Explain what dual process theory is PHI2100 EXAM 2 Dual Process Theory is the theory that people reason in two fundamentally different ways and that this division in reasoning explains many of the puzzles that arise regarding how people actually reason and make decisions Explain the roles of System 1 and System 2 in reasoning and the limitations of each system Type 1 reasoning System 1 is fast automatic effortless capable of multi tasking and not fully voluntary Detect hostility in a voice Answer to 2 2 Read words on large billboards Drive a car on an empty road System 1 has biases or systematic errors that it is prone to make Often one will find that the intuitive answer is incorrect The problem is that one relied on Type 1 reasoning in cases where it is unreliable Self control is another case of conflict We often have impulsive responses anger temptation etc and it is the job of System 2 to either reign in these impulses or let them go System 1 s failure to handle sums well means that we tend to make irrational judgments about questions dealing with sums or sum like variables Type 2 reasoning System 2 is slow serial effortful requires concentration and is more voluntary than System 1 Expales Focus attention on clowns in the circus Look for a woman with white hair Tell someone your phone number Fill out a tax form System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2 If System 2 endorses these suggestions they turn into beliefs or voluntary actions Explain what a heuristic is and give some original examples What is the best definition of a heuristic o A quick procedure that helps find adequate answers to difficult questions It is an approach to problem solving that takes one s personal experience into account examples tom personally likes a project so he thinks that its cost are low and its benefits are high affect heuristic Explain what substitution is and how it takes place If a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly System 1 will find a related question that is easier and will answer it A System 2 is substituted for a System 1 operation B System 1 answers one question in place of another B Which of the following contribute to System 1 s substitutions in heuristics A Basic assessments like similarity representativeness etc made by constantly monitoring the external world B Translating values across dimensions such as translating amount of anger into amount of sound C Offering multiple answers for any question that System 2 asks We are constantly making basic assessments When asked a difficult question System 1 s mental shotgun brings up an associated question and answer Then System 1 s intensity matching expresses the answer in the right category or domain Explain the law of small numbers why smaller samples give extreme results more often than larger samples and how System 1 interprets these extreme results The smaller sample allows the incidence of cancer of something to be much higher or much lower than it is in the larger population a large sample System 1 looks for causal explanations and doesn t handle statistics well So System 1 tries to explain the difference in rates causally rather than by analyzing the statistics Explain the halo effect and give an original example The tendency to like or dislike everything about a person including things you haven t observed is known as the halo effect We observe a few traits and think we have a good enough idea of the entire Similarly we see a small sample and think we have a good enough idea of person the entire population One great example of the halo effect in action is our overall impression of celebrities Since we perceive them as attractive successful and often likeable we also tend to see them as intelligent kind and funny Explain the difference between frequency and absolute spread and use this difference to explain why the gambler s fallacy is a fallacy Frequency is the statistical propensity Absolute spread the amount of times something happening minus the times of something not happening Gamblers fallacy is the belief that because you have gotten an outcome for a certain period of times that your next one will be dfferent false idea that things will even out Explain the hot hand fallacy Infering causation or intentionality in any pattern or regularity We are very good at telling these sorts of stories to explain evidence after the fact Suppose Casey has hit several shots in a row and makes her next two shots Of course she would She has hot hands and success breeds confidence which breeds success etc Suppose Casey has hit several shots in a row and misses her next two shots Of course she would She had hot hands but then she got overconfident and cocky She s cooling off Explain hindsight bias easy explanations and give an original example These sorts of easy explanations causal or otherwise we come up with after the fact are the result of hindsight bias Our System 1 sees the world as much more ordered and easy to understand than it really is The illusion that you understand the past fosters the illusion that you can predict and control the future Explain how to identify and avoid easy explanations Whenever you offer an explanation for some phenomenon or behavior ask yourself o If the opposite had happened could I have explained that too If so this is probably an easy explanation with a false sense of understanding o Could I have predicted this before it happened If not this is probably an easy explanation with a false sense of understanding Examples of easy explanations o My significant other and I are very similar which explains why we stay together birds of a feather o My significant other and I are very similar which explains why we broke up opposites attract Explain what the anchoring effect is and give an example It occurs when people consider a particular value for an unknown quantity before estimating that quantity The same house will appear more valuable if its listing price is high than if it is low even if you are determined to resist the influence of this number Any number that you are asked to consider as a possible solution to an estimation problem will induce an anchoring effect Explain how the anchoring effect works and how to avoid it Sometimes anchoring happens as a sort of adjustment o One assesses whether the initial value is too high or too low then adjusts down or up until one is no longer certain that one should move farther This is an operation of System 2 o Because System