Download Bounded rationality, biases and superstitions

Bounded rationality, biases
and superstitions
Konrad Talmont-Kaminski
KLI & UMCS
Sugar and cyanide
Aims
o To show the relevance of work
on superstitions as a natural
cognitive phenomenon to
conceptions of human reasoning
abilities
o and vice versa
Outline
o Contagion heuristic
o Superstitions as result of bias
o Dual process vs. bounded
rationality
o Humean habits & heuristics
o Implications
Sympathetic magic
o Frazer Golden Bough 1890
o Law of similarity (homeopathy)
o Like produces like
o Drink blood of an ox to be strong
o Law of Contagion
o Once in contact, always in contact
o Burn nail clippings to hurt their ‘owner’
o Incomplete characterisation
o Black cats, broken mirrors, etc.
o Connections
o Homeopathic ‘medicine’
o Germ theory of disease
Contagion as heuristic
o Heuristic
o A (domain-specific) rule of thumb
o Makes sense of the world
o Promotes adaptive behaviour
o 2 differences from ‘classic’
heuristics
o Substantive affective component
o People usually aware of irrationality
Paul Rozin & Carol Nemeroff “Sympathetic magical thinking” in
Gilovich, Griffin, Kahneman eds. Heuristics & Biases 2002
Heuristics & biases
o Classic heuristics
o Representativeness
o Availability
o Anchoring
o Applying to superstition?
o Explaining in terms of bias
o Limited possibilities
Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman “Judgement under
uncertainty: heuristics and biases” in Science 185 1974
Re-engineering Superstition
o Broader view of heuristics
needed
o A philosophical account
o Emotions as cognitive heuristics
o Conflict between ‘innate’ & learned
heuristics
o Contagion clearly fits in
o Systematic bias as footprint
o Empirical research project
Bill Wimsatt, Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings 2007
Systematic bias
o Are all bias-caused errors
superstitions?
o No
o What’s the difference?
o Are all superstitions bias-caused
errors?
o Probably, category very broad
o Can understand existing work in
this theoretical context
Bias & superstition
o When is bias not superstition?
o Is a superempirical explanation
required?
o Is it provided?
o Not very deep difference
between superstition and other
results of bias
o Correlations suggest this
o But superstition harder to get rid
of
A choice of theories
o Placing heuristics
o Dual process theories
o Bounded rationality
o Different evaluation
o Can not identify superstition with a
mode of reasoning
Dual process
o System 1 vs. System 2
o Intuitive vs. analytical
o Heuristics vs. classical rationality
o Assumes independence of systems
o Problems
o Superstition is ubiquitous and
persistent
o People do not seem to swap into
system 2
J. Evans, “Dual processing accounts of reasoning, judgement,
and social cognition” Annual Review of Psychology 2008
Bounded rationality
o
o
o
o
Heuristics only
But variety of very different heuristics
Heuristics build on each other
Heuristics sometimes replace other
heuristics
o Scientific methods are heuristics
o Problem
o How to account for logical ability
o G. Harman Change in View 1986
o But the same problem for dual process
H. Simon Models of Bounded Rationality 1982/1997
G. Gigerenzer “I think, therefore I err” Social Research 2005
Hume, habits and heuristics
o David Hume
o Habits vs. Reason
o The original dual process theory?
o But problem of induction
o Only habits
o Naturalist vs. sceptical reading
o Heuristics as habits
Implications
o 3 somewhat hypothetical
implications
oProblem of induction entails we use
heuristics
oThe ubiquity of superstition is evidence
for this
oProblem of induction does not entail
superstitions but can be seen as the
ultimate explanation
Thank you
[email protected]
http://deisidaimon.wordpress.com