Social Psychology Lecture 4 Problem Solving and Decision Making Problem obstacle between a present state and a goal It is not always obvious to get around the obstacle If you already know the answer then its not a problem Problem solving effort to overcome the obstacle It may involve strategy or insight Eureka a phrase attributed to the Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes The story of Archimedes and the Golden Crown the king creates a challenge for something to prove that the gold crown is pure gold Archimedes accepts the challenge He knows how much gold should weigh by volume and knows the weight of the crown but it is irregularly shaped and he can t measure the volume He doesn t know how to solve the problem until he is taking a bath and sees the water level rise in the tub and realizes that the volume of water displaced matches the volume of the object in the water He jumps out of the tub and says Eureka He uses water to measure the volume of the crown and prove its not pure gold Problem representation it s important to determine what information is relevant and irrelevant to solving the problem People may pay attention to the wrong info How we define and represent a problem is key to our ability to solve it Types of problems o Well structure problems clear path to the solution Example math problems anagrams o Ill structured problems dimensions of problem are not specified or easy to infer Example finding an apartment writing a book improving your relationship Strategies to solve problems o Algorithms systematic procedure guaranteed to find a solution Follow a set of rules that will work to give an accurate solution o Heuristics useful rules of thumb or mental short cuts based on experience Efficient but does not guarantee a correct solution Restructuring a problem often initial representations of a problem make it more difficult to solve Creating a new representation of a problem can lead to a solution Insight the sudden realization of a solution after restructuring Insight often comes suddenly after a delay It may come after observing the environment The problem may stay in mind even though people are not consciously trying to solve it Non insight example algebra Problems in problem solving o Mental sets seeing a problem in a particular way instead of other plausible ways due to experience or context May cause you to adopt an ineffective strategy and prevent problem solving make assumptions without realizing it and find it hard to approach the problem in a new way o Functional fixedness an inability to assign new functions and roles to elements of a problem Example Duncker s candle problem Solving the candle problem requires new ways of looking at the object Matchbook as a contained for matches vs matchbook as a shelf Participants were more likely to solve the problem when the matchbook was empty than when it had matches in it o Stereotypes another type of mental set Example surgeon riddle Judgment and Decision Making used to select from among choices or to evaluate opportunities Reasoning cognitive processes where people start with information and come to conclusions that go beyond that information Forms of reasoning o Deductive reasoning drawing specific conclusions from the analysis of general rules If the rules are true and logic is followed the conclusion will be true Conditional logic is a form of deductive reasoning Errors in deductive reasoning just because it seems like logical deduction doesn t mean that it is Lack of proper attention to the use of words all some or none atmosphere effect If syllogism is true or agrees with a persons beliefs more likely to be judged valid belief bias o Inductive reasoning drawing a general rule from specific examples Conclusions drawn from inductive reasoning may have a high probability of being correct but not guaranteed to be correct Errors in inductive reasoning strength of conclusions drawn from inductive reasoning depends on representativeness of observations number and quality of observations It is not guaranteed to accurate Example common heuristics Heuristics mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently Common heuristics availability and representativeness o Availability heuristic base a judgment on how easy an example comes to mind Accessibility may be influenced by personal attitudes cultural learning recent exposure or priming o Representativeness heuristic shortcut where people categorize something by how similar it is to a typical example Results from a failure to attend to base rate information Ex stereotype racial profile seeing patterns in random data Illusory Correlation a perceived relationship that does not in face exist Results from the combination of the availability and representativeness heuristics They are formed by the pairing of two distinctive events Examples superstitions diagnosis of psychiatric disorders crazy people and the full moon stereotypes Rational Decision Making economic utility theory people are rational if they have all the relevant info they will make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility Utility outcomes that are desirable because they are in the person s best interest Advantages for utility approach specific procedures to determine the best choice Problems for utility approach not really true people find value in other things than money and many decisions involve payoffs that cannot be calculated Irrational Decision Making emotions affect decisions both the emotions we feel at the time and the emotions we expect to feel Expect emotions emotions that people predict that they will feel concerning an outcome This is affective forecasting Immediate emotions experienced at the time a decision is being made integral emotions are related to the decision and incidental emotions are not related to the decision but can still influence decision making o Affective forecasting people aren t very good at predicting their future emotions People often expect negative outcomes will feel worse than they actually do Inaccuracies in affective forecasting can also explain why people frequently procrastinate We expect that some tasks will feel worse than they actually do so we avoid them Often when actually doing the task its not as negative as we anticipate Waiting til the last minute can increase stress and negative emotions that confirm our initial negative expectations Particular emotions can motivate certain kinds of decisions compared to the neutral state