scenes containing two pictures that either matched or mismatched the nouns. Degree of match between nouns and pictures and between their expected and actual spatial positions affected fixations as well as judgments. We conclude that language induces incremental processing of visual scenes, which in turn becomes susceptible to reasoning errors during the language-meaning verification process. (shrink)

It is widely believed among philosophers and educated people that it is virtuous to be open-minded. Instead of thinking of open-mindedness as universally or unconditionally epistemically valuable, I argue that it is vital to explicate the conditions that must obtain if open-mindedness is to be epistemically valuable. This paper critically evaluates open-mindedness given certain realistic cognitive limitations. I present and analyse a simple mathematical model of open-minded decision-making that incorporates these limitations. The results are mixed. The bad news is that (...) the circumstances where open-mindedness is epistemically valuable may be more restricted than previously thought especially if individuals are incapable of properly evaluating the trustworthiness of sources or the content of received information. The good news is that, if individuals are mildly competent in evaluating the trustworthiness of sources and the content of received information, then there are many circumstances where open-mindedness is epistemically valuable. (shrink)

In this article three different types of loss aversion equilibria in bimatrix games are studied. Loss aversion equilibria are Nash equilibria of games where players are loss averse and where the reference points—points below which they consider payoffs to be losses—are endogenous to the equilibrium calculation. The first type is the fixed point loss aversion equilibrium, introduced in Shalev (2000; Int. J. Game Theory 29(2):269) under the name of ‘myopic loss aversion equilibrium.’ There, the players’ reference points depend on the (...) beliefs about their opponents’ strategies. The second type, the maximin loss aversion equilibrium, differs from the fixed point loss aversion equilibrium in that the reference points are only based on the carriers of the strategies, not on the exact probabilities. In the third type, the safety level loss aversion equilibrium, the reference points depend on the values of the own payoff matrices. Finally, a comparative statics analysis is carried out of all three equilibrium concepts in 2 × 2 bimatrix games. It is established when a player benefits from his opponent falsely believing that he is loss averse. (shrink)

Estimates of unknown quantities are influenced by both self-generated anchors (SGAs) and externally provided anchors (EPAs; e.g., the advice of others). It was hypothesised that people use the degree of similarity between these anchors to render final responses. Thus we tested predictions drawn from metacognitive accounts of anchoring using procedures similar to the traditional anchoring paradigm. In a single experiment we manipulated SGA–EPA similarity, EPA level, and EPA source credibility. Results showed that the relationship between SGA–EPA similarity and the decision (...) weight given to the EPA, relative to the weight given to the SGA, depended on source credibility. Bolstering the metacognitive framework, participants were most confident about their final responses when their SGA was similar to the EPA and the EPA came from a highly credible source. These results support a metacognitive account of the anchoring heuristic. (shrink)

Mark Blaug played a central role in the development of the field of the methodology of economics, alongside his theoretical work and contributions to the history of economic thought. The purpose, in this article, is to focus on his contributions to the topic of 'formalism in economics', in relation to his methodological commentaries on the Popperian and Lakatosian approaches to the philosophy of science. In Blaugian spirit, the discussion is related to economic theory and draws on the history of economic (...) thought. The argument focuses on the troublesome interface between theoretical and applied economics in mainstream economics. The article includes, as a case study, an assessment of new behavioural economics in Popperian and Lakatosian terms. The conclusion is that such an appraisal exercise—i.e., whether the research programme is progressive or degenerative—is clouded by the interface between the form of empiricism promoted by Popper and Lakatos and the methodological framework of mainstream economics. No conclusion is feasible independent of methodological approach. (shrink)

In this response to Robert Hudson’s article, “Should We Strive to Make Science Bias-Free? A Philosophical Assessment of the Reproducibility Crisis,” we identify three ways in which he misrepresents our work: he conflates value-ladenness with bias; he describes our view as one in which values are the same as evidential factors; and he creates a false dichotomy between two ways that values could be considered in science for policy. We share Hudson’s concerns about promoting scientific reproducibility and reducing bias in (...) science, but we reject his view that the value-free ideal provides helpful guidance for addressing these issues. (shrink)

It is plausible to think that it is wrong to cure many people’s headaches rather than save someone else’s life. On the other hand, it is plausible to think that it is not wrong to expose someone to a tiny risk of death when curing this person’s headache. I will argue that these claims are inconsistent. For if we keep taking this tiny risk then it is likely that one person dies, while many others’ headaches are cured. In light of (...) this inconsistency, there is a conflict in our intuitions about beneficence and chance. This conflict is perplexing. And I have not been able to find a satisfactory way of resolving it. Perhaps you can do better? (shrink)

Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates are those which obey the value of evidence—ambiguity (...) is necessary and sufficient for the rationality of predictable polarization. The main theoretical result is that there can be a series of such updates, each of which is individually expected to make you more accurate, but which together will predictably polarize you. Polarization results from asymmetric increases in accuracy. This mechanism is not only theoretically possible, but empirically plausible. I argue that cognitive search—searching a cognitively accessible space for a particular item—often yields asymmetrically ambiguous evidence, I present an experiment supporting its polarizing effects, and I use simulations to show how it can explain two of the core causes of polarization: confirmation bias and the group polarization effect. (shrink)

Do people tend to be overconfident? Many think so. They’ve run studies on whether people are calibrated: whether their average confidence in their opinions matches the proportion of those opinions that are true. Under certain conditions, people are systematically ‘over-calibrated’—for example, of the opinions they’re 80% confident in, only 60% are true. From this empirical over-calibration, it’s inferred that people are irrationally overconfident. My question: When and why is this inference warranted? Answering it requires articulating a general connection between being (...) rational and being right—something extant studies have not done. I show how to do so using the notion of deference. This provides a theoretical foundation for calibration research, but also reveals a flaw: the connection between being rational and being right is much weaker than is standardly assumed, since rational people can often be expected to be miscalibrated. Thus we can’t test whether people are overconfident by simply testing whether they are over-calibrated; instead, we must try to predict the rational deviations from calibration, and then compare those predictions to people’s performance. I show how this can be done—and that doing so complicates the interpretation of robust empirical effects. (shrink)

People experiencing similar conditions may make different decisions, and their belief systems provide insight about these differences. An example of high‐stakes decision‐making within a complex social context is the Arab Spring, in which large numbers of people decided to protest and even larger numbers decided to stay at home. This study uses qualitative analyses of interview narratives and social media addressing individual decisions to develop a computational model tracing the cognitive decision‐making process. The model builds on work by Abelson and (...) Carroll (1965), Schank and Abelson (1977), and Axelrod (1976) to systematically trace the inferences connecting beliefs to decisions. The findings show that protest decisions were often based on positive emotions such as pride, hope, courage, and solidarity, triggered by beliefs about successful protest and self‐sacrifice. By contrast, decisions to stay at home were triggered by beliefs about safety, state approval, and living conditions. As one participant said, “When I heard about the revolution in Tunisia, my heart was filled with solidarity for the people.” In the words of a non‐participant: “When people are killed, we must be careful. There are more important things than protest: safety and stability.” This study of individual explanations about events identifies the role of emotions in high‐stakes decision‐making within complex social environments. (shrink)

This paper is about guessing: how people respond to a question when they aren’t certain of the answer. Guesses show surprising and systematic patterns that the most obvious theories don’t explain. We argue that these patterns reveal that people aim to optimize a tradeoff between accuracy and informativity when forming their guess. After spelling out our theory, we use it to argue that guessing plays a central role in our cognitive lives. In particular, our account of guessing yields new theories (...) of belief, assertion, and the conjunction fallacy—the psychological finding that people sometimes rank a conjunction as more probable than one of its conjuncts. More generally, we suggest that guessing helps explain how boundedly rational agents like us navigate a complex, uncertain world. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of the foundations of economics have assumed that economics is intended to be an empirical science concerned with human behaviour, though they have, of course, differed over the extent to which it has been or can be successful as such an enterprise. A prominent source of dissent against this consensus is Alexander Rosenberg. In his recent book, Rosenberg summarizes and completes his statement of a position that he has been developing for some time. He argues that although (...) economists evaluate one another's work according to shared and rigorous standards of adequacy, these standards are strictly internal, like those of mathematics, instead of being derived from discoveries about contingent relationships between theoretical statements and empirical facts. Economics, that is to say, is essentially conceptual rather than empirical inquiry. In the following discussion, I will provide grounds for resisting Rosenberg's conclusion. The point of this criticism, however, is not mainly negative. Most of the historical preoccupations of the philosophy of economics, like those of the philosophy of science in general, have been epistemological. Careful attention to Rosenberg's argument, however, redirects our attention to ontological questions about the objects of economics, and this redirection, I will maintain, is to be welcomed. I will argue that while the majority of philosophers of economics is correct, as against Rosenberg, in regarding economics as an empirical science, the conventional view as to the identity of its empirical objects should be substantially revised under the pressure of Rosenberg's criticisms. My critical analysis of the implications of Rosenberg's work for the ontological commitments of economics is intended to furnish one line of argument towards my own conception of the objects of economics. This conception, which is still preliminary in many respects, will be briefly sketched toward the end of the present paper; a detailed account of it is given in Ross and LaCasse. (shrink)